Presentation of the President of Liberia
Her Excellency Ellen Eugenia Johnson
University
for Peace, September 30, 2013
Dr. Juan Carlos Sainz Borgo
Dean for
Academic Affairs, University for Peace
Her Excellency Ellen Eugenia Johnson
Dr. Francisco Rojas Aravena, Rector
Guest of Honours, ambassadors, faculty, staff and
students,
It is a pleasure
and honour to welcome Her Excellency to the University for Peace here in Costa
Rica.
The Rector,
faculty, administrative staff, gardeners and students welcome you all.
Costa Rica and
Liberia share many elements. Not only
the obvious as it is a tropical location or even the small size of both
countries, the similarities between the coat of arms of both countries, where
you can see the XIX century ships sailing in the quest for freedom.
The struggle for a
peaceful and inclusive society is represented by the commitment of this small Central
American country hosting a United Nations institute to promote peace through
education called University for Peace.
As Her Excellency stated
on the acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, “My journey was supported by my many teachers and
mentors who guided me to a world opened up by the enlightenment of higher education,
and which led to my conviction that access to quality education is the social
justice issue of our time.”
This is what we try to do here every day, prepare
future generations of students from all over the world with courses in peace
and conflict studies, human rights, gender and sustainable development, turning
education in the key to the access of the knowledge for the construction of a
better future.
What we are doing today is to honour a life dedicated
to promote peace, justice and democratic rule.
Ellen Eugenia Johnson was born in Monrovia on October 29, 1938, she is
the granddaughter of a traditional chief of renown in western Liberia and a
market woman from the southeast. She grew up in Liberia and attended high
school at the College of West Africa in Monrovia, subsequently studying at
Madison (Wisconsin) Business College, the University of Colorado and Harvard
University’s Kennedy School of Government where she obtained a Master’s Degree
in Public Administration in 1971.
Her entry into politics came in 1972 when she delivered her famous
commencement address to her high school alma mater in which she sharply
criticized the government, showing her determination to speak truth unto power.
This was the start of a distinguished professional and political career that
has brought us here today.
Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf joined the then Treasury Department in 1965, rising
to the position of Minister of Finance in 1979 where she introduced measures to
curb the mismanagement of government finances. After the 1980 military coup
d’état, she served as President of the Liberian Bank for Development and
Investment (LBDI) but fled her country and the increasingly suppressive
military government that same year. She traveled to Kenya and served as Vice President
of Citicorp’s Africa Regional Office in Nairobi, and later moved to Washington,
D.C., to assume the position of Senior Loan Officer at the World Bank, and then
as Vice President for Equator Bank. In 1992 she joined the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) as Assistant Administrator and Director of its
Regional Bureau of Africa with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General of the
United Nations.
A Long exile was not an option for her. She resigned her UN post in 1997
to return home and contest the presidential election, and was ranked second in
votes to opponent Charles Taylor. She went into self-imposed exile, this time
to Côte d'Ivoire where she kept a close eye on Liberian politics. During that
time she established, in Abidjan, the Kormah Development and Investment
Corporation, a venture capital vehicle for African entrepreneurs; and NGO for
community development.
In her efforts to
bring justice to her people in Liberia, she has spent more than a year in jail
at the hands of the military dictatorship of General Samuel Doe and had her
life threatened by former President Charles Taylor. She campaigned relentlessly
for Taylor's removal from office and played an active and supportive role in
the Transitional Government of Liberia as the country prepared for elections in
October of 2005.
She was selected to serve as Chairperson of the
Governance Reform Commission, where she led the country’s anti-corruption
reform by changing the reporting mechanism of the General Auditing Commission
from the Executive to the Legislature, thereby strengthening and reinforcing
its independence. She resigned this position to successfully contest the 2005
presidential election, resulting in her historic inauguration, on January 16,
2006, as Liberia’s first female President
Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf is the recipient of other prized awards. So far,
she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, the National Medical Association of
the United States Lifetime Humanitarian Award for Healthcare; the Year of Pan
Africanism and African Renaissance African Union Award; the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Peace Medal FAO’s CERES Medal (2008); International Women’s Leadership
Award (2008); National Reconciliation Award (2006); International Woman of the
Year (2006); and the International Republican Institute Freedom Award (2006).
Mrs. Sirleaf has been awarded honorary doctorates by over 17
institutions, among them: Tilburg University in the Netherlands; the Nigerian
Defence Academy; the University of Massachusetts Medical School; Harvard
University; Rutgers University; Yale University; Georgetown University; the
University of Abeokuta, Nigeria; the University of Minnesota; Furman University
of South Carolina; Brown University; Indiana University; Dartmouth College;
Concordia University; Langston University; Spelman College; and Marquette
University.
Mercedes Sosa, one
of the greatest singers of Latin America, years ago, wrote a song about
honouring people. She said that we should not honour someone because is alive,
we should honour that person because that person stood above and beyond losses
and criticism.
Your Excellency,
we are here honouring your career, your commitment, your leadership, your voice
to denounce the injustice and your courage to fight for peace.
So I do not want
to steel your time here, because you are the person that we are here to listen.
Welcome again to
the University for Peace. The floor is yours.
Comentarios