2 September 2008
After all is set at home, after the policies put into place and the reconstruction plan is on its marks awaiting a "get started" nod from Liberia's economic partners, observers say the next challenge for the Sirleaf Administration is posting abroad tough policy advocates.
This seems the belief that influenced, last Friday, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's nomination of Mr. Conmany B. Wesseh to head Liberia's Permanent Mission at the United Nations in New York.
"But who is Conmany B. Wesseh? What does he bring to the top UN post?" is the question many are asking.
The Analyst Managing Editor, Stanley Seakor has been finding out.
He is self-effacing. And folks say he would pass for an ordinary, unsuspecting Liberian contented with the subsistence imposed on the nation by bad governance and war in the last 5 or so decades.
He prefers to work from the strategic foundation in the background, not showy, not condescending, patronizing (if you will). But he is no chicken-livered. He is a futurist.
So, when President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf nominated him over the weekend as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Liberia to the United Nations in New York, administration loyalists had only to raise their hands in singing "Alleluia" and critics to bow in submission.
The man being introduced, the nominee, is Deputy Foreign Minister for International Cooperation and Economic Integration, Conmany B. Wesseh.
When confirmed by the Liberian Senate, he will head Liberia's Permanent Mission at the world body at the time, observers say, Liberia faces critical domestic challenges and challenges of international image building and trust.
He is featured into the national revival equation, some would say, when the challenges of rebuilding its security forces confronts Liberia with unkindly anxiety, when the service of UNMIL remains a crucial factor in the stability of Liberia, and when reconstruction based on foreign aid is the solidifying crucible for Liberia's hope and the growing aspiration of its population.
"Mr. Wesseh comes when the need is acute for the UN to maintain UNMIL in Liberia for few more years and for the world body to engaged Liberia more substantially in terms of financial and technical assistance for the revitalization of the economy and reconstruction," said one human rights advocate.
Thirty months ago Mr. Wesseh brought to the post of deputy ministry for International Cooperation and Economic Integration "very rich experience in civil society streamlining, public corporation, and government spanning thirty years".
His public life unveiling is meek, but forceful and rife with the high points of the history of Liberia's drive for democracy and civil justice.
Then, as now, his outstanding youth and student leadership at national, regional and international levels spanning the mid seventies and the eighties prepares him for the mandate and the challenges of the position he is nominated to fill.
He was especially astute in student organization and guidance, often playing the strategist leader. Observers recalled his role as President of the University of Liberia Students Union in 1978 and his re-creation and Presidency of the Liberia National Students Union between 1979 and 81.
Of course this did spare him of a brush with the status quo at the time and he had to travel abroad sometime in 1982 to prepare himself for more challenges regarding the establishment of democracy in Liberia and for the restoration of Liberia's international image through the ensuring of peace and social justice in Liberia.
In Accra, Ghana, Mr. Wesseh was preferred by his West African brothers and sisters to serve as Deputy and then as Acting Secretary General of the Accra-based All Africa Students Union between 1982 and 1989, and Executive Committee member of the Prague-based International Union of Students.
But that was not to be the end of the search for the international exposure that was to, today, prepare him to take up the top UN post. Mr. Wesseh became the Director of the W. E. B. Dubois Memorial Center for Pan African Culture between 1989 and 1991. The Dubois Memorial Center for Pan African Culture is a Pan-African research and documentation entity in Accra, Ghana.
Back in Liberia, the nominee also took up the executive directorship of the Director of the Center for Democratic Empowerment (CEDE), a democracy promotion, peace building, and human security non-governmental organization working in West Africa. That was between 1996 and 2003.
He led the creation of and chaired the Liberian Leadership Forum, which brought together leaders of Liberian political parties, civil society, religious bodies and some of the then rival armed opposition in a conference in July, 2002 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
That conference is amongst key peace initiatives that helped set the stage for the Accra Peace Talks, which resulted into the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that finally ended, in August 2003, fourteen years of death and destruction in Liberia.
In government, Minister Wesseh held senior level cabinet and legislative positions including his service at a particularly critical juncture as Special Advisor on the Peace Process to the Liberian President with cabinet rank.
Later, he served as Minster of Youth and Sports between 1992 and 95. It was under his leadership at that Ministry that Liberia for the first time reached the finals of the African Cup of Nations Soccer Tournament.
He used the privilege accorded him at the Sport Ministry to highlight "sports for development" and "sports for reconciliation". From October, 2003 to mid-January, 2006, he served as a member of the National Transitional Legislative Assembly (NTLA) as elected representative of the pro-democracy and human rights segment of civil society.
In the legislature, he chaired and served as ranking member of key legislative committees such as the Committees on the Peace Process and National Reconciliation, Foreign Affairs, Education and Elections.
From his modest civil society and government positions, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of Liberia to the United Nations-designee helped negotiate peace among rival armed groups in Liberia.
He led the processes of lawmaking that produced the Truth and Reconciliation Law, the Elections Law for the 2005 presidential and parliamentary elections and other critical laws necessary for the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
Since the eruption of the armed conflicts in the Mano River basin in 1989 starting with Liberia and later Sierra Leone and Guinea, followed by their neighbor Cote d'Ivoire, Mr. Wesseh dedicated himself to actively campaigning for peace to end the wars and disarm, demobilize and reintegrate former armed combatants.
He is also very active in the promotion of the welfare and interest of war-affected children.
For him social justice, which embodies the right to legal redress in an impartial court of law, the right to employment and justified pay, the right to associate, the right to move about freely out and within the country, the right to affordable subsistence, the right to opportunities for self-fulfillment, the right to free speech, to free press, and to conscience are not privileges that an administration can provide or deny at will, but that should be the substance of the continued service of that administration.
In addition, Mr. Wesseh is a leading figure in the worldwide campaign against the proliferation and uncontrolled flow and misuse of small arms and light weapons considered as the main instruments in the exacerbation of the conflicts in Africa, the undermining of democracies and the wanton abuse of human rights.
Since March 2007, he has been serving as the Chairman of the Liberia National Commission on Small Arms. He helped found in 1998, and has served in the leading structures of the London headquartered International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).
He also led the founding of the West African Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA) and chaired it in the first five critical formative years. But as folks say, the success that is tested is worthier than one that came on silver platter. Mr. Wesseh's achievements were indeed tested from unexpected sides.
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