MONROVIA, Liberia – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday offered high-profile support for Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first democratically elected female leader.
Torrential rain met Clinton as she arrived in the capital Monrovia, where hundreds of drenched people lined the streets to welcome her, waving American and Liberian flags and holding banners, some of which proclaimed that she was a "woman of substance for Liberia."
Clinton was presented with the key to the city and went immediately into talks with Sirleaf and other top officials and lawmakers to reaffirm U.S. backing for the recovery of the country that was embroiled in back-to-back civil wars from 1989 to 2003.
Her visit is also aimed at offering personal support for Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist and former finance minister, who has been publicly sanctioned for her past financial support of one of the country's rebel groups.
Liberia's truth and reconciliation commission has also recommended barring Sirleaf and 50 other high-profile figures from public office for three decades for such support.
Sirleaf, 70, acknowledged before the commission in February that she gave up to $10,000 to a rebel group headed by Charles Taylor, viewed by many as the chief architect of Liberia's conflict. Taylor is now on trial for war crimes committed in neighboring Sierra Leone.
Sirleaf, who was elected in 2005, has apologized and said the money she sent while an expatriate was meant for humanitarian services and that she was never a member of his group.
Liberia's wars killed an estimated 250,000 and displaced millions. Liberia's postwar government set up the truth commission, modeled on the one in post-apartheid South Africa, inviting both victims and perpetrators to retell their version of events.
If the legislature approves the commission's recommendations and they become law before the 2011 presidential poll, it would block Sirleaf's chance at a second term.
Liberia has historically close ties with the United States. It was founded in 1847 by freed American slaves.
Clinton is here on the sixth leg of a seven-nation tour of Africa aimed at promoting democracy and development.
