Pardoned Politician Returns From Exile
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Liberia’s foremost opposition leader has returned home, becoming the first of many exiled politicians pardoned by President Charles Taylor for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.
But Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who arrived in Monrovia, the capital, aboard a commercial flight from Ivory Coast late Friday, told reporters that she was not back to stay, although she would be back again, “now that the door is opened.”
“It’s been a long time. I just want to meet families, meet friends, meet partisans and meet the country,” Johnson-Sirleaf said.
Johnson-Sirleaf came in second to Taylor in a 1997 presidential race held in the wake of a brutal 1989-96 civil war that devastated the West African nation.
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