LEADERS OF LIBERIA'S provisional government face a formidable task in reconstructing their country following the latest in a series of widespread civil conflicts that displaced hundreds of thousands from their homes and land and destroyed much of the economy.

The security situation today remains uncertain, according a report from the Jesuit Refugee Service, even though U.N. peace-keeping forces continue to deploy more troops and gain control of more of the country. Most of the displaced people are wary of returning home, the refugee service says, meaning the loss of the crop season for the year.
Gyude Bryant, the interim chairman of the provisional government, visited New York and Washington recently to urge U.N. countries and the World Bank to provide $600 million over two years to rebuild the nation's infrastructure.

"We have put together a reconstruction program, and we have asked the U.N. and the good people of the world to fund it," Bryant said following a meeting with Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, where he thanked the Episcopal Church for its past assistance.
"We need water, lights, primary and elementary schools, and help to rebuild roads so that people can get their produce to markets."

But the $600 million Liberians seek is by no means adequate for everything, Bryant said. "We are trying to establish peace and security to attract the private [business] sector."
Health and education needs are vital, he said. "Education is a necessity. We need to do something for our young, growing population and open technical institutions to teach them new skills."

Bryant, who is also head of the Episcopal Church in Liberia, said it would take $2 million to $3 million to restore the church's Cuttington University College, the only secondary school technical training institution in rural Liberia founded by the U.S. Episcopal Church. At the height of the fighting, students moved 115 miles southwest to Monrovia to study in leased facilities and complete their academic year.

"Keep praying for us. That's what has carried us so far," Bryant told a meeting of church leaders and representatives.  His speech signaled the continued importance of moral and financial support by U.S. churches in Liberia's long-term rebuilding and reconstruction efforts.

Though he underlined the seriousness of Liberia's humanitarian problems, he expressed optimism about the resilience of Liberians. He pointed to progress made since he took over the reins of the two-year interim government, whose officers will rule until 2006, shortly after national elections in 2005.

Among progress the government has made, he said, is in launching a wide-spread disarmament program that already has netted 2,000 rifles; creating a Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by the Rev. Canon Burgess Carr, formerly director of Episcopal Migration Ministries for the U.S. Episcopal Church; and lowering the prices of such essentials as rice and gasoline.

The executive director of Church World Service, the Rev. John L. McCullough, who attended the meeting of church leaders at New York's Episcopal Church Center, led an eight-member ecumenical delegation to four west African countries in July, 2002, in response to calls from African church leaders trying to mediate a comprehensive peace settlement.

In the initial weeks after the end of the civil war, CWS also distributed $200,000 worth of material goods, including blankets, food, medical supplies and health and school kits, through Liberian churches and the YMCA.