The Herald sat down with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to discuss her political career, her efforts to rebuild Liberia and the U.S. presidential election.
The Herald: You are the first elected female leader of an African state. Here in the United States, we find ourselves in a presidential election of firsts -- we will either have our first black president in the form of Barack Obama or our first female vice president in the form of Sarah Palin. Your election was seen in groundbreaking terms. Do you see the present U.S. presidential election in similar, that is, groundbreaking, terms?
Johnson Sirleaf: Yes, I certainly do. I think there's been a sea change in American politics. Just think about it - it was also Hillary who was running for president as a woman. First one that came that close. Then, of course, the African American who really is in the race and doing well. And now a woman vice-presidential candidate, so you know, I think the U.S. has come a long way.
In this election, both race and gender have arguably played important roles. When you were running for president of Liberia, you said you hoped to heal the wounds of war by bringing a "motherly sensitivity and emotion to the presidency." How much did gender play a role in your election and how much has it been a factor in your presidency?
Gender played an important role because my appeal went to grassroots people, and essentially to women - women marketeers, women traders - and really they mobilized on my behalf. And they made a big difference because they went out there, house to house, campaigning.
They tried to ensure that their children made the right choices, who were of voting age. And then, you know, since I've started, women continue to be my main supporters ... in Liberia and the women throughout Africa, because they see me as representing their expectations and their aspirations and the one that's going to open the door even wider for women to take huge new political leadership roles.
How do you view the current U.S. presidential candidates in terms of their stated policies towards Africa?
I don't think any has come out very clearly with what their policy would be for Africa. I can only say that I think they will continue in the tradition that Africa is the last frontier.
Africa is the place that will make a difference in this global village, if Africa can truly become independent, self-sufficient and use its natural resources for its own development and become more competitive. The Bush administration had a strong African policy, and the Clinton one before him. I expect that whichever one wins the election will have to carry on in the same level.
You've implemented in Liberia a poverty reduction strategy, and you've been touring Liberia speaking about the program in town-hall meetings. What are the biggest challenges to reducing poverty that you hear voiced by your countrymen and countrywomen?
The biggest challenge is unemployment. Thousands and thousands of the war-affected youth, who have had no skills because they were denied an education during many years they were exposed to violence -- now we have to get good jobs for them.
We've got to train them and give them some skills, and so our biggest challenge is to see how we can get the programs, give them the skills, put them back into school and then create the jobs for them by opening the economy.
You said last week, "Corruption impedes the development of any society and must therefore be resisted by all Liberians wherever it exists." How much of your strategy to combat corruption in Liberia relies on regulation, oversight and punishment, and how much of it relies on changing norms and values?
In Liberia it's more the latter. I mean, we've got the laws. We've got the regulations. We've got all the enforcement procedures. But the foundations are just so many because it's so embedded in the many years of depravation, many years of poverty, many years of indiscipline and lawlessness.
People feel 'Get what you can get!' when the opportunity exists. So our biggest challenge is how do we turn that around? It's got to be a combination of many things: better working conditions, better compensation, more of the marriage system and then the enforcement of the laws too, so you know there's a penalty when you betray the public trust.
And just working on the attitudes to see the debilitating effects of corruption - because people just don't see that it has any effect beyond what they get out of it.
They can't see the bigger picture of how it actually impedes our effort to be able to accelerate development and deliver to them the basic services and jobs that they need.
Former Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Willis Knuckles, a former trusted aide of yours, is being investigated for allegedly soliciting money from expatriate companies in return for government contracts. You have called his behavior "a despicable act of betrayal" in light of your strong efforts to combat corruption at all levels of Liberian society. How fragile is the faith of the Liberian people in their government's ability to preserve its integrity and resist corruption, and how does a scandal like this undermine your efforts?
It does. No doubt about that, because this is someone who worked closely in my office. This is why I say I feel it's a despicable act. It is a betrayal because of what I stand for. My record speaks for itself. But these things do happen, and this is one case where you set in place investigations that are really going to bring out the truth, since he has denied some of it.
And those investigations, when they lead to conclusions that are backed up by evidence, then whatever the law requires, the law will have to take its course. And I've been very clear about that.
You've acquired the nickname "Iron Lady." How did you get it and why do you think it has stuck?
Well, I got it from the early years of my professional life as a fiscal disciplinarian, one that made sure people spent money wisely and kept people staying with the regulations, making people pay if they violated. It has stayed with me throughout because in all of my professional life too, you know, I don't suffer fools gladly. I work hard and those who work with me, I put them through a lot because I expect them to perform. I want them to aspire to excellence, and that means really I'm a hard driver. That's where that comes from.
But I always say in this job I've got to be both the Iron Lady and the grandmother in a society that's so complex after so many years of conflict. You have to be able to show one and the other when the circumstances call for it.
In 2006 you addressed the U.S. Congress, saying: "I will make you proud in the difference which one woman with abiding faith in God can make." How much does faith inform your politics?
Very much so. I grew up in a very strongly religious family -- my mother was a pastor. So I do have a strong faith and I believe that whatever we do, that being able to reach out there to the divine and being able to pray, that that also helps to give one the courage and the strength to take those hard decisions and to know that somehow, if you do the right thing, you will be protected. That's been the experience of my life.
For the bulk of your political career, you've been no friend of Liberia's governments of the day. You were imprisoned under the military regime of Samuel Doe in the 1980s, charged with treason after Charles Taylor assumed the presidency in 1997 and have been twice exiled from your country. What does it mean for your country to have one of its foremost dissenters now as its foremost leader?
You know, I still say when those say, 'You've fought every government' ....I say, 'But doesn't that show a lot of consistency? Consistency in standing up for the things I believed in?' And now that I'm there, I hope now I can make a difference. Because, you know I've been through it all, I've seen it all.
And so my challenge is to turn Liberia around, to really put it on the right road away from dependency to self-sufficiency, to introduce those tenets of good governance like accountability, hard work and all of that that's been missing in our society for so long. And I feel like we've made a very good start.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is progressively teasing out the painful truths of the bloody conflicts that ravaged Liberia for 14 years. Do you believe that the TRC's efforts to strike a balance between justice and peace have been successful, and how do you measure such progress?
I think they have. I mean, we deliberately - during the Accra peace talks -- chose the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as opposed, for example, to a war crimes court.
That's because there were thousands and thousands of young people who committed atrocities, most times not under their own control. They'd been subjected to drink and drugs and all of that. The fact that today, many of them are testifying - it's not a perfect situation.
Some of it is accusatory, some of it is defensive. But at least they're talking about it and it's coming out. And now it's up to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to take a look at it, to sift through it and really get those strands of truth and those strands of the processes that conform to contrition and forgiveness. ... It's talking about a process where people can admit and ask forgiveness.
Some of that is happening - not enough. But we always said that at the end of the day the commission also has a right to make a recommendation that says that there can also be justice.
So that those who agree to feel that just confessing is not enough, that they want to bring people to justice and the rule of law, that that should be part of a process that will follow.
And so I see this as an important mid-step to work toward justice, because it will reduce the amount of people (who demand further judicial action) through that process of contrition and forgiveness.
And if we get to hard-core cases where justice is required, then we'll move in that direction, and the state will be able to support that process also.
