Indiana Alumni Magazine
The President and the Professor
A former leader of a war-torn nation brings his passion for peace to IU.
By Daniel S. Comiskey
SCHOLAR AND LEADER — Amos Sawyer had been a university professor before serving as Liberia's president. He is now on the IU faculty. Photo Nick Kapke.
It was only supposed to be six months. When Amos Sawyer accepted the presidency of Liberia in 1990, he did so intending to hold office just long enough to restore peace in what had become one of the most violent places on earth. But six months became four years. Attempts on Sawyer's life were frequent. And everywhere, every minute, was war.
A fate that brings such a man to Indiana University is a strange one, but both the man and the university have clearly benefited from the arrangement. Now a research scholar on the Bloomington campus, Sawyer, 58, lectures frequently on his time in Liberia and the plight of his long-suffering people.
"Liberia faces a tragedy," he says. "We have an economic situation unlike any in history — 85 percent unemployment, 14 years of violent conflict, 3 million people displaced."
As disturbing as those numbers are, another statistic should have worried Sawyer even more. Liberia's last two presidents had been assassinated — one hacked to bits publicly.
In the face of that threat, Sawyer, it seems, was unflinching.
"I was motivated by what I thought was an opportunity to reconcile and reform," he says. "I didn't have any great ambition. Our thinking was, the sooner we can work ourselves out of business, the better."
The task of Sawyer's administration was to establish a democracy and step aside gracefully. There was every reason to believe these actions would create infrastructure and stability for a country that to this day has not a single stoplight. But the greedy and the power-hungry would undermine that dream, as they have undermined it in Liberia since the 1970s.
Sawyer is all too familiar with the abuses of the three regimes that have blocked Liberia's progress toward peace for the past 33 years.
"We've had this escalation," Sawyer explains. "Under Tolbert, there was torture, a lack of due process, and arbitrary arrest. Under Doe, those became more frequent. Charles Taylor brought to Liberia the greatest tragedy in its history."
As a professor at the University of Liberia in the 1970s, he was a vocal opponent of William Tolbert, who suppressed calls for a new constitution. When Samuel Doe overthrew Tolbert in 1980, Doe hired Sawyer to draft that constitution. Then when Sawyer became critical of the way his new boss was running the country, Doe had him imprisoned for several months.
So there are plenty of reasons for Sawyer to revile those two. But if you really want to make him angry, a man who otherwise is so pleasant he laughs about attempts on his life, speak to him about Charles Taylor.
"The U.N. recently called him a sociopath," Sawyer says. "I think that's right. Taylor has been motivated by absolute power… a total despot. He completed the destruction of all our institutions."
When Taylor moved to seize control of the Liberian government in 1989, the countries of West Africa decided something had to be done. The 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sent in troops and named Sawyer interim president.
"Taylor still controlled 90 percent of the country," Sawyer says.
With Taylor in control of the lion's share of Liberia, Sawyer was unable to even enter the country for the first few months of his presidency. What's worse, Sawyer's wife and four children were living an ocean away in the United States.
"They stayed here," Sawyer says. "I was the fool-hardy one. If I knew all that would transpire in those four years, I probably would have been more hesitant. But my wife did a wonderful job keeping our family going. Somehow we all survived."
As ECOWAS fought back Taylor's forces in Liberia, Sawyer was allowed to enter the country and establish some semblance of a government.
"We had no illusion that this was ideal," he says of the situation. "What gave me the encouragement to hang in there was that Monrovia was an oasis from the fighting. And Liberia had never had such a vibrant free press. I'm really proud of that."
Even as Sawyer tried to bring the warring factions in Liberia together, Taylor was plotting to have him assassinated.
"I would get calls from the CIA telling me I'd better do something fast," Sawyer says with a laugh. "Thanks to the peacekeeping force and good intelligence, nothing happened."
According to Sawyer, Taylor had very little interest in stability.
"Over the course of four years, we negotiated 13 agreements," Sawyer says. "He broke all of them. He's a savvy, street-smart, confidence-type character. Take his dealings with Jimmy Carter. He knew Carter was a Baptist. He had read that somewhere. So he took care to put a Bible on his desk when he met Carter."
One of those agreements convinced nearly everyone that Taylor was ready to participate in a democracy. Elections were held in 1997 and Taylor won in a landslide. Accusations of fraud were immediate and furious.
"There is an abundance of evidence that the election environment in 1997 was not conducive to fairness and openness," says Elwood Dunn, former Liberian secretary of state. "This is essentially why Taylor 'won.'"
With Taylor as president, things went from bad to worse for the Liberian people. Sawyer was particularly vulnerable.
"I was trying to run the Centre for Democratic Empowerment until November of 2000," Sawyer says. "It was then that Taylor had my office raided. I was beaten. The director was stabbed. They tried to rape the women. This was the clearest of the signals to leave."
Having given a few guest lectures at Indiana University in the 1980s, Sawyer had a standing invitation to return and participate in the Workshop in Political Theory. It was plainly time to accept that offer.
"We were trying to get him here in a position of safety," says Michael McGinnis, director of the workshop. "And obviously it's unusual to have a staff member who has been president of a country. We're very fortunate to have him."
"It's a wonderful place to be," Sawyer says. "Right now, IU has the largest collection of Liberian political literature in the world. Our intellectual history has been terribly diminished by war. Clearly, as Liberians reconstruct their society, those resources will be called upon."
According to McGinnis, the greatest resource may be Sawyer himself.
FOR THE MOMENT — Life is peaceful. Sawyer and his wife, Thelma Comfort Sawyer, feel at home in the IU community.
Photo Nick Kapke.
"IU is uniquely positioned to help Liberia," McGinnis says. "Amos plays an absolutely central role. His contacts in the international community are critical."
Charles Taylor was deposed in August 2003 under pressure from U.S. forces, and no one could be happier than Sawyer.
"His leaving was a prerequisite for peace," Sawyer says. "The way forward must be democratic."
"There is a lot of work to be done in Liberia," Dunn explains. "Particularly in reference to its institutions and political culture. Sawyer is among a relatively small number of people with the training and experience to rebuild in these critical areas."
As you sit in Sawyer's small, anything-but-presidential office in Bloomington and listen to him field calls from CNN, the BBC, and places in Africa that many can barely pronounce, you gain an appreciation for how important this man is.
"He enjoys high name recognition in the international community," Dunn says. "Sawyer is well regarded."
"I'm a university person," Sawyer admits. "I'm more like the people here than I am like politicians. This is my breed. But I do intend to participate in the reconstruction."
And then, with a hundred-watt smile, he adds, "I can go back now." 
Daniel S. Comiskey, BGS'98, BA'00, is a writer and editor at The Indianapolis Star. This is his first contribution to the magazine.