LIBERIA: Some UN soldiers in Liberia are trying to disarm combatants . . . by first of all cracking jokes at them. Declan Walsh went on patrol in Bo Waterside.
The United Nations convoy pulled into Bo Waterside, a market town on Liberia's western border with Sierra Leone. Because it was rebel-held territory, a platoon of armed Filipino peacekeepers drove alongside.
The white buses halted in front of the empty immigration office where about 100 ragged rebels were waiting. A team of demobilisation experts stepped down to address them. They included humanitarian officials, a troupe of dancers and a clown called Boutini.
With his oversized shoes and comic glasses, Boutini was an unlikely arms expert. The teenage fighters gathered around. Six months ago they were fighting a bloody war and now they were hooting with laughter at the stream of slapstick gags.
In between the laughs, Boutoni hammered home a serious message. "Hand in your guns," he implored the soldiers with a comic grin. The UN has turned to unorthodox means for its campaign to disarm up to 50,000 ex-fighters roaming Liberia since last year's civil war, many of them children - to persuade the combatants to surrender their guns, the peacekeepers are disarming them with comedy first.
The shows are part of the "sensitisation" seminars organised by UN peacekeepers. The target group in Bo Waterside were from Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), the rag-tag rebel army that helped push former president Charles Taylor from power last August.
At first, a sweating Swedish major and a rebel officer called General Jungle Rule explained the mechanics of the process, which is due to start in March, to the fighters. But the fact that most attention went to a clown underscores the mammoth challenges facing Liberian society.
Fourteen years of corrupt rule and brutal civil war have all but wrecked the education system. Frighteningly, says UN chief Jacques Kline, "the younger generation is less well educated than the adults. It's very usual." Some fighters, for example, cannot even spell their own names. "I've never been to school," admitted an AK-47-wielding 15-year-old, standing guard over border bridge leading to Sierra Leone.
An aid plan, of sorts, is in the works. At a special conference in New York next week, the UN secretary general Kofi Annan will seek pledges of up to $500 million from the international community. The US has already pledged $445 million, split between peacekeeping and reconstruction.
"We're not trying to rebuild Paris or London here. It's about lifting sunken ships from the harbour, starting the electrical grid, healthcare and education - things that really need doing," said Mr Klein.
Peace deals have come and gone in Liberia before. If anything goes wrong, Mr Klein has serious military firepower at his disposal.
More than 15,000 troops from 45 countries are deploying to Liberia, the world's largest peacekeeping mission. They are operating under a Chapter Seven mandate, which means they are authorised to open fire if necessary. Ireland has contributed a rapid reaction force of about 450 infantry troops, and a fleet of Ukrainian helicopter gunships arrived recently. But this time, there are good reasons for optimism. The transitional government, headed by businessman Mr Gyude Bryant, is holding together. Mr Taylor lives in the south-western Nigerian town of Calabar, under the protection of President Olusegun Obasanjo. Fears that he would try to manipulate Liberian politics by phone from exile have slowly receded.
"Taylor is no more and his former colleagues are working with us. They know which way the wind is blowing," said Mr Klein.
The main worry now is rising tensions with the LURD. A strange row has erupted between the rebel chairman, Mr Sekou Conneh, and his wife Mrs Aisha Conneh. Since returning from exile in Guinea, Mrs Conneh has claimed to be the true rebel leader, sparking furious denunciations from her husband.
Mr Conneh is also heading with the transitional government chairman, Mr Bryant, over ministerial appointments. If he doesn't get his way, he has threatened to stall demobilisation.
But on the ground, most troops say they are ignoring the politicking. "What Sekou Conneh says about jobs does not concern us. We just want peace," said Gen Boima Sambola.
The UN plans to start disarming the belligerents in March. Ex-combatants will receive three weeks of medical screening, psychological and career counselling and, crucially, $300 in cash.
General Scarface, a woman fighter wearing costume jewellery and painted nails in Bo Waterside, said she was ready to go. "Now I'm just tired and I want to disarm," she said.
But the greater challenge could be to find a livelihood for the ex-combatants afterwards. With unemployment running at 85 per cent, Liberia offers few job opportunities.
But without economic revival, penniless and pliable young men like the soldiers at Bo Waterside will be vulnerable to recruitment again. Before returning home, they joined Boutini for a final chorus of song. "That's the way life goes," they warbled together.