Word: johnsonized
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Liberia is far from out of the woods. Violent crime is rising. Johnson Sirleaf admits to "a capacity problem" in the professional classes, including government. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, so effective in postapartheid South Africa, has seen little of either in Liberia. Property rights remain confused. Concessions granted under Taylor amounted to almost three times Liberia's total forest area. (See pictures of Johnson Sirleaf...
...found their way into the hands of legislators responsible for approving mining deals. Last year, according to witnesses, a senior Liberian official greeted a delegation of foreign funders at his office apparently drunk and demanded one delegate sit properly or "get your ass out of here." The same month Johnson Sirleaf admitted she was "hurt ... deeply wounded" by the "very embarrassing" publication of e-mails from her former assistant Willis Knuckles, detailing his apparent soliciting of hefty bribes from foreign companies. (Knuckles, now under investigation by a new anticorruption commission, claimed someone hacked into his Yahoo account and sent...
...embassy in Monrovia found it had to pay Banks' company $5,000 for its 20 copies, says one Western diplomat; in theory, Liberian courts must do the same. The U.N. panel believes the firm's "grounds for claiming copyright are questionable and ethically dubious." Little wonder that Johnson Sirleaf struggles. "The President's default position is to do the right thing," says the diplomat. "When she makes the wrong decision - and it does happen - it is because the local political pressure is overwhelming...
...course Johnson Sirleaf cannot deliver the development she has promised until she has the institutions to do so. She could forego checks and balances, allow business as usual and relieve pressure from former warlords. But, says former chairman of the U.N. experts panel, Art Blundell, "we know where that kind of business as usual leads. Among countries recovering from conflict, more than half slip back into it within a decade. Why? The bad guys get the resources...
Rebuilding institutions takes time and many Liberians are frustrated as Johnson Sirleaf tries to get the state working. But they know she stands for better times. "Before, the only work was fighting," says BRE nursery manager Hill. "Now there's a new vision for our people. The idea of a gun is being replaced by the idea of a job." There in a sentence is the new hope for Liberia, and all Africa...