The announcement that Charles Gyude Bryant, described by friends and associates as a mild-mannered and politically obscure businessman, will lead the interim government of war-torn Liberia into a hoped-for democracy is being hailed by Episcopalians in this country.
“He is a pillar of the [Episcopal] Church, a man of integrity and a man of vision,” said the Rev. Theodora Brooks, rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in the Bronx, New York. “I’m sure he will have the support of people in Liberia,” said Brooks, who is Liberian and a member of the Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace and Justice Concerns. “People want a change so badly.”
The Rev. Burgess Carr, a brother of the new Liberian leader, said he plans to travel to Monrovia soon from his home in Stone Mountain, Georgia. “Everyone is happy; I’m getting telephone calls from the ends of the earth,” said Carr, who served in the 1980s and ’90s as Africa partnership officer and director of Episcopal Migration Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center in New York.
Gyude (pronounced “JOOD-eh”) Bryant, 54, is chairman of the board of trustees of the Episcopal Church in Liberia and a 1972 graduate in economics from the church’s Cuttington University College. Five years later, he founded the Liberia Machinery and Supply Company, a distributor of mining and port handling equipment, that he still heads.
Observers said his political neutrality helped to secure his appointment by the warring factions August 21 at the end of 78 days of peace talks in Accra, Ghana.
“I see myself as a healer,” Bryant told New York Times correspondent Tim Weiner. “I see myself as neutral. I side with no group.”
Carr said he was “half expecting” the appointment when he saw the list of the three candidates. “Guyde is a very careful and cautious person,” he said. “He is a man of deep faith. He is a fair person, not ostentatious; he is soft-spoken and knows his mind.”
Carr said his brother built a coalition of several disparate and diverse parties, took them to Ghana for the peace talks and held them together as a strong negotiating force against both the former government officials and armed rebels.
Monumental problems exist
Calling for a “cooling off period” to end a civil war that has destroyed the nation’s infrastructure and created a huge refugee problem, Bryant acknowledged that the government faced monumental problems. Among these are 450,000 displaced people living in Monrovia amid a crippling scarcity of food, water and medicine; an 85 percent unemployment rate; and thousands of still-armed combatants. As well, the World Health Organization warned on August 22 of rising cholera cases that could escalate into an epidemic.
Bryant is so unknown by U.S. officials that his biography at the embassy in Monrovia said only that he was chairman of the Liberian Action Party, a minor political group that was equally critical of former President Charles Taylor and the rebels.
Unlike many others, Bryant remained in the country, importing and operating heavy equipment, during all of the upheavals during the past 14 years. Now, much of his machinery lies in ruins from recent shelling at Monrovia’s seaport.
The interim government, headed by Bryant, will try to lead Liberia on the road to peace until elections in October 2005. Under the accord, the administration assumes control on October 14 from the former vice-president, who Taylor selected before going into exile to Nigeria.
Because allies of Taylor will hold half of the cabinet seats, Bryant may have a tough job getting the former enemies to work together for a more peaceful and prosperous future.
He said his priorities were to work with the United Nations to hold elections, to demobilize fighters, to establish and maintain order and to restore basic services, such as electricity.
The interim leader has the ability to work towards decision-making by consent, said Dean Jonathan Hart of Trinity Cathedral in Monrovia. “In the church, we want decisions coming out of discussions, not unilateral decisions,” he said.
Reginald Goodridge, the government’s minister of information, hailed Bryant as "an excellent and efficient man" who is totally non-partisan.
"He's exactly the kind of man who we need for reconciliation," Goodridge said. "He has never been involved in conflict in the country. He's never been in exile, and it's important, because his continuous stay in Liberia means he knows perfectly the problems in the country."
