This article seems to give much more credibility to her opposition than to Sirleaf's supporters, nor herself. Several of the opposition's claims are false and manipulated to put her in bad light. Madame President Sirleaf will likely be the best president Liberia will ever get. What she walked into, and what she walks out of will be completely different. She is transforming Liberia. This article doesn't highlight her accomplishments, nor her contributions as President. If anything, she is one the best presidents on the planet currently serving. Her support for the atrocities of the war? Oh please, once she found out what he was up to she quit supporting him. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee that she proposed? While it proposed her to vacate power, the reasons were limited merely to her minimal involvement the civil war that she detested.

Long live Madame President Sirleaf, and may she bless Liberia with another term as president!

Liberia is moving forward with a very strong President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the helm. We should support her ... and the Liberians especially !

Sharon

Predictably all the comments are in Sirleaf's defence. This article is one of very few from the FP cutting room floor that describes view that can be clearly distinguished from USG policy.

Keating is bang on the money when he observes that "...it's hard to avoid the sense that it's also the swan-song of a generation of Liberian political leaders...all were educated in the United States, spent years living in exile, and served in the administrations of previous presidents who were eventually executed or arrested".

If it wasn't beleaguered Africa we were discussing, I wonder if a collaborator with incriminating ties to a mass-murderer would be welcome at the White House or on the Daily Show? Say a former World Banker with ties to Hitler, Than Shwe -- would such an individual be 'admired' by a US President?

While I must thank Mr. Keating for an interesting article, he leaves out certain issues which need to be addressed. During the early days of the Liberian civil war in 1990, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf spoke openly on BBC, welcoming the insurgency to oust the dictatorship of President Samuel Doe. It was a period when the insurgency which had just started, was being widely supported within the country. Residents were uninformed of any of the mayhem and carnage that would follow. Madam Sirleaf stated that it was a necessary process since Doe had driven out, jailed, or killed all political opposition. He was holding the country hostage and killing indiscriminately leaving no other recourse. It is a necessary process to return Liberia to democracy, she said. In response to a question from Robin White she also stated that buildings that are destroyed can be rebuilt but the price of democracy is worth it. This view or at least some variant of it was shared by many thousands of average Liberians who welcomed Taylor into Liberia at the time. Liberians were prepared to take the risk than continue to endure the murderous dictatorship of Samuel Doe. Sirleaf had been a very well known victim of the Doe regime—jailed twice and nearly assassinated. In retrospect, had the thousands of Liberians known the evil that had been unleashed by Charles Taylor’s insurgency, the events in Liberia would’ve been much different.

It is hard to imagine that Sirleaf would’ve given any type of support toward Taylor’s insurgency had she known of his hidden agenda of deception and moral deprivation. This is probably why she more than any other Liberian politician has done more to challenge Taylor. First, by running against him in the 1997 elections and later by ensuring that he faced the International Court of Sierra Leone in The Hague after she was elected in 2005. But more than anything else, it is what she has managed to achieve since being elected president that is most illustrative of her contrition. I recall when she stood in Monrovia streets and apologized to the Liberian people for her brief support to Taylor and the remarks that she made on the BBC. They (the Liberian people), saw the sincerity and elected her their president in 2005.

President Sirleaf’s government inherited a paltry $80 million dollar budget, a 3-12 month arrear in public sector salaries, and an oversized civil service that required rightsizing. The country had been totally devastated and dysfunctional in almost every aspect of nationhood. Given this set of circumstances, the process of economic growth would’ve been slow and arduous by any stretch of imagination. This is more of a reason why President Sirleaf deserves recognition. It is not the level of success per se but rather, it is how she has managed to achieve it with such minimal resources in the middle of a global recession. In 2005 when she assumed the presidency, two of Liberia’s major exportable resources—diamonds and timber were under UN sanctions. The country was saddled by a $4.7 billion external debt. Today, Liberia has met the terms of total debt cancellation under the HIPC Initiative. The government instituted the required reforms that allowed the UN to lift the sanctions on both diamonds and timber. And over the last two years she has been able to woo some $17 billion dollar in foreign investments. In spite of these laudable achievements, one must admit that it took a while to achieve these successes and it is just now that the country is poised for an economic take-off. This is why the upcoming elections are so critical and that many of us would prefer the stable process of growth than the uncertainties of a change in administration. Liberia can’t afford unpredictability given the fragile recovery process and security environment. However, the Liberian people’s expectations are high and they have been subjected to misinformation of all types. Sirleaf needs an outright straight-talking spokesperson. She is not winning the war on misinformation because she has chosen not to join in such a war. However, that will not stop her rivals from misinforming. At the end of the day, I think that Madam Sirleaf believes that her international profile and leadership results will somehow prevail. As she says good should triumph over evil.

