"Please remind the world that we are no longer at war," a high-ranking government official from Sierra Leone told an international ecumenical team visiting churches and ecumenical organisations in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2 to 8 November.
"The world still looks at us as if we were warlords", said Sierra Leone Minister of Trade and Industry Alimamy Koroma to the delegation, which visited the two West African countries in the context of the Living Letters initiative of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Both Liberia and Sierra Leone were devastated by civil wars in the 1990s. Liberia returned to peace and stability after the president and former warlord Charles Taylor was ousted in 2003. In neighbouring Sierra Leone, civil war officially ended in 2002.
"Living Letters" are small international ecumenical teams traveling to locations around the world where Christians strive to overcome violence. The team members, who are themselves involved in ecumenical activities and peace building in their home countries, express the solidarity of the WCC fellowship, which comprises 349 churches worldwide.
According to Koroma, the world has forgotten that these countries ended their wars some six years ago and after a shaky start now both have democratically elected governments. Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, elected in late 2005, is the first woman president in Africa.
The war-ravaged economies of both countries are struggling to revive but the current collapse of the world economy has created serious challenges with rising prices of food, fuel and other commodities. Moreover, Koroma said, they have been coerced into the world market and trading systems, which are inherently unjust, favouring the strong over the weak.
Sierra Leone and Liberia count among the ten poorest countries in the world, according to International Monetary Fund data on gross domestic products per capita.
