Liberia: U.S. Troops Not in Liberia to Remove Sirleaf's Govt - Envoy

Anyone harboring or encouraging suggestions that the U.S. military is in Liberia on a mission to facilitate the overthrow of the democratically-elected government headed by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf should forget about it, according to U.S. Ambassador to Liberia, Deborah Malac. The U.S. envoy has made it emphatically clear at a news conference Monday that U.S. troops are in the country strictly to help Liberia battle the deadly and menacing Ebola outbreak and nothing more.

Said Ambassador Malac: "I hope you will help us get the message out about what the role of the US military forces who are coming to Liberia actually is. Let me be very, very clear and it should be subject to no questioning or doubt. They are here to provide additional heft to the efforts that is already ongoing to fight Ebola (period)!

They're not here as a show of force; they're not here to push against or change the government. I want to be very, very clear; everybody laughs and thinks that we're not serious, but I know that conversation is going on out there and I want to be clear. They're here to help us fight Ebola."

'Absolutely Not True'

Added Ambassador Malac: "They bring additional logistic capacity. They bring greater heft and energy and ability to get things done; particularly when you have these infrastructure constraints and other things. They can move things around. I don't want to see anywhere in any newspaper or hear on any radio station that the US military has come in because the US government has a secret plot to overthrow the government here in Liberia; that is absolutely not true. "

President Sirleaf is being represented at the General Assembly by Foreign Minister Augustine Ngafuan. The clarification from the Ambassador lays to rest heightening speculations which have been in the air for months that the troops from America came to the Ebola-hit nations with an ulterior motive. U.S. President Barack Obama on Sept. 16, ordered 3,000 U.S. Soldiers in West Africa. In a speech at the United Nations last week, Mr. Obama criticized the international response thus far and said other donors--governments and organizations--need to step up quickly with aid.

"Right now, everybody has the best of intentions, but people are not putting in the kinds of resources that are necessary to put a stop to this epidemic," he said. More nations urgently need to contribute goods and services like health care workers, equipment and air transport, he said.

The U.S. response was preceded by a September 9, 2014 letter sent to President Obama by President Sirleaf in which the Liberian leader implored Obama for help in managing Liberia's Ebola crisis, cautioning that without American assistance the disease could send Liberia into the civil chaos that enveloped the country for two decades.

President Sirleaf wrote: "I am being honest with you when I say that at this rate, we will never break the transmission chain and the virus will overwhelm us." The President also requested 1,500 additional beds in new hospitals across the country and urged that the United States military sets up and run a 100-bed Ebola hospital in the besieged capital, Monrovia.

President Sirleaf went to great lengths to lament that her administration risks losing the gains made in a still-fragile environment as the outbreak threatens to reverse progress made by her government. "Without more direct help from your government, we will lose this battle against Ebola. A WHO investigation conducted with other partners and our own Ministry of Health and Social Welfare projects thousands of cases over the next three weeks."

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