Dressed in identical printed skirts, a hundred Liberian women knelt in prayer after another long day in three weeks of fasting, appealing once more that their country be spared of violence.<\/p>\n
Ahead of elections next Tuesday, women of all ages are gathering from dawn to sunset on a roadside close to the party headquarters of several presidential candidates.<\/p>\n
Their daily injunction for peace echoes the female activism that helped end Liberia\u2019s civil wars, which ran back-to-back from 1989 to 2003.<\/p>\n
The success of their non-violent protests propelled the bloodied West African state into the world headlines and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for one of its leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe led the process in 2002 and 2003 for the Liberian women\u2019s mass action for peace. We are still assisting in maintaining this peace that we have,\u201d Delphine Morris, national coordinator for the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor this electoral period, they thought it wise to come together again, to join their faiths and ensure that there be free and transparent elections,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
At their small encampment, the WIPNET women regularly break out into song, and on Wednesday were shooting a music video to raise awareness of their work, to the delight and bemusement of passing traffic.<\/p>\n
Twirling and sashaying, members sported T-shirts reading \u201cRemember our past\u201d and \u201cRape is a crime\u201d as convoys promoting the main candidates passed by, beeping their horns at full volume.<\/p>\n
\u2018We foresee violence\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cDuring the war we were praying and fasting and the war ended,\u201d recalls Jassah Ganyan, an elderly lady resting under the tarpaulin roof. \u201cWe don\u2019t want more war.\u201d<\/p>\n But many here believe the spectre of conflict still looms as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, also a co-winner of the 2011 Nobel, steps down after 12 years in power.<\/p>\n \u201cWe foresee electoral violence,\u201d said Morris, eyeing an armoured police vehicle passing by.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not strange to Liberia. In the 2011 election when the result was announced, we had violence break out a little, and one or two people died. We don\u2019t want it again.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2011 the losing candidate in a runoff with Sirleaf, Winston Tubman, had called on his supporters to boycott the second round of voting. Two people were shot dead outside his headquarters the day before the vote.<\/p>\n Morris worries that presidential candidates are stoking possible disputes by prematurely claiming victory in what is widely acknowledged as an open field this year.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the parties you talk to, they all say they must win and they feel they have already won,\u201d Morris said, describing a memorandum against violence they have asked all of Liberia\u2019s political parties to sign.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t win maybe this is not your time, maybe you have to do better work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dressed in identical printed skirts, a hundred Liberian women knelt in prayer after another long day in three weeks of fasting, appealing once more that their country be spared of violence. Ahead of elections next Tuesday, women of all ages are gathering from dawn to sunset on a roadside close to the party headquarters of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[596,597,598],"yoast_head":"\n