Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War a Memoir by Leymah Gbowee

Author:Leymah Gbowee
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780984295142
Publisher: Beast Books
Published: 2011-01-01T04:36:09+00:00

CHAPTER 13

STANDING UP TO CHARLES TAYLOR AND SITTING DOWN FOR PEACE

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS were scheduled to take place in Liberia in 2003, but with Taylor under attack from LURD and MODEL, it seemed unlikely they would. International pressure for a truce increased, especially from the United States. Members of eighteen political parties met with the Interreligious Council of Liberia and signed a resolution calling on the government and LURD to meet and declare a cease-fire. With the support of the International Contact Group on Liberia and ECOWAS, the Interreligious Council was also trying to find a place where peace talks would be held—Accra or Dakar, Senegal.

Taylor wouldn’t hear of it. The rebels were terrorists and he wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists. We were a sovereign nation and he wouldn’t tolerate international troops on our soil. He headed a democratically elected government and wouldn’t leave office. His refusals gave the LURD leadership their own excuse for not negotiating. They would accept nothing less than Taylor’s ouster. Meanwhile, the suffering grew. By now, 360,000 people had been driven from their homes and were living in the foul tents of twelve camps in five counties, and scattered across five foreign countries. And the fighting went on, growing closer and closer to the capital.

April 1, 2003, was my first day without a paying job. I was home alone worrying about raising money for WIPNET. My malaria had flared up and I felt feverish and awful. Asatu phoned. Fighting had broken out near the Po River, less than ten miles from Monrovia. “We need to come together,” she said urgently. “Can we all meet tomorrow?”

Word went out and when we arrived at the WIPNET office the next day, everyone was there, distraught and emotional: Asatu, Cerue, Vaiba, Grace, Janet, Mariama. Sugars was in a meeting in another room, but we pulled her in to join us. Ideas poured out. “We need to step up! Let’s get on the streets and pressurize the government! Who’s got markers? Posters?”

There were too many of us for the small space and we spilled into a vacant apartment across the hall. Mariama had just returned from the United States, where she said that exiled Liberians had cornered her, demanding, “What are the women doing?”

“We need to think about this!” she said. “All eyes are on us, because the men have failed!”

“Let’s make a public statement,” Asatu suggested.

We wrote one, condemning violence committed by all sides and making a single demand: “The women of Liberia want peace now!” We affixed all our names. How were we to get the message out when Taylor controlled the airwaves? Asatu knew the editor of the Enquirer, a local paper. Janet operated Radio Veritas, which was under the control of the Catholic church. The next morning, our statement was an Enquirer cover story. And in a crumbling nation where few had phones and everyone listened to the radio, much of Monrovia heard our statement, along with an invitation to future WIPNET meetings.

Suddenly, we were the center of attention.

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