Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone are all struggling to build peace after years of brutal conflict.

These were wars in which instability, rebels and floods of refugees all spilled across frontiers. Child soldiers were recruited in huge numbers and forced to commit atrocities. Cross-border political meddling prolonged the bloodshed.

Now that the three countries have settled the conflicts within their own borders, each has different prospects for peace and recovery. But all remain vulnerable to new violence and state failure, which threaten the stability of the entire region.

IVORY COAST ON THE BRINK

Of the three countries, analysts say Ivory Coast is the most likely to see its peace process crumble.

A stalemate over the terms of a peace agreement brokered by France in 2003 came to an abrupt end in late February 2005 when government forces attacked a rebel outpost, sparking international concern that war could again engulf this once-prosperous and peaceful West African country.

The attack by forces loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo on Logouale, located in rebel-held territory in the northwestern part of the country, was the first outbreak of violence since the government broke an 18-month ceasefire and bombed rebel strongholds the previous November.

It all but shattered the flagging peace process.

Civil conflict in Ivory Coast had effectively split the country of 16 million between the government-controlled south and the rebel-held north.

France now has 4,000 troops in the Ivory Coast supporting a 6,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force, which holds the line and guards the buffer zone between the north and the south.

The peace process provided for the disarmament of rebels and paved the way for general elections in October 2005. But rebels had refused to disarm before political concessions were made. Meanwhile, President Gbado had refused to grant concessions before the rebels disarmed.

The U.N. mission in Ivory Coast said it had restored order in Logouale, but the rebels vowed to fight back.

The rebel movement, called the New Forces, said in a statement the attack was the government's "umpteenth violation of the ceasefire".

"By these acts of war, Mr. Laurent Gbagbo has just buried for good the mediation efforts of South Africa and the international community," the statement said.

The government has denied responsibility for the attack on Logouale and blamed pro-government militia for independently starting an uprising against the rebels.

Fresh violence in Ivory Coast has revived concern that turmoil could destabilise the region as a whole.

Violations of the ceasefire in November 2004 prompted African leaders to call an emergency crisis meeting of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council in Abuja, Nigeria, late in the year.

The Council said restoration of peace was paramount since neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone are both post-conflict states that are seen as particularly fragile.

Guinea, which borders Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone, is also in a precarious position, having supported thousands of refugees from its neighbours as well as Liberian rebels.

According to Crisis Group, a Belgian-based think tank, Guinea’s Forest Region, which borders Liberia and Ivory Coast, is supporting some 100,000 displaced Guineans who had sought economic opportunities in Ivory Coast and then fled when major violence erupted there in 2002.

LIBERIA TRIES TO FORGIVE AND FORGET

Two years after the end of Liberia’s 14-years civil war, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said 14 of Liberia’s 15 counties were finally safe for the return of refugees.

UNHCR, which has repatriated some 7,500 Liberians from neighbouring countries since October, said close to 100,000 Liberians had returned home on their own in 2004. Though many refugees are wary about security in Liberia, UNHCR expects another 340,000 to return home by the end of 2007.

Liberia, under the control of a transitional government headed by Chairman Gyude Bryant, is stable, though it has come under fire recently from the World Bank for failing to crack down on rampant corruption.

As a result of that corruption charge, the United Nations has maintained an embargo on valuable exports of diamonds and timber, put in place originally to prevent then President Charles Taylor from buying arms.

Liberia is set to hold general elections in October 2005, and there is new hope for reconciliation between former rebels and government officials, including ousted President Taylor, who was forced to flee the country amid fighting in the capital of Monrovia in August 2003.

In February 2005, Sekou Conneh, the leader of the biggest former rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), called for a general amnesty for everyone who fought in the war, including his old foe, Taylor, now living in Nigeria. Conneh even suggested that Taylor be allowed to return home.

Taylor is wanted by a special war crimes court in Sierra Leone, where he is accused of fomenting brutal rebellions. Human rights groups support setting up a similar court in Liberia, one modelled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

But Conneh has said it was best to forgive and forget.

"Instead of people calling for people to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the tribunal in Sierra Leone, it is good to just forgive in the interest of peace," Conneh told Reuters.

In the meantime, rebuilding has begun in earnest in areas devastated by the war, particularly the former rebel base of Lofa County in the northwest corner of the country.

According to the United Nations, one-third of all the refugees who fled the country came from Lofa. The county also accounts for almost one-fifth of the 500,000 internally displaced people inside Liberia.

Lofa County is one of the country’s most inaccessible, especially during the rainy season between April and October, when dirt roads turn to mud and become impenetrable.

But hope abounds. Before his resignation in late February 2005, then UNHCR High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers opened the first - and only - school in Lofa. Thousands of refuges and internally displaced people are returning to the war-torn area to rebuild their lives.

Even so, experts agree that Liberia has a long way to go before stability is certain.

According to Crisis Group, the international community needs to make long-term commitments - on the order of 25 years - to enable new political forces and necessary institutions to develop.

The think tank says quick fixes of the judicial and law enforcement systems, and even the military forces, are not sufficient and would leave Liberia vulnerable to crime, corruption and renewed violence.

SIERRA LEONE ON PATH TO PEACE

Best known in the Western press for brutality against civilians in its 11-year civil war and for introducing the world to so-called conflict diamonds, Sierra Leone is on a steady path to peace.

Sierra Leone’s war, which killed 20,000 people and displaced half the country’s population of 5 million, officially ended in 2002. National elections were held later that year.

A U.N.-mandated Special Court for Sierra Leone has indicted 11 people for war crimes and is seeking to extradite Liberia’s former president, Charles Taylor, with support from international human rights groups.

Disarmament of the rebel Revolutionary United Front has been completed. In September 2004, the U.N. peacekeeping force, which at one point was 17,000 strong, handed over control of the capital, Freetown, to local forces in a symbolic but crucial step toward Sierra Leone’s self sufficiency and peace.

But the country isn’t out of the woods yet. Millions of dollars worth of diamonds are still smuggled out of Sierra Leone every year. Corruption is rife, and thousands of decommissioned soldiers are out of work and looking for something to do.

Sierra Leone is still coming to terms with atrocities committed during the war, many of them against children. Communities are also grappling with severe poverty.

Significant political reform ensuring good governance and accountability has yet to take hold, and the victims of the war, along with thousands of decommissioned soldiers, need funding for more education and training programmes.