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Liberia: Liberia's Sirleaf Seeks Civic Action, International Aid
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INTERVIEW
28 February 2006
Posted to the web 28 February 2006
Monrovia
As President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf prepares to make an official visit to the United States in mid-March, pressure is growing for the addition of $80 million in reconstruction and development funds for Liberia to a $72.4 billion supplemental appropriations bill now before Congress. Liberia supporters had expected the Bush administration to include those funds in the request, which is primarily for the Department of Defense, although $645 million is for emergency and humanitarian aid and refugee assistance, largely for Africa.
Non-governmental organizations note that public mobilization helped secure $500 million of that total for Sudan and the Darfur region. A Washington, D.C.-based coalition hopes to replicate that effort for Liberia, arguing that helping the country rebuild is in the U.S. interest, by promoting peace after a quarter-century of despotism and conflict that degenerated into nationwide chaos.
Armed factions drove most of Liberia's three million people from their homes, forced children to be soldiers or sex slaves, burned and ransacked schools and medical facilities, and pillaged the country's resources, especially rubber and timber. Liberia today faces the challenge of responding to urgent human needs as well as rebuilding basic infrastructure - many roads have become impassable and there is no water, no electricity and no communications, except what people can provide for themselves.
The wounds of war are still raw, and this month President Sirleaf launched a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to probe the crimes and begin to heal the rifts. A new army and police force are being built, spurred by knowledge that the United Nations peacekeeping mission, which secured the peace and allowed free elections, will not remain indefinitely. The president has appointed a Cabinet drawn from diverse backgrounds, and most of her appointees have been confirmed by the Senate.
But Sirleaf's challenges are formidable. Her party is a small minority in the legislature, holding three of 30 Senate seats and eight of 64 seats in the House of Representatives. Corruption is entrenched, international economic sanctions have not yet been lifted, and the national purse is empty. Foreign debt exceeds U.S.$3.5 billion. The president has responded by traveling around the country to promise change and to encourage both patience and civic action. She has listened to popular concerns, and she has promised that government will be responsive. She is also appealing for international support, and her administration has outlined a 150-day plan to jump-start recovery.
Reed Kramer and Tamela Hultman of AllAfrica attended the inauguration and traveled around the country afterwards, exploring Liberia's problems and potential. They talked with Sirleaf, both in a private interview and during a visit by a delegation of United Methodists. Excerpts:
Liberia has so many urgent needs - peace, jobs, sustainable agriculture, education, health. Where do you start, and how do you set priorities?
Clearly, peace is the first thing. We can't do anything else unless we have peace and security. And peace includes successfully concluding the ongoing process for the restructuring and professionalization of our security forces. Peace also means doing something for war-affected youth - giving them opportunities for education, for skills training and job opportunities. That way, we reduce their vulnerability to recruitment anywhere. So that's first.
Parallel to that are the efforts at reconciliation, so we don't have too many pockets of discontent. I hope that the composition of the government and our efforts to be as inclusive as possible - without compromising on efficiency and integrity standards - will send a signal that everyone has an opportunity and that everyone will feel like the government belongs to them.
But we have to go beyond that. The Truth and Reconciliation commission has a difficult task, because reconciliation cannot be legislated or achieved through any institution. It's got to come from individual efforts and individual commitments to peace. They're going to be looking at the root causes of our conflict and the cleavages that have existed in our society historically and what we can do to ensure everybody that the basis for those cleavages no longer exists. They had to do with exclusion. They had to do with the monopolization of power and privilege. They have to do with dominance by a particular ethnic group.
While we want to support the process of contrition and forgiveness - that's important for reconciliation - one must always leave some means for the process of justice to take place in those cases where there are those aggrieved, who want to use the legal system to get their grievance addressed. How the TRC is going to come out of that, it's going to be quite an undertaking.
So many Liberians have been displaced, both internally and externally. How will you deal with the inevitable tensions of people returning to their lands, who may find others living there, perhaps people of ethnic groups who were rivals during the wars?
It's going to be a tough problem when it comes to those who fled during the war, and their properties were taken. I think we have to say that those who own the land and can establish their ownership will have to get their land.
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