Liberia president’s ‘anti-Mugabe’ message earns Mandela applause

(SomaliNet) Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has said all Africans must speak out about injustices in places such as Zimbabwe.

The Liberian leader, delivering the sixth annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in Soweto South Africa at the weekend, was optimistic about Africa\'s future.

However, the Liberian President could not ignore current troubles, and it was her duty to \"express my solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe as they search for solutions to the crisis in their country\".

The remark earned applause from Mandela and a crowd of several hundred gathered in a community hall for the lecture.
Johnson-Sirleaf offered her Liberia as a cautionary example.

\"In 1985, Liberia held a sham election that was endorsed by Africa and the world,\" she said.
\"Years of civil war and devastation followed, with thousands dead and millions displaced. It need not have happened.\"

Johnson-Sirleaf was among the few voices at a recent African Union summit denouncing Robert Mugabe\'s June 27 presidential victory.

She also came out in support of a UN sanctions resolution proposed by the US.


Mandela, who addressed the crowd only briefly, called Johnson-Sirleaf \"an inspiring example to Africa and the world\".

He also joked that the annual lecture, in the past given by Nobel peace laureates Kofi Annan, Wangari Maathai and Desmond Tutu, as well as former US president Bill Clinton and President Thabo Mbeki, drew luminaries \"principally to see what an old man looks like\".

Johnson-Sirleaf titled her speech \"Behold the New Africa\", and said despite setbacks in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, she believed the continent was overcoming dictatorship and poverty.

She cited economic growth averaging five percent in recent years, the relief of the foreign debt burden many countries had faced and political change.

\"It is hard to predict the future and the change will not be easy or smooth in every country,\" she said.

\"But never before in world history have so many low-income countries become democracies in so short a period.\"

She put the burden for continued reform on Africans themselves, saying fighting corruption and mismanagement was key.

\"It is our firm conviction that Africa is not poor.

\"Rather, it has been poorly managed,\" she said.

\"Corruption, exploitation and the misuse of Africa\'s resources are central to the inability of African governments to respond to the need of the African people.\"

The modern community hall where Johnson-Sirleaf and Mandela spoke was built on the site where white and black South Africans gathered in 1955 and, before apartheid police broke up the meeting, adopted the Freedom Charter, pledging to fight for multiracial democracy.

Four decades later, post-apartheid South Africa borrowed the Freedom Charter\'s declaration that the country \"belongs to all who live in it\" for the preamble to its new constitution.

Johnson-Sirleaf called the Freedom Charter \"a bold development manifesto\", and said she and others across the continent intent on reform had been inspired by Mandela and other South Africans.

Turning to Mandela, she said: \"If someday I am remembered as one of the many dreamers who came in your wake, who, unable to fill your shoes, walked in your shadow to build a new Africa, then I can think of no better place to be in history.\"-Pretoria News