Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Speech to a Joint Meeting of the U.S. Congress (text-audio-video)

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Address to a Joint Meeting of the U.S. Congress

delivered 15 March 2006, Washington, D.C.

[Content warning: Contains narrative portrayals of horrific acts perpetrated during civil unrest and civil war in Liberia]

AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests:

I am deeply touched by the honor bestowed on my small but proud West African Republic of Liberia, and on myself by inviting me to address this Body of Representatives of the people of the great United States of America. By this invitation, you have paid one of the greatest tribute[s] there is to those who laid down their lives for my country to be free and democratic. I can only say a big thank you.

The people of Liberia and the people of the United States are bound together by history and by values. We share a deep and abiding belief in the power of freedom, of faith, of finding virtue in work for the common good. The national motto of Liberia, founded, as you know, by freed American slaves, is "The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here."

We became the first independent Republic in Africa. Our capital, Monrovia, is named for your President, James Monroe. Our flag is a star in a blue field and red and white stripes; its one star make[s] us the "lone star state in Africa."¹ Our Constitution and our laws are based upon yours. The -- The U.S. dollar was long legal tender and still is used alongside the Liberian dollar today.

But our ties greatly exceed the historical connection. I stand before you today, as the first woman elected to lead an African nation, thanks to the grace of Almighty God; thanks to the courage of the Liberian people, who chose their future over fear; thanks to the people of West Africa and of Africa generally, who continued to give hope to my people; thanks also to President [W.] Bush whose strong resolve and public condemnation and appropriate action forced a tyrant into exile; and thanks to you, the members of this august body, who spurred the international effort that brought blessed peace to our nation.

It was the leadership of the 108th Congress, more than two years ago, that paved the way for a United Nations force that secured our peace and guaranteed free and fair elections. It was your 445 million dollars addition to a supplemental appropriation that attracted additional commitments from international donors. With those funds, we have laid the foundation for a durable peace, not only in Liberia, but in the whole West African sub-region.

Special appreciation goes to the 109th Congress, those of you in this room, for the effort in recent weeks to meet Liberia's development needs.

Honorable ladies and gentlemen of this Congress, I want to thank you. The Liberian people have sent me here to thank you. Thank you for your vision. Our triumph over evil is also your triumph.

Our special relationship with the United States brought us benefits long before the autumn of 2003. Thousands of our people, including myself, have been educated in American missionary schools and gone on to higher training in this country. You have generously welcomed tens of thousands of our people as they fled war and persecution. I was among them. In 1985, after challenging the military's regime failure to register my political party, I was put in jail with several university students who also challenged the military rule. This House came to our rescue with a resolution threatening to cut aid off to the country unless all political prisoners were freed.

Months later, I was put in jail again, this time in a cell with 15 men. All of them were executed a few hours later. Only the intervention of a single soldier spared me from rape. Through the grace of Almighty God and the mercy of others, I escaped and found refuge here, in Washington, D.C.

But long before that, our country and I benefited from Liberia's special relationship with the United States. My family exemplifies the economic and social divide that has torn our nation. Unlike many privileged Liberians, I can claim no American lineage. Three of my grandparents were indigenous Liberians; the fourth was a German who married a rural market woman. That grandfather was forced to leave the country when Liberia, in loyalty to the United States, declared war on Germany in 1914.

Both of my grandmothers were farmers and village traders. They could not read or write any language, as more than three-quarters of our people still [cannot] today. But they worked hard. They loved their country. They loved their famil[ies]. And they believed in education. They inspired me then, and their memory motivates me to serve my people, to sacrifice for the world and honestly serve humanity. I could not, I will not, I cannot betray their trust.²

My parents were sent at a young age to Monrovia, where it was common for elite families to take in children from the countryside to perform domestic chores. They endured humiliation and indignities. But my mother was fortunate to be adopted by a kind woman, and both of my parents were able, through the system, to go to school, a rarity at that time for poor people. My father even became the first native Liberian in the Liberian National Legislature.

I was not born with the expectation of a University education from Harvard or being a World Bank officer or an Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations. When I was a small girl in the countryside, swimming and fishing with twine made from palm trees, no one would have picked me out as the future President of our country. I graduated from the College of West Africa, a United Methodist high school. I waited tables to support my studies in the United States -- college in Wisconsin and graduate school in Massachusetts. I went on to enjoy the benefits and advantages of a world-class education. So my feet are in two worlds -- the world of poor rural women with no respite from hardship, and the world of accomplished Liberian professionals, for whom the United States is a second and beloved home. I draw strength from both.

But most of our people have not been as fortunate as I was. Always poor and underdeveloped, Liberia is only now emerging from two decades of turmoil that destroyed everything we managed to build in a century and a half of independence. The cost of our conflict run[s] wide and deep, manifested in varied ways -- mismanagement, corruption, bad governance, massive looting of public treasury and assets. Unlike the Tsunami in Asia and [Hurricane] Katrina here in your own country, where the destruction and human casualt[ies] were caused by nature, we participated in, or stood silently by, in our own self destruction. Our country agonized with your citizens and victims and families of these natural tragedies; and our country also agonized with itself over the effects of a senseless Civil War.

In the campaign months, I traveled to every corner of our country. I trudged through mud in high boots, where roads did not exist or had a -- or had deteriorated past repair. I surveyed ruined hospitals and collapsed clinics. I held meetings by candlelight, because there [was] no electricity anywhere, including the capital, except from private generators. I was forced to drink water from creeks and unsanitized wells, all of which made me vulnerable to the diseases from which so many of our people die daily.

I came face to face with the human devastation of war, which killed a quarter of a million of our three million people and displaced most of the rest. Hundreds of thousands escaped across borders. More could not -- fled into the bush, constantly running from one militia or another, often surviving by eating rodents and wild plants that made them sick and even killed them.

Our precious children died of malaria, parasites, and malnourishments. Our boys, full of potential, were forced to be child soldiers, to kill or be killed. Our girls, capable of being anything they could imagine, were made into sex slaves, gang-raped by men with guns, made mothers while they still were children themselves.

But listening to the hopes and dreams of our people, I recall the words of a Mozambican poet who said, "Our dream has the size of freedom."³ My people, like your people, believe deeply in freedom and, in their dreams, they reach for the heavens. I represent those dreams. I represent their hope and their aspirations. I ran for President because I am determined to see good governance in Liberia in my lifetime.

But I also ran because I am the mother of four, and I wanted to see our children smile again. Already, I am seeing those smiles. For even after everything they have endured, the people of Liberia have faith in new beginnings. They are counting on me and my Administration to create the conditions that will guarantee the realization of their dreams.