Reed Kramer
10 March 2006
Washington, DC — Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will begin an official visit to Washington with a speech next week to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, meeting jointly. An invitation to address Congress is extended to international dignitaries only once or twice during a typical year.
The visit comes amid growing Congressional support for increased emergency funding for Liberia in this year's budget. On Wednesday, a House committee inserted U.S.$50 million for Liberia into a supplemental appropriations bill now under deliberation, but Liberia supporters are aiming to raise the amount to nearer U.S.$100 million.
Sirleaf, who has attracted worldwide attention as Africa's first elected female head of state, is scheduled to address Congress on 15 March and to meet at the White House on 21 March with the President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush. Mrs. Bush led the U.S. delegation to the Liberian presidential inauguration on 16 January, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The invitations and the effort to increase assistance reflect the belief that a democratically elected government in Liberia will promote stability and economic growth throughout the west African region. After more than two decades of civil strife and conflict, "Liberia is at a crucial turning point," wrote 14 House members in a letter to the leadership of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.(1) The authors seek increased aid for Liberia in the U.S.$72.4 billion supplemental budget request from the administration, which is primarily focused on funding military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The Sirleaf administration has only a small window of opportunity to prove to the war-battered Liberian people that they have elected a credible government and to discredit reactionary elements determined to recreate and exploit for personal gain the state of corruption, crime and warfare from which Liberia is emerging," the House members warn. In the current fiscal year, the letter says, U.S. assistance for Liberia is slated to total U.S.$115 million - less than the U.S.$130.7 million the country received in FY2005 and considerably below the U.S.$236.1 million spent in FY2004, when Liberia was administered by a transitional government that organized and held elections.
During Wednesday's subcommittee debate on the administration's overall supplemental request, Jesse Jackson (Democrat-Illinois) tried to convince members to include U.S.$94.5 million for Liberia, as well as U.S.$50 million in food aid for Africa, U.S.$100 million for peacekeeping in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and U.S.$51.2 million for increased assistance for refugees in African trouble spots. When the proposals failed to get Republican support, he withdrew them but re-introduced the Liberia request at the U.S.$50 million level. That proposal won subcommittee endorsement on a voice vote.
Early Thursday morning, the full Appropriations Committee exceeded the administrations U.S.$72.4 billion budget request, approving a U.S.$91 billion supplemental that included additional funding for the war on terror and for post-hurricane reconstruction. The U.S.$50 million for Liberia is included.
Advocates of increased funding for Liberia argue that Sirleaf's administration has made an impressive beginning but needs help to sustain the fragile peace and consolidate economic gains. "It's vital to provide monies now for development, so that the people of Liberia see a dividend from their successful democratic election," says Riva Levinson, a Washington DC-based government relations consultant who is advising Sirleaf.
A memorandum circulating on Capitol Hill outlines the accomplishments of Sirleaf's first six weeks in office, including a requirement that senior government appointees declare their financial assets and a reduction in corruption at the ports - producing a 20 percent rise in government revenues over the previous January, even though the new government was in office for only two weeks following the 16 January inauguration.
Other steps include cancellation of all forestry concessions, as well as a major concession for port handling, which will be re-bid "through a more open and transparent process consistent with the new public procurement law"; the dismissal of political appointees at the ministry of finance and retention only of those hired through a legal civil service process; implementation of a cash management system to track all expenditures; and the launch of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights abuses during 24 years of civil war and unrest.
Liberia watchers had expected that the Bush administration would include additional funding for the country in last month's supplemental request sent to Capitol Hill. Government sources say a recommendation for additional assistance exceeding U.S.$150 million, proposed by working level officials, failed to win approval from the senior level at the State Department and National Security Council.
The request to Congress did include U.S.$514 million for Sudan, which has been the focus of considerable media attention and a lobbying effort by a diverse constituency spearheaded by Christian organizations across the country. The sum was divided between U.S.$389 million for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance in Darfur and U.S.$125 million for food aid, refugee returns and UN operations in the rest of the country. The administration requested a further U.S.$125 million for food aid, principally in Africa, and U.S.$23.8 million for refugees, including the repatriation of 100,000 displaced Liberians.
"Everyone realizes that Liberia should get something," said one official, who fought to include Liberia in the administration's request and spoke on condition of non-attribution. "I'm just glad there seems to be sufficient interest in Congress to make it happen."
One measure of that interest is the joint-meeting invitation to President Sirleaf, which arose principally from a brief visit to the Liberian capital last month by an 11-member Congressional delegation (2) led by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (California) and House Democratic Caucus Chair James E. Clyburn (South Carolina). After returning to Washington, following stops in Sudan, Cape Verde, Ghana and South Africa, Pelosi wrote to House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Illinois) suggesting that Sirleaf be asked to speak, and the idea was endorsed by both the Speaker and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tennessee).
Sirleaf's address next week will be the 100th joint-meeting speech by a foreign leader since 1874, according to the Office of the Clerk of the House. (Congress generally sits in "joint session" only to hear the U.S. president's annual State-of-the-Union address.).
The Liberian president will be the fourth African head-of-state and eighth woman to address a joint meeting. Nelson Mandela spoke to Congress in 1990 following his release from prison and again in 1994 after becoming South Africa's first democratically elected president. Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba spoke to a joint meeting in 1961, as did Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia in 1954.
Advocates of more funds for Liberia are hoping Sirleaf's Congressional appearance will boost the aid package above the U.S.$50 million approved by the House Appropriations Committee and ensure Congressional passage. In 2003, Congress ignored administration objections to a budget increase by adding U.S.$200 million in humanitarian assistance to U.S.$245 million already included for Liberian peacekeeping in the supplemental appropriation bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.
The U.S.$200 million breakthrough came when Senator Lincoln Chafee (Republican-Rhode Island) managed an end-run around committee bottlenecks by introducing a floor amendment, which won Senate endorsement. The House went along. The 2003 aid package, totaling U.S.$445 million, spurred international support for Liberia, following the August peace accord ending the war that claimed a quarter-million lives, uprooted over half the country's population and destroyed the nation's infrastructure.
Supporters are hoping Chafee and others may be able to do something similar this year. He signaled ongoing interest when he served as an official observer for the 11 October election, where Sirleaf came in second before going on to win handily in the run-off on 8 November.
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