‘Together We Can Reclaim Our Proud Legacy’ -UN Permanent Representative-Designate Raps Senate Committee

MONROVIA –  No doubt, Liberia has had a checkered history which evident by its miserable place in the Human Development Index, measuredly conveyed by the valley of socioeconomic and political degradation the people find themselves. Africa’s oldest republic, but progress still stymied. But is that all? Are we doomed? Anything to be proud of? Yes, a big yes; courtesy of Lewis G. Brown, Liberia’s Permanent Representative-Designate to the United Nations who leafed through Liberia’s “Golden Days”—its place in the comity of nations yesteryears—with a call to embrace and adore that legacy as a nation and people. As The Analyst reports, Brown made the rather hypnotizing comments when he appeared before the Foreign Services Committee of the Senate on Wednesday of the week.     

Ambassador Lewis G. Brown, recently nominated by President Joseph Nyuma Boakai to serve as Liberia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, is calling on Liberians to reclaim the country’s proud legacy. He said it is a call to responsibly answer and a moment to dutifully meet as a people.

Speaking before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs Wednesday, November 20, 2024, Brown posited that Liberia’s “place of leadership around the family table of the world is ours to reclaim. My faith is that together, we will reclaim this proud legacy of our country.”

“We will responsibly answer the call, and dutifully meet the moment. With this faith, I know that Liberians of all stripes and persuasions – at home or around the world – will be proud of who we are, and how highly-regarded we are capable of becoming for the added value our country has been destined to bring to the world,” he said.

The Liberian diplomat encouraged Liberians to believe that the “astuteness of our diplomacy has never been measured by the size of our country, the population of our people, or what we may lack in our development. Being respectfully counted in global affairs is where Liberia has historically been, and where we truly belong. I know that under the direction of the President, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and with your help, back in the forefront of leadership in global diplomacy is exactly where Liberia, the country of masterful international diplomacy, will be returned.”

Ambassador Brown used his appearance before the Senate Committee to reflect on Liberia’s respectable roles in the formation of multiple iconic global institutions of peace and development, including the United Nations, Organization of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) amongst others. 

He said: “While we have based our foreign policy on the ideology of liberalism, democracy and capitalism, and have used principles of maintaining our national security and preserving the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country, including the promotion of international peace and harmony through non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, as the guide to achieving our foreign policy objectives, Liberia has earned global respect for its foreign policy positions and its mastery of international diplomacy.”

Brown noted it is this mastery and farsightedness in our approach to international diplomacy that saw Liberia joining two other African nations (Egypt and Ethiopia), and 47 other nations of the world, on 26th June, 1945 (Poland joined on 15th October of the same year to increase the founding members to 51), to establish the United Nations, at the San Francisco Conference, at which time the UN Charter and Statute of the ICJ came to be adopted.

He recalled how in July of 1959, in Sanniquellie, Nimba County, a meeting between Presidents Tubman of Liberia, Ahmed Sekou Touré of Guinea, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana proved instrumental in the formation of the Organization of African Unity.

“Before this, in 1961, Liberia co-sponsored a conference with Nigeria and Sierra Leone, to promote cooperation between African States, which was attended by the Casablanca Bloc, paving the way further for the 1963 formation of the OAU in Addis Ababa,” he said, adding that Liberia was also a leader in the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), beginning in 1964, when President Tubman proposed the economic union for West Africa that was signed in 1965 by Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The Liberian ambassador intimidated that he was recounting those developments because “it is to make the point that just as our Declaration of Independence inspired the search for freedom on the Dark Continent and beyond, Liberia’s involvement in world affairs stand our country out as a leader in international diplomacy.

“Liberia has meaningfully contributed to improving our subregion, enlightening our continent, and reshaping our world through diplomacy.”

He added: “From being unafraid to lead in the breaking of new grounds after two world wars to shepherding the way toward the regionalization of economic development; from seeking the freedom and unity of all peoples, especially across our continent, to providing for a more peaceful and just world; and from casting the tie-breaking vote in 1948 to support the creation of the State of Israel to giving the world its first African woman President of the United Nations General Assembly and second woman to head that body; past foreign policy leaders of our country have positioned Liberia for respect and reverence in the determination of global affairs.”

Brown noted that the duty is “now ours to pick up the baton and run ahead, working together to write the next great chapter in the history of Liberia’s mastery of international diplomacy to make our world a better place”.

“Comparatively small we may be, and grappling with underdevelopment as we continue to do, Liberia has never been a spectator to global developments,” he emphasized, indicating that “we have led and participated from the front. Many nations of the world, both big and small, have looked and referred to us for guidance and leadership in the determination of regional, continental and world affairs.”

“This, too, is the history of our country,” he told the Senate Committee. “Led by the President as Chief Architect of our foreign policy, and reliably aided and supported by all of you, the leaders of our country today; this, too, is our responsibility – the legacy we are being summoned to equal – in repositioning our country into global leadership in the affairs of the world. We must not let ourselves be found to be unready or unable.”