[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 38 (Thursday, March 30, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E479-E480]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         AFRICA'S LEADING LADY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 30, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend Ellen Johnson-
Sirleaf, the first elected female president of Liberia, for her 
straight-forward opinion that addresses jurisdictional control for 
prosecutorial legal action against Charles Taylor, the accused butcher 
and mutilator of thousands of Africans during one of the deadliest and 
bloodiest regimes of modern day Liberia and four other African states.
  I enter into the Record an article from the New York Daily News 
entitled ``Africa's Leading Lady'' which reveals that African women are 
coming to the fore, trying to right all of the wrongs put and held in 
place by a succession of brutal and corrupt African men. Emphasis is 
placed on the atrocities carried out by Taylor and his followers and 
mentions how Taylor's greed has ``casually'' reduced Liberia to a 
pauper state.
  I personally believe that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, also known as the 
``Iron Lady'' for her determination and tenacity, is the very best 
person to lead Liberia from its dark, tormented past into a bright and 
productive future.

             [From the New York Daily News, Mar. 30, 2006]

   Africa's Leading Lady: President's Gutsy Move vs. Warlord Teaches 
                            Valuable Lesson

                          (By Stanley Crouch)

       When Charles Taylor, the ex-Liberian thug president, was 
     arrested in Nigeria trying to escape the clutches of 
     international law, he was in a car with 110-pound bags of 
     embezzled money. Well, he was not traveling light.
       Taylor had risen to power after seven years of civil war, 
     had won an election with 75% of the vote and had casually 
     reduced his country to a pauper state. He is accused of 
     starting conflicts in four other African states and 
     encouraging the chopping off of hands, feet, lips and 
     noses in Sierra Leone so that the terrified population 
     would not hinder the sale of stolen diamonds.
       Taylor is one of those African butchers who could have 
     modeled himself on King Leopold II, the 19th-century Belgian 
     king. Leopold's colonial policies in the Congo resulted in 
     countless slaughters and many mutilations in the interest of 
     producing a profitable rubber crop.
       Leopold became a pariah among European courts, but 
     naturally black-faced variations in Africa have wielded iron-
     fisted power without compunction, worrying only about being 
     overthrown by some ambitious fellow monster in the military. 
     If given the time, these monsters have fled to another 
     African country, or to the Arab states, or even to the French 
     Riviera, where they have been able to cool out and impress 
     everyone with their pilfered riches.
       As the Taylor case has proven, that trend in African 
     politics may be coming to a screeching halt. Ellen Johnson-
     Sirleaf, the first elected female president in all of Africa, 
     had requested that Nigeria hand over Taylor to the 
     authorities in Sierra Leone, where he would have to face 
     charges of individual butchery, mutilation and crimes against 
     humanity.
       African women are coming to the fore, trying to right all 
     of the wrongs put and held in place by a succession of brutal 
     and corrupt African men. African justice has been as porous 
     as Swiss cheese for more than 40 years and the African people 
     have suffered enormously while black Americans in or out of 
     elected office, in or out of the civil rights establishment, 
     have either ignored the horrors wrought upon the people or 
     have figured out ways to blame it all on others.
       The women of Africa are more interested in dealing with the 
     facts than maintaining a cosmetic front of innocence. In a 
     number of places across Africa, we see women rooting out 
     corruption and conceiving laws that will bring them closer to 
     a standard of human equality.

[[Page E480]]

       Interestingly, Oprah Winfrey, who keeps turning up, has 
     been a model. Winfrey has inspired African women to rebel 
     against rape and kidnap, to defy misogynistic laws and to 
     face up to the ravages of AIDS.
       It is both sobering and exciting to realize that American 
     women, having been taught much by the civil rights movement, 
     can inspire African women by example, and that elected or 
     appointed African officials can lead the way through the 
     ingrained ignorance, poverty and disease that block human 
     fulfillment. Such human force explains the mystery of African 
     optimism.

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