Calling for Peace, Bryant Is Sworn In as Liberian President
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: October 14, 2003
ONROVIA, Liberia, Oct. 14 — Charles Gyude Bryant, until recently a little-known entrepreneur, was sworn in today as the head of a power-sharing provisional government that is intended to unite Liberia's warring factions and help bring peace to a country torn by 14 years of sporadic warfare.
Mr. Bryant, who will serve as chairman of the National Transitional Government of Liberia until elections are held in 2005, promised to root out corruption, sweep away the culture of guns and lower the price of food and fuel.
"Ours is therefore a rescue mission," he said in a nearly hourlong inauguration speech in the state assembly hall. "To take our country back from the brink of self-destruction; to take our country back from the trenches of despair and hopelessness; to redirect our nation and redeem the pledge of our forebears; to establish justice to ensure domestic peace and promote the common good."
In the speech, his first address to the nation, Mr. Bryant took pains both to promise development for Liberians and to assure the international community — particularly the United Nations, which still maintains sanctions against Liberia — that he would introduce transparency in government and respect human rights.
"Our approach to national reconciliation should be simple," he said. "Liberians will be urged to forgive one another, to be reconciled with one another and to join others in the search for closer national affinity."
Mr. Bryant was picked as chairman of the interim government on Aug. 21 during peace talks in Ghana. His appointment followed the most recent round of bitter fighting, which ended on Aug. 11 when former President Charles G. Taylor ceded power to his longtime ally and vice president, Moses Z. Blah. Mr. Taylor is currently in exile in southeastern Nigeria.
Mr. Taylor's departure had been hastened by mounting international political pressure, an economic embargo and two separate rebel movements, supported by neighboring Guinea and Ivory Coast. Successive wars have destroyed Liberia, a lush West African nation founded by Americans 150 years ago where 85 percent of the population is now unemployed and two-thirds of the population have been displaced from their homes.
Rebel offensives to oust Mr. Taylor brought the capital to its knees. Between June and August, a series of attacks by insurgents killed hundreds, maimed untold numbers and prompted Liberians and others to plead for American military intervention.
The Bush administration ultimately positioned three American warships off the Liberian coast and sent in a few hundred troops in mid-August to help with a buildup of a West African peacekeeping force. About 4,000 of the 15,000 peacekeepers that have been promised are on the ground now.
Mr. Bryant promises a different style of administration than Mr. Taylor. He arrived here from Accra on Monday dressed in a nondescript olive-colored suit, displaying none of the dramatic flair for which Mr. Taylor was famous. When he stepped off the plane, Mr. Bryant did not even wave to the throngs waiting on the hot tarmac for hours. Encircled by bodyguards, he was escorted through a phalanx of well-wishers and given a live chicken as a traditional Liberian gesture of welcome.
"Where are we going?" a visibly overwhelmed Mr. Bryant asked of his handlers before he was whisked off in a convoy to a prayer service at Trinity Cathedral, an Episcopalian church in the heart of bullet-pocked downtown Monrovia.
Thousands of Liberians lined the streets to welcome Mr. Bryant's convoy into downtown Monrovia, cheering and shouting as they have every time they have been offered a glimmer of hope — from the arrival of a handful of American soldiers on a humanitarian assessment mission in July to the arrival of the first Nigerian peacekeepers in August to, finally, the coming of a United Nations mission this month.
Waving banners and white handkerchiefs, they chanted, "Eh, papi, we like you, eh papi," using an honorific that not long ago referred to Mr. Taylor.
One man, who had cast out his son for having joined Mr. Taylor's militia groups, said he hoped Mr. Bryant would not cave in to the demands of those who had ruined his country but usher in a new age altogether when he took over today.
Standing outside the airport gates, Esther K. Sanor said she looked forward to her country's returning to its prewar past. "We are hoping we will be as normal as we were," she said. "Whatsoever happened, let it be gone. Let us reconcile." |
