Thursday, September 27, 2012

Liberia has ‘turned the corner’ towards lasting peace says President Sirleaf....

President Sirleaf addressing the U.N General Assembly.

Ten years after the end of Liberia’s brutal civil war, the country has made tremendous progress on the path to lasting peace and stability, President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, told the United Nations General Assembly today, while adding that serious challenges remain.
“As Liberia moves toward its tenth year of sustained peace, we can state with conviction that our country has turned the corner,” President Sirleaf said in her address to the Assembly’s high-level General Debate, which began at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
“Liberia is no longer a place of conflict, war and deprivation. We are no longer the country our citizens fled, our international partners pitied and our neighbors feared,” she added. President Sirleaf thanked the UN for being “a very committed and effective partner” with Liberia as it emerged from conflict and embarked on the path to peace, security and development. “We owe the Organization much gratitude for preserving an enabling environment for peacebuilding and state-building.”

 

The UN has maintained a peacekeeping force in Liberia since 2003 to bolster a ceasefire agreement ending a decade of war that killed nearly 150,000 people, mostly civilians. The mandate of the UN Mission in Liberia  includes helping to restore the rule of law and democratic processes, as well as facilitating humanitarian assistance.