Posted on 07/05/2003 4:46:14 PM PDT by Pokey78
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a divorced mother-of-four who is Washington's unofficial candidate to succeed the Liberian President Charles Taylor, has warned that any American troops sent to the devastated country would have to stay for two years.
Mrs Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard graduate and former Liberian finance minister who has been exiled and imprisoned, told The Telegraph: "I hope they would have a robust mandate and be prepared to stay for one or two years, as long as it takes to train a proper army and police force."
She was speaking for the first time to a British newspaper at peace talks between rebel factions in neighbouring Ghana. She is one of the few women at the talks and seems able to make rebel leaders wilt through sheer force of personality - reinforced with the booming American twang that underpins her West African accent. She has already been dubbed Liberia's Iron Lady.
Her chances of becoming president have been helped by American insistence that Mr Taylor's successor should not be drawn from armed rebel factions.
If she succeeds, she faces a gargantuan task. Liberia has been ruined by the brutality and avarice of Mr Taylor, who is slowly caving into international pressure to cede power. In 14 years of civil war about 300,000 people - a tenth of Liberia's population - have been killed.
In recent weeks she has been lobbying furiously, moving from group to group in hotels across the Ghanaian capital, with two fearsome bodyguards in black suits and dark glasses in tow.
She does not lack self-confidence. "I've got more experience and better contacts than anyone else. I've worked for the Liberian government, in the private sector, for the Bretton Woods organisations and for the United Nations," she said. "If there's someone else who can match me then they're lurking deep in the shadows."
A Western diplomat explained: "The rebels have no choice but to listen. In effect the Americans have given the rebels a shortlist with Ellen's name at the top."
Her plea for peacekeeping troops may not sit well in the White House. President Bush is wary of committing troops. On Friday he hedged his bets by ordering a team of experts to West Africa to assess the situation.
Mr Taylor has said he will step down, but only after the arrival of a peacekeeping force to prevent further chaos. A senior official in Nigeria revealed that he has accepted an offer of asylum.
Mrs Johnson Sirleaf says that it will take five years to undo the damage done by Mr Taylor. She wants him tried for crimes against humanity.
Send in the French, Germans or UN!
The purpose of our intervention has to be, or ought to be, to protect Liberia from the UN.
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