Finally, when Sirleaf speaks in Liberian parlance of the work of a monkey versus that of a baboon, she also implies a reverse slogan that is well understood by indigenous Liberians. It states that you “don’t allow a monkey to work while the baboon draws”. This implies that after Sirleaf has done the heavy lifting and the country is now poised to take-off; why should she now leave without the recognition of completing the development agenda that she started from scratch in the first place? Every Liberian knows this parlance and can relate to it. Constitutionally, she is entitled to run for a second consecutive term. The statement she made that it might take her only one term to accomplish what she needs to do for Liberia was made during an interview in the United States during the 2005 election campaign. I felt then that it was a shortsighted statement and looking back at it now, she would easily agree with me on that. Reason being: Today, her opposition takes that statement and turns it into a pledge that she promised the Liberian people to only serve a one term but has reneged. They state that she stated on BBC that Taylor could burn down Monrovia and that she would build the entire city with her own purse strings. They implicate her in the war as if she was on the frontlines instructing Taylor to kill anyone or thing that moves. Liberian politics is one big heap of misinformation and misinterpretation in a media environment where fact check is still considered a luxury. In some respects, the media become pawns for the highest bidder. With the fluidity of information, it is not at all surprising that the TRC came up with such a highly controversial and lopsided set of recommendations which by Liberian law will require legislative approval before it can be implemented. Interestingly, it recommends that notoriously murderous rebels go free without as much as an apology but bars the elected sitting president for not exhibiting contrite during the proceedings. This is politically dangerous in an environment that the truth has been stretched out of proportion to meet various personal agendas. This is why others, including religious leaders, have called for a more reconciliatory process to the TRC results with open confessions and forgiveness rituals to come at the truth.

Hope the above statement draws further interest in the awesome and courageous political life of Africa’s first female president.

It is good to know that there are female heads of state in Liberia, long may it contunue. If only the rest of the under-developed countries could mimick this. seo kent

Nice article. Some really good points made about he Men Who Would Be Queen , I agree with some of them. Thanks for the quality articles which entertainers many views and opinions, helping me learn things. Kindest regards, Mad DJ Clive

Liberia is often depicted in the international media as West Africa's great post-conflict success story, the country's politics remain bitter, divisive, and remarkably personal. In a busy political year for Africa -- roughly half the countries on the continent are holding national-level elections this year -- Liberia's, tentatively scheduled for Oct. 11, bears watching as both a measure of the country's stability and as a referendum on one of today's most intriguing world leaders. (bodybuildingguide, bacterialvagisymptoms hemroidstreatment, coffeetableplans, prematureejaculationexercises, tinnitusremedies, windturbinesforthehome, woodworkingideas, coffeemakersratings/ fibroidsinuterussymptoms,
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Africa's first elected female head of state is well known and highly respected in the United States, to an extent unmatched by any recent African leader not named Mandela. She's a frequent visitor to Washington ( blackanddeckertools, blancokitchensinks, brauncoffeegrinder, braucoffeemakers, bunncoffeemakersparts, granitecompositesinks, italiancoffeemachines, krupscoffeegrinder, freeonlinediets, glidersfornursery, indonesianews
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Just read the article. I found it very informative and agree with posts and points made above. Peter.