UNITED NATIONS: As Nigerian peacekeeping troops trickle into Monrovia and UN humanitarian agencies request emergency aid for Liberia, non-governmental experts and UN officials insist the key to lasting peace in the shattered nation lies with the world body’s Security Council.

A robust peacekeeping mandate from the body seems to be the only solution to a country ravaged by war for over 14 years, they agree.

The Nigerian soldiers are the advance guard of an African force, ECOWAS, sent to bring calm to the capital Monrovia. It is expected to be replaced by a multinational body of troops around the end of August.

The Security Council approved that global force earlier this week — amid opposition to US demands that its peacekeepers be exempt from any prosecution by the International Criminal Court — but details, including the number of soldiers, are still to be decided.

A UN assessment team will go into Monrovia once it is certain that the local peace agreement is being upheld and the area is stabilized, Jacques Klein, the special representative of the Secretary-General for Liberia, told reporters on Wednesday.

The team of about 30 people, which includes representatives from the U.S. State Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, will need at least three weeks to assess the situation and report to the Council, he added.

He suggested “between 12 and 15 thousand troops” would be needed to maintain the peace in the west African nation that has lived with war for more than a decade.

“The mistake in Sierra Leone was that they went in too light with a not strong enough mandate,” said Klein.

An estimated 450,000 people are displaced in Liberia, scattered in some 90 settlements around the capital of Monrovia. They face severe shortages of food, water, medicine, toilets, shelter and other basic needs, while a civil war marked by indiscriminate threats to civilians, rape, forced abduction and killing and conscription of children rages around them.

George Kun, McCall-Pierpaoli Fellow with Refugees International (RI), agrees with Klein that the Security Council must give peacekeepers the authority to establish order in such conditions.

RI says the initial attempt to keep the peace in Sierra Leone failed because peacekeepers lacked a strong mandate. “The British sent only 800 troops and they were successful. This is due in large part to the willingness of the British to do what the UN could not do — deal authoritatively with any spoilers to the peace, by arrest if possible, by the use of force if not..”

But some groups say the multinational force is already crippled by the Security Council resolution that created it to implement June’s cease fire agreement and establish the initial conditions for disarmament and demobilization in Liberia.

“While welcoming an initiative which hopefully will go some way to ending the protracted suffering of the Liberian people, we had hoped for much stronger and more explicit language on protection of civilians. The multi-national force must be instructed to protect civilians and humanitarian workers from physical violence at all times throughout Liberia,” said Amnesty International in a statement.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.