REMARKS BY PRESIDENT ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF OF LIBERIA TO THE U.S. SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS HEARING. Wednesday, December 10, 2014 Thank you so much Chairman Coons Chairman Coons, Ranking Member Flake, Distinguished Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, Friends of Liberia, Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to offer remarks at this hearing. I would like to start by extending warm greetings and profound gratitude of the people and government of Liberia to the American people, the US Government, the many American institutions, and faith based organizations for the leadership your country has taken by joining us on the frontline of this battle to turn the tide against this unknown disease that has threatened our very way of life. My colleagues from Guinea and Sierra Leone, also victims of this disease, join me in these sentiments. Allow me to recognize also the extraordinary work of US Ambassador Deborah Malac and the Embassy team. Chairman Coons and Ranking Member Flake, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for the personal commitment demonstrated by you and other members of Congress through your numerous phone calls and messages of support. We express appreciation to President Obama for the bold steps, including the work of Tom Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control, and Rajiv Shah, the Administrator of USAID in coming to our aid. It was the US that awakened the world to the scope and magnitude of the Ebola disease’s virulent spread in West Africa; that took the extraordinary step to deploy the US military to help Liberia. It was the leadership of the Obama Administration supported by Congress that opened the space for the disease to stabilize in Liberia and encouraged the rest of the world to respond to this global crisis. It is a demonstration of leadership as important as the role to combat terrorism and other ills around the world. We applaud the construction of Treatment Units by the DoD and the establishment of the field hospital to treat health care personnel as a significant and timely response to our predicament. Today, our Armed Forces which worked with the DoD can boast of the capability to construct treatment units and other similar type of facilities. The treatment units send a powerful message to our people that Ebola is real that it requires an overpowering response and that the people of the United States stand by us. The units serve us well by ensuring that we can respond to continuing hotspots and possible recurrence. The fact that they are not full is a strong sign of their success and shows that by working together with overwhelming force we have begun to push back on this killer disease.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 04:36:16 +0000
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