New Liberian president faces ‘extraordinary task’
Of the St. Louis American
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia didn’t wait long to begin changing her nation.
A day after being sworn in before dignitaries from across the globe, including U.S. First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sirleaf said it is time for Liberians to think a new way.
“Don’t let your children go in the market, don’t let them on the farm – let them go to school,” she told tribal leaders from across Liberia.
Sirleaf now leads a nation that has its first democratically elected government since the end of the most recent in a series of civil wars between 1989-2003.
On her first day in office Tuesday, Africa’s first elected female head of state appointed another woman as her economy minister, Antoinette Saydee. Saydee has held posts as World Bank country chief for various West African nations.
Freed American slaves founded Liberia in 1847.
It was prosperous and peaceful for more than 100 years. Its top resources are timber and diamond mining.
Two brutal civil wars left more than 200,000 people dead, and many Liberians – up to 3 million people – fled the nation. That is half of the country’s population of a decade ago.
The nation’s capital city of Monrovia does not have running water or electricity for its residents. Wealthy people use generators for power while poor Liberians still live and work by candlelight when it is dark.
Victor T. LeVine, Washington University professor emeritus of political science and an expert on political unrest in North Africa and the Middle East, says that Sirleaf faces “an extraordinary task.”
“I must say that this is a better outcome than I had dared to hope for. Liberians understood that she is the best hope for Liberia.”
Sirleaf’s main opponent in the November runoff election was Liberian soccer star George Weah. Weah’s campaign was backed by most of Liberia’s top warlords and leaders of violent factions. Weah grudgingly accepted defeat and attended the inauguration.
LeVine said Weah’s only skills for serving as president “are in his feet.”
Sirleaf won more than 56 percent of the votes in the election.
LeVine said there was the danger that the defeated Weah “would raise the standard of revolt, but thought better of it.”
LeVine wrote in 2003 that the United States should be ashamed for its lack of intervention in Liberia as tens of thousands of people were killed in an ongoing civil war.
He said America must now “be ready to offer the president what she requests, and not tell her what she needs.”
“There are many Liberians living outside the country, many in the U.S., and I hope many of them will return to their country and help with its reconstruction,” LeVine said.
“This country has been in a state of misrule for the last 25 years. The incumbent president was killed in 1980, dictator Charles Taylor later came to power and, after he fled to Nigeria where he is living in luxury, there was a series of incompetent transitional governments.”
Taylor is wanted by a U.N.-backed war-crimes court for his role in fueling that country’s civil war. Nigeria has refused to surrender him to U.N. authority.
LeVine said the nation’s government is still “riddled” with former soldiers and Taylor supporters.
He called Sirleaf “a strong woman,” who will need all her strength “to keep a fragile peace while simultaneously starting the nation’s reconstruction.”
