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| Leymah Gbowee (l) said Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (r) had not done enough to ease poverty |
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Liberia's
president has not done enough to tackle corruption, says her fellow Nobel Peace
Prize winner Leymah Gbowee.
Ms Gbowee,
a peace activist, shared last year's prize with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
and Yemen's Tawakul Karman.
She asked
why Mrs Sirleaf's sons had been given lucrative jobs and said she was resigning
from the reconciliation commission.
Mrs Sirleaf
became Africa's first female elected head of state in 2006.
She was
re-elected last year - just days after being awarded the Nobel prize.
"What
has changed?" said Ms Gbowee.
"Her
sons are on the board of oil companies and one is the deputy governor of the
central bank. The gap between the rich and poor is growing. You are either rich
or dirt poor, there's no middle class," she told the AFP news agency.
She was
speaking in Paris, where she is promoting the French edition of her book Mighty
Be Our Powers.
"I
feel I have been a disappointment to myself and Liberia. Not speaking is as bad
as being part of the system. Some may say I am a coward but the opportunity to
speak out has come here," she said.
In August,
President Sirleaf suspended her son, Charles, as central bank deputy governor
for failing to declare his assets.
Another
son, Fumba, is head of the National Security Agency, while a third, Robert, is
a senior adviser and chairman of the state-owned National Oil Company of
Liberia (NOCAL).
President
Sirleaf won the first elections in Liberia since the end of a 14-year civil
war.
But Ms
Gbowee criticised her for not doing enough to ease poverty.
"In
her first term she developed infrastructure. But what good is infrastructure if
people don't have enough to eat?" she said.
"Development
in a land of hungry, angry people is nothing."
During
Liberia's conflict, Ms Gbowee mobilised women across ethnic and religious lines
to campaign for peace and encouraged them to participate in elections.
In 2003 she
led a march through the capital, Monrovia, demanding an end to the rape of
women by soldiers.
The Nobel
Committee said she had "worked to enhance the influence of women in West
Africa during and after war".
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