It's always good to see a deserving person win the Nobel Peace Prize, particularly someone you have worked with.
I was the fly on the wall, or to put it in a more refined way, I was the conference secretary (small s) seated by the wall, assigned in Geneva to the Liberia peace talks, which brought warring factions to the conference table in the Council Chamber of the Palais des Nations in the summer of 1993.
I worked for Trevor Gordon-Somers, an impressive man who had spearheaded the effort. It had been no mean task to get an array of factions, some of them very violent, to sit down in what felt like a War Chamber. A positive outcome was not a given.
It was extremely intense and tense over those two days. In the support offices of the 'secretariat' Gordon-Somers welcomed negotiators to draft their statements there. He retained his calm and perspective. There was one other secretary who was brought over from Monrovia, the fastest typist I'd ever met.
The final night of the negotiations was incredible. Gordon-Somers requested that I stay on through the entire night, having worked the entire previous day. I stayed, and it was a long haul of drafting the final statement, an agreement that hopefully all could sign off on. Endless hours of discussion, editing, sitting around, more discussion, more editing, more drafting.
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf steered them through this painful, laborious task, not letting up. When it looked like they couldn't get through it, she continued until the final statement was done.
At all times dignified and steady, with all the hallmarks of a leader. Most impressive.
Present were:
Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL)
National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)
United Liberation Movement(s) of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMOs K and J)
L'ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Cease-fire Monitoring Group,
Among the observers:
UN United Nations
OAU Organization of African Unity
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
See also http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/liberia/profiles.php
A brief summary of the meeting:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-07-18/news/9307180511_1_liberia-peace-package-end-the-war
