MONROVIA– Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Amb. Lewis Brown delivered a searing critique of the United Nations Security Council’s handling of global conflicts, warning that the body’s credibility as a mediator is eroded when its members act as parties to wars, directly or by proxy.
By Jaheim T. Tumu-jaheim.tumu@frontpageafricaonline.com
“When members of this body are parties to the conflict directly or by proxy, the council cannot simultaneously be its impartial mediator,” Brown declared.
He added, “Credible mediation further requires that all actors with influence over the outcome, whether state or non-state, be held to the same standard of engagement, and that no party be shielded from accountability by the protective architecture of this chamber.”
Brown’s remarks came during a debate convened under Colombia’s presidency of the council, focused on the role of mediation in resolving conflicts.
He praised Colombia’s stewardship, noting that the country “earned its authority on this subject through blood, patience, and the willingness to negotiate with people it had temptations not to.”
Liberia Warns UN of Mediation Failures
The Liberian envoy did not mince words about the council’s track record. “We have not failed for the lack of words or good intentions. We have failed for the weakness in the architecture for building just and lasting peace, as well as the political will to continue to strengthen and deepen it.”
He pointed to the Middle East, where the council has convened 20 sessions this year alone. “This council has spent 28 sessions managing the architecture of war,” Brown said. “Colombia has convened us today to begin designing something different, bold, even daring and creative toward a just and lasting peace.”
Exclusive Victories Are Illusions
Drawing on Liberia’s own scarred history of civil war, Brown offered a sobering lesson: “Victory that is exclusive, especially militarily, is an illusion. It is merely an intermission before the next generation’s vengeance that is bound to happen.”
He reminded the council that Liberia “looked into the abyss of civil war and chose negotiated peace over mutual annihilation.”
That experience, he argued, should inform global mediation efforts.
Permanent Mediation Mechanism Urged
Brown laid out three proposals to strengthen mediation. First, he called for permanence.
“Envoys arrive at moments of crisis and depart when the shooting pauses, or as the Secretary General aptly calls it, during the period of lesser fire.
What the region requires is a standing UN Dialogue Secretariat with a defined mandate, cross-conflict access, and the authority to hold all parties to their previous commitments between rounds, not only during them.”
He stressed that “verification requires presence. Presence requires permanence. Permanence builds trust.”
Bottom-Up Trust, Not Summit Promises
Second, Brown urged a bottom‑up approach to building trust. “Macro-political frameworks collapse because they demand that parties trust each other before trust actually exists. “
Brown proposed tying reconstruction capital and humanitarian corridors to localized de-escalation milestones.
“When compliance unlocks reconstruction, capital, corridor by corridor, civilians receive both security and sustenance as integrated outcomes of the same process, not as separate humanitarian appeals that arrive too late.“
Council Must Restore Impartiality
Brown pressed the council to confront its own divisions. “Where the council is compromised by its own divisions, mediation leadership must be formally referred to the Secretary-General’s good offices. That referral preserves the council’s oversight role while restoring the impartiality that mediation demands.”
No Naval Deployment Substitutes Peace
On freedom of navigation and energy security, Brown dismissed military solutions.
“Only a sustained political process of this kind can provide the durable guarantees that maritime and commercial actors require. No naval deployment substitutes for a negotiated agreement.”
Peace Is Messy, But Necessary
Brown said in a stark reminder. “Peace is never an elegant formula. It is often difficult and a messy series of concessions that leave everyone truly exhausted but alive. And that is infinitely preferable, even when imperfect, to the alternative of war.”
