As President Bush embarks on a historic visit to West Africa, the issue of what role America will play to help end the conflict in Liberia intensifies. Jeremy Levitt, a DePaul University College of Law professor, political scientist and authority on African politics and the law of peacekeeping, is available to comment on the current situation in Liberia and America’s possible peacekeeping involvement.

An Africanist with expertise in international law and African politics, Levitt earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a doctorial degree in international studies from the University of Cambridge. He served as special assistant to the Managing Director of the World Bank Group and as a legal aide to the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa during its constitutional making process and has consulted with public and private African institutions on a variety of issues including those related to democracy and governance, state-making and state-building, legal and judicial reform and conflict management. He also is author of several articles and two books on Africa including “The Evolution of Deadly Conflict in Liberia: From Paternaltarianism to State Collapse” and “Africa: Selected Documents on Constitutive, Conflict and Security, Humanitarian, and Judicial Issues”.

Levitt asserts that America is partly responsible for Liberia’s present condition and has a moral obligation to send peacekeeping troops there. “If the U.S. does not act, the ongoing and multifaceted crises in the Mano River region inclusive of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and the Ivory Coast is likely to spiral out of control,” observed Levitt. “More importantly, Africa’s collapsed states (Somalia and Sudan) will continue to serve as fertile training grounds and economic laundering havens for terrorist networks.”

Levitt can be reached at 312/362-5354 (office).