Lars Lindblad

Liberia suffers today heavily from the consequences of a 25 years continuous catastrophic downward movement, down-kept house and from the soil destroyed by a brutal vicious circle of military command, dictatorship rule and civil wars.

Applied at natural resources the rich, formerly prosperous "oldest republic of black Africa", 1847 founded of released US slaves, into the 1980ies economically as "Switzerland" of West Africa. Today Liberia is a ruined country and stands at the end of the UN rank list of less developed countries.

The 15,000 blue helmets of the "United Nations Mission in Liberia" (UNMIL) received the order with the UN-Resolution 11509 in September 2003 to support the conversion of the Accra peace treaty and the entire peace process in the country. Besides they are for assistance to carry out with humanitarian assistance and human rights work and to promote the reform of the national safety organs. After the DDRR program specified in the Accra peace treaty ("Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration") the UNMIL is to ensure particularly for the disarmament and reintegration of the rebels into the society. The child and woman soldier are to be particularly supported thereby. The program plans that the fighters go through with weapon delivery 150 US dollar (of 300 US dollar) as well as food received and afterwards in special Camps a Reintegration programme of several weeks under psychological support. At the beginning of December 2003 announced DDRR program for the estimated forty to sixty thousand armed rebels in the country started first only very sluggishly; the logistic difficulties seem to be overcome however since April this yearly. According to reports of local church co-workers to the war-tired fighters waited for months before they finally could to be able to deliver their weapons.

The Swedish contribution to UNMIL is a top modern mechanized army unit, consists of 231 soldiers (men and women) and is now in April 2005 the second largest Swedish military unit abroad. The largest is at present with KFOR in Kosovo. The Swedish company is reinforced with a supply unit, CSE, Contingent support element. The Swedish contingent belongs to a Swedish- Irish Battalion. That is a QRF, Quick Reaction Force within the UNMIL mission. The battalion thus is assigned when it prevails quite tough situations, e.g. riots. They have to be able to act also in whole Liberia and in the neighbour countries. The Swedish Irish Battalion consists of approximately 800 men. (men and women). The Swedish contingent taking part now have the designation LA03 and came in March 2005 to Monrovia. The Swedes feel being welcome by the usual Liberian and does not feel any threat or an enemy picture. But the situation can change easily. The Swedish soldiers always wear protection waistcoat and weapons and are on its alert.

The fieldpost officers of the Swedish battalion have the folowing signs on their uniforms similar to those of the German and Austrian fieldpost personell, but they don't need them, as everyone in the Swedish contingent knows who they are.

Two persons work in the Swedish field post office work, the Field postmaster and a Field post cashier. The persons working at present in the field post office are successors of the second field post officers of LA02, which left their assignment in March 2005. The Field post master and the field post cashier knows each others job perfectly so they can replace each other without problem, if e.g. one of the two is on home leave. In the field post office also the paymaster is working and the field post personnel can if required also execute his job.

The soldiers can deposit or disburse money (salary) of their UN accounts at the field post office. Usual currencies are the SEK (= Swedish Krona) or US dollar. Likewise letters can be sent away as well as postcards and packages from Liberia. In addition there is a small stamp supply with limited selection at the field post office. Also so called. "Blommogramme" (flower transmissions) can be sent away.

Both field post officers have great experience of work with field post service from a Swedish contribution on the Balkans. The differences are nevertheless large and the two mean that there is plenty of new challenges in the service - although it is a smaller unit and we are father away and it is still a relatively new mission, thus we always count on unforeseen events and new situations.

The Irish part of the battalion does not have their own field post service activity. They have solved the postal problem by selling Irish stamps at the Canteen or PX to the soldiers and then goes their letters bundled with DHL courier to an address in Ireland from which the letters are posted into the Irish letter net. The letters from Irland goes the same way and are delivered by DHL courier service to Liberia. This way is slow and unsatisfactory complains the soldiers: The Swedish field post office had helped in Christmas-time when Irish stamps had been sold out in the Canteen to forward Christmascards to Ireland from Liberia via Sweden.. It was very appreciated by the the Irish soldiers,

Below is some examples o sendings I have received.

Military letter Facit M13 cancelled 2004-12-27 arrived in Akersberga 29 Dec. This letter took only two days from Africa to Sweden. A very quick delivery.

Reply letter to the Field post office Liberia addressed Stockholm-Arlanda air port in stead of Malmö Utrikes. The letter form Akersberga arrived on the 3 February in Monrovia.

Except the post office the battalion has extraordinary resources for communication via Internet, fax and satellite telephone, but the field postal service is an appreciated service at the Swedish contingent and everyone knows the two post officers and knows probably well what is expected from them. Each soldier gets 5 military letters and 20 UN Free mail letters per month and the reply stamp is always desired, so that at home in Sweden the relatives can send. down things. For prepaid boxes and padded envelopes with postage paid the soldiers must pay themselves. Each letter for up to 100 g goes as interior country letter A-post priority mail, and everything over it is subject to foreign postage. If letters exceeding 100 g are not franked with postage for foreign countries, they go with the slow "military supply route". All packages go with the supplying transportation of the contingent into both directions. Repeatedly they go into connection with rotations (exchange of soldiers at the same position), but with varying regularity.

Freemail Aerogramme via the Swedish Posal tsystem. Arrived 2005-01-21. Normally the Freemail letters go via the UN General Post Office in New York, but this may probably take more time, so the Swedish Post decided to stamp the Freemail with Postage Paid (Port payé) and send them directly to Sweden.

Military Post Card Nr 1 sent 22.02.2005 from Liberia, arrived 25.02.2005
Text in the cancel FPO = Field Post Office, SWEBN = Swedish Battallion, POSTEN = The POST

The field post office has one to some extent evenly course on its letter bags to and from Sweden. It takes one day or two days to Sweden from Monrovia, which is acceptable because one is so close to the equator. Sometimes it will take somewhat longer delivery time, but in most cases one has then control of what happened. By Stockholm Arlanda service tags and Saturday are sent to bag, and via Brussels, for transhipment. The same way back. If the post office uses its own air supply transportation all mail goes in that case directly to Vaesteras, and via Uppsala post terminal to Arlanda PTM. The packages to Liberia are coming in via Malmoe package terminal on to Uppsala, and then into the military supply system.

Bag flag for packages from Monrovia to Malmö Utrikes Paketterminal with military supply flights.

When the post office personnel is going to pick up post office bags, then they must got to Robert's internationally air port about 1.5 hour outside Monrovia. They often drive alone but as a rule they also take passengers to and from the air port, and then also the travel officer is coming along. She can also fetch the post office mail bags, so that the post office personnel does not always have to drive to airport. The Swedish personnel may acknowledge the bags of a Liberian post office official. These procedures are working very well according to the field post master. When the post office personnel wants to send post to Sweden, they have to drive to a post office into Monrovia with the post office bag and then deliver it there. Then those will in such a way arrange that the bags with the airplane to Brussels to come. For this Sweden pays transit charge each month to the Liberian post and telecommunications Ministry. Sometimes the Swedish soldiers want to send letters with Liberian franking. That can be done also, the postage is USD 1. - to be paid in cash and delivery time 11-14 days to Sweden. The field postal service personnel are also helpful to the soldiers thereby. Down is example.

Postmarks at the field post office, is the usual cancel one for stamps and to mark another than cash stamps around deposit maps or forms etc. Location Liberia or Monrovia does not come out from the field post cancel. Only FPO SWEBN - POST

The opening hours are rather flexible. From 9 to 11 and 15-17, Saturday and on Wednesdays only 9-11. Sundays closed. But the post office personnel adapts to the tasks of the company and opens when it is necessary Swedes live in a Camp outside Monrovia, straight at the Atlantic coast. It is an old hotel build in the 70-ties for an African conference. The field post office is furnished in a bungalow, but the personnel lives in a tent with cooling system. However they are building new lodging containers as it is planned to keep more soldiers in Liberia for at least one year morel. The Camp has its own water and electricity supply and is in good condition.

La Suède a actuellement un contingent de maintien de la paix dans Unmil, mission des Nations Unies au Libéria. Le contingent qui est une force réaction rapide QRF se compose de 231 soldats comprenant les postiers de champ et est incluse dans le bataillon irlandais, avec totalement 800 soldats. Le bureau de poste suédoise de champ a deux officiers, un chef de post de champ et un caissier de post de champ. Le bureau de poste a ouvert 6 jours par semaine et donne des services de paiement aussi bien que le service postal normal. Les soldats obtiennent 5 couvertures militaires avec le timbre de réponse (type Yvert M 7) par mois et 20 aérogrammes franchise ONU (UN Freemail airletters). Tout l'affranchissement jusqu'à 100 g est payé au taux domestique pour la Suède, excédant ce poids qu'ils doivent payer au taux de pays étrangers. Les timbres de réponse militaires sont valides pour les lettres de la poste aérienne - priorité jusqu'à 100 grammes de poids. La devise utilisée à la poste est des dollars USD et les couronnes SEK. Une lettre du Libéria vers la Suède prend environ 2-5 jours avec le service de poste de champ et 11-14 jours avec le service postal libérien par poste aérienne suivant le jour de la semaine il est envoyé. Des paquets peuvent être envoyés à et du Libéria par la poste de champ en utilisant le circuit d'alimentation militaire (train des équipages). Les lettres en franchise militaire de l'ONU passe par le sac suédois de courrier à Stockholm-Arlanda et sont cachetées FPO SWEBN Port Payé (affranchissement payé). Il s'est produit que la poste suédoise de champ avait aidé les soldats irlandais qui emploient la poche de DHL pour leurs paquets de courrier en Irlande.