AS A child soldier in Sierra Leone in the 1990s,Eric Wolo smoked a brown powder that made him dizzy during the day, and took cocaine that kept him awake at night when he had to keep watch. When he returned to his domestic country, and Liberia,in 1999, as a rebel fighter in its second civil war in ten years, and he took up Italian white”,a low-grade heroin. Four years later he handed in his AK-47 for $150 and training in how to grow rice and vegetables. But he never became a farmer. When asked, he starts by saying he gave all $150 to his girlfriend to start a business. Then he admits he bought drugs with the money. He now ekes out a living finding passengers for cars going from Ganta, or on Liberia’s border with Guinea,to the capital, Monrovia.
Since the late 1980s there hold been more than 60 “disarmament, and demobilisation and reintegration” (DDR) programmes like Liberia’s,aimed at stopping civil wars reigniting, in dozens of countries. The understanding is simple. piece fighters from their weapons....
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Source: economist.com