Clinton throws support behind Liberia leader

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday hailed Liberia's post-war transition to democracy and threw support behind President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has faced calls to resign because she helped fund a warlord.

Clinton enjoyed one of the most rousing welcomes she has received anywhere in her seven-nation trip through Africa, with hundreds of people braving pouring rain to cheer her as her motorcade came into the war-battered capital.

After driving past young people dancing to drums and female activists holding a banner reading, "Hillary Clinton - Woman of Substance," the top US diplomat offered a ringing endorsement of Africa's first woman president in a meeting.

"We are supportive and will continue to be so because we think that Liberia is on the right track, as difficult as that path may be," she said.

Liberia, founded by freed US slaves in the 19th century, remains friendly with the United States. Clinton was clearly enjoying the moment, holding up a copy of a local newspaper with the headline, "Hillary Arrives, Liberia Glees."

But the country is recovering from grisly civil wars that left more than 250,000 people dead from 1989 to 2003.

Sirleaf has won strong support overseas, particularly in the United States, as she spearheads efforts to rebuild, but earlier this year, Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended she be banned from political activity for 30 years because of her alleged involvement in the civil wars.

Clinton said that the United States "looked at the entire record" of Sirleaf and credited her with starting to revive an economy ravaged by war.

"Today Liberia is a model of successful transition from conflict to post-conflict, from lawlessness to democracy, from despair to hope," Clinton said.

She also hailed Sirleaf for her role as Africa's first female leader, returning to a theme of women's rights she has highlighted throughout her 11-day trip.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recommendation on Sirleaf has largely fallen on deaf ears internationally as attention turns instