Why Political Thuggery and Terror Hold Sway in Liberia and Somalia : Africa: Massacres will continue unless the international community gets tough and refuses to reward the fruits of battlefield victories.

NEW YORK — Two recent events on opposite sides of the African continent provide a brutal reminder of the dangers that arise when violence and terror are seen as effective means to political power and as exempt from international punishment.

In Liberia, possibly as many as 600 people, mostly women and children, were shot, slashed and bludgeoned to death by a band of soldiers widely believed to be followers of Liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor. In Somalia, soldiers loyal to Mohammed Farah Aidid, one of the country’s most powerful warlords, ambushed U.N. peacekeeping forces, killing 23 Pakistani soldiers and 20 civilians.

These acts may well have been the result of deliberate calculations by Taylor and Aidid. In the past, their forces have brutalized innocent civilians with impunity. This fact, combined with the Clinton Administration’s evident retreat in Bosnia, may have convinced them that they can call the international community’s bluff. If so, we can anticipate a repetition of last weekend’s bloodletting.

Although far removed from one another culturally and geographically, Liberia and Somalia have much in common. Throughout the 1980s, both were ruled by petty tyrants who’d seized power through military coups. Siad Barre, in Somalia, and Samuel Doe, in Liberia, were able to hold onto power partly because of hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. assistance. By the late 1980s, they had lost all semblance of legitimate authority. Their regimes had become political machines to enrich a clique composed mostly of their kinsmen.

When Barre and Doe were forced from power by civil wars, Washington and most of the international community beat a hasty retreat, leaving a collection of ruthless thugs and warlords to fight for power in both countries. In Somalia, the result was a war-induced famine that killed several hundred thousand people. In Liberia, the result was widespread fighting that killed thousands and displaced more than half the population.

Both Liberia and Somalia are now wards of the international community. The nominal government of Liberia is a so-called Interim Government of National Unity. Outside Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, it is powerless. Even there, real power rests with the commanders of a five-nation West African peacekeeping force, known as ECOMOG, that has occupied Monrovia for nearly three years. Most of the country is controlled by forces loyal to Taylor, the rebel leader who brought down Doe.

The evidence tying Taylor to last weekend’s massacre is fragmentary, but most observers believe the murderers were his men. If the United Nations investigation bolsters this view, the international community (and the United States, which has helped to underwrite ECOMOG) will face a difficult choice. It could authorize ECOMOG to go after Taylor, hoping the costs in money and lives would not become scandalous. Or, the international community could try to get the rival parties talking to each other.

The situation in Liberia is complicated by events in Somalia. The attack on the U.N. peacekeeping forces was a clear sign that Aidid and other warlords are unwilling to fade away without a fight. As in Liberia, the international community faces a hard choice. If, as now seems likely, the U.N. forces in Somalia attack Aidid’s forces, success might clear the way for the establishment of a transitional authority that excluded him and other warlords. It also could touch off a guerrilla war that would quickly force relief workers to leave Somalia, thus defeating the original purpose of the U.N. operation.

Making matters worse, the international community faces equally serious challenges in Angola, where Jonas Savimbi continues to refuse to accept the results of last September’s U.N.-supervised elections, and in Sudan, where the Khartoum government is waging a brutal war against its southern population. It should soon expect additional challenges in Mozambique, where rebel leaders have begun to demand greater concessions in exchange for their continued participation in a U.N.-supervised peace process, and in Zaire, where President Mobutu Sese Seko’s refusal to step aside threatens to turn that country into a Liberia of enormous proportions.

These crises cannot be addressed in an isolated, ad hoc manner. What is required is a comprehensive approach organized around a set of clear norms and a sincere commitment to create the mechanisms necessary to enforce them.

The recent spate of high-sounding U.S. declarations supporting democracy in Africa are commendable, but, given the dangers now confronting Africa and the timidity of U.S. policy, they are either naive or disingenuous.

Most Africans want democracy--and the United States should help them to achieve it. But what they now most need is protection against terror and thuggery--and that will require much more than the rhetoric of democracy.

Toward that end, the United States should work with African leaders to establish two norms:

* A binding rule that no leader who comes to power through force of arms will ever be recognized by any international organization or government; moreover, any government born of force will forfeit all rights and protections of sovereignty normally accorded to states.

* Military and political leaders should be held individually accountable for their actions and the actions of their followers.

These norms should be international in sweep and application, but there is no reason why Africa cannot take the lead by establishing them as regional standards and setting up mechanisms to enforce them. An African court of international justice and a standing agreement between the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations authorizing international military action to apprehend and prosecute individual leaders could be two mechanisms to enforce the norms.

It is doubtful the international community has the will and wherewithal to defeat the armies of Aidid, Taylor, Savimbi and their ilk. For that reason, there is a great danger that their brutality and lawlessness will be rewarded. It would be much less costly, more feasible and, in the end, more effective to make it clear that those who are most responsible for Africa’s wars will be denied the political fruits of their battlefield victories and, instead, eventually brought to justice.