WITHOUT a lantern or yuanxiao (glutinous rice dumplings), it was business as usual for Liu Yao during last Thursday's Lantern Festival. As a United Nations civilian policeman stationed in the African country of Liberia, the Chinese national was kept busy typing a report on a camp on the edge of Liberia taking in refugees from neighboring Cote d'Ivoire, a nation currently fraught with unrest.

Things are not well for Liberia itself. The security situation in the country on the west coast of Africa is fragile due to years of fighting, while its social and economic structures also need to be rebuilt.

At the end of 2009, Zhejiang Public Security Bureau was assigned by the United Nations and the Ministry of Public Security of China to organize a peacemaking police team to maintain order in the war-torn country. Through strict tests, 18 police officers were selected.

Liu is one of them. This 30-year-old from Liangzhu Traffic Police Branch, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, is the only one from the Hangzhou public security system.

Last June, the team headed for Liberia for their one-year-long mission. Liu and Wu Xiaobing from Public Security Bureau of Wenzhou City were designated to Ganta in Nimba County.

Nimba lies at the north-central portion of Liberia, and is the largest county in the nation.

It shares a border with Cote d'Ivoire to the east. Ganta, though not capital of the county, is a thriving commercial center.

Liu told Shanghai Daily via the Internet that the United Nations has deployed a peacekeeping force in Liberia for more than seven years so the country's overall security situation is presently stable, compared with other nearby countries.

However, the previous disruption has negatively affected public order in the country.

Limited access to justice, and weak judicial and security systems continue to lead to incidents of mob justice, trial by ordeal, prolonged pre-trial detentions and overcrowding in prisons.

"Sometimes, people prefer to solve cases by adopting the local tribe's lynch law rather than calling the police," Liu says.

The United Nations Civilian Police (UNCP), as one of the executants of the UN's peacekeeping operation in Liberia, is designated to prevent rebellion, riot and severe violent offense in the country.

China, to cooperate with the UN, has continued to deploy peacekeeping forces to war-torn areas since 2000. Last January, eight Chinese police officers stationed in Haiti died during the Caribbean country's devastating earthquake.

Liu's team is the ninth batch of Chinese peacekeeping police sent to Liberia.

Coordination

UNCP is not entitled to enforce the law there. The task of Liu and his co-workers from many countries is to help local police to set up rules and regulations, train them to enforce law, obtain evidence, as well as solve criminal cases.

Meanwhile, they coordinate with other UN departments, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Children's Fund.

Liu and his peers report to the United Nations Mission in Liberia.

Liu was recently promoted to officer in charge of UN Police Ganta, but his living conditions remain as tough as before.

He and other UN policemen as well as military observers, in total 20 people from 12 countries and regions, charter and live in a local resident's yard.

They have meals in a Bengali military camp, which forever offers chicken, beef and rice curries, but no vegetables. "We have to take vitamin pills," says Liu.

They drink water from a well, which needs to be treated first because of too much dirt, although it still contains bugs and tree leaves. Yet even this kind of water is precious, since the well water turns muddy during the rainy season, and there is no water in the dry season.

Such conditions are the result of long-term chaos in the country and poor natural conditions.

"There is no public transportation, no electric power system and no water supply," says Liu. "Life here is hard. But I am proud that I, as a member of the great peacekeeping mission, can contribute my power. And the difficulties experienced by me are not worth bothering about."

Three months ago, Liu and three other UNPC officers in Ganta accepted a new mission - to visit the camp at the border of Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire, which has been flooded by some of the 30,000 refugees escaping from unrest in the latter country. They are required to register the number of refugees, find out their demands and help local police maintain order.

"When I first arrived at the camp, I could hardly tell the place with a few tents was a refugee camp," he recalls.

Due to insufficient materials and UN relief supplies that couldn't be put in place immediately, refugees had to live in local residents' houses. The locals, who have been through similar experiences, welcomed them even though their homeland is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Wondering why the Liberians were so generous, Liu once asked a middle-aged villager, who told him: "We know what suffering tastes like because we've been there. We are poor, but ... we would like to help those brothers and sisters who are still in turbulence."

The answer came as a shock to the Chinese policeman, who goes on to explain: "At the border, most inhabitants living in houses built from mud and grass are struggling for a living, and local policeman sometimes faint during their training due to starvation. But they embrace the refugees and share their food and accommodation with them without asking for anything in return."

However, because of the efforts by the UN, the situation is better now since "white tents with red crosses and the logo of UNHCR are aggregated," he says.

Besides the Liberians' generosity, Liu is also impressed by their compliments about China.

Once Liu met a volunteer named Abraham in the camp, who said "China has given Liberia real help. It set up the University of Liberia, founded large hospitals at Tapeta and built several roads, all of which will never be forgotten by Liberians."

When Liu asked him why he volunteers, Abraham told him: "The UN will eventually leave our country, and we need to try to perfect and govern our home on our own as soon as possible."

The country is scheduled for a general election in October, and Liu says it will be a test to the UN peacekeeping action to keep the country's current stable situation in hand.