Ministry of Defense Armed Forces of Liberia Welcome MoU with United Nations on Peacekeeping Operations

MINISTRY OF DEFENSE, ARMED FORCES OF LIBERIA WELCOME MoU WITH UNITED NATIONS ON PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

MONROVIA – The Ministry of National Defense and the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) welcomes the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Government of Liberia and the United Nations regarding the AFL’s contribution to the UN Peace-keeping Operations in Mali (MINUSMA). This MoU now solidifies the contribution of the Armed Forces of Liberia to the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Mali.

The Ministry of National Defense and the AFL see the signing of the MOU as a great step for Liberia and speaks to the level of transformation the Liberian Military has gone through since its restructuring in 2006.

Commenting on the signing of the MOU, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Liberia, Maj/Gen Prince C. Johnson III, said the MOU with the United Nations could not have been possible without the support of the Liberian Government under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Liberia, President George Manneh Weah, and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who initiated the restructuring of the Armed Forces of Liberia back in 2006.

Maj/Gen Johnson also lauded the efforts of  others, including  the former Command  Officer-in-Charge  ( COIC)  of the AFL, the late Maj/Gen. Suraj Alao Abdurrahman, one of Nigeria’s finest Generals, who was seconded to the AFL in 2007 to lead  the young Army; former Liberia’s  Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Lewis G. Brown II, the current  Liberia Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador  Dee-Maxwell  Saah Kemayah Sr., and former Defense Minister Hon. Brownie J. Samukai, and rank and file of the Armed Forces of Liberia and their families for their efforts and sacrifices in the achievement of this milestone.

It can be recalled that the Armed Forces of Liberia’s first post-war peacekeeping mission to the West African state of Mali started with the deployment of a platoon of AFL personnel in June 2013.  With a professional and effective military force ready to conduct operations, Liberia agreed to deploy a contingent to participate in the peacekeeping mission in Bamako, Mali.

During the signing ceremony on 23rd July 2019 in New York, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Operations Support, Mr. Atul Khare, signed on behalf of the UN while Ambassador Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah Sr., Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, signed for the government of Liberia. The event was witnessed by LT/Col. Daniel Holman of the Armed Forces of Liberia along with other officials of the United Nations Department for Peacekeeping Operations in New York.