Liberia’s Sirleaf: the burden of leadership

By ralph geeplay

The Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been busy touring Europe: getting awards, giving speeches and receiving investors. For a Liberian president, Sirleaf clout in the international community is unmatched. On her most important trip days ago she stopped in Paris, France to receive France highest award, the Grand Croix of the Légion d’Honneur, commissioned by Napoleon in 1802 putting her in the company of the select few: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Queen Elizabeth II, Aung San Suu Kyi, Toni Morrison and Lord Mountbatten, Etc.

Why the Murder of Five American Nuns Will Go Unavenged

Statue erected in memory of the nuns

Introduction: Liberia still remains a sore eye, half a decade after its war ended, as far as bringing war criminals to justice. Those responsible for the war and the foot soldiers who committed gruesome crimes still roam the country.  This week Time Magazine's Johnny Dwyer wrote about the five catholic nuns who were murder by Charles Taylor and his soldiers, during the infamous "Operation Octopus," in 1992.

The five women were from small town America but chose to live in the midst of one of West Africa’s most brutal civil wars. Each belonged to the Adorer’s of the Blood of Christ, a St. Louis-based Catholic order; each had volunteered to live in Liberia, not only as missionaries, but as desperately needed relief workers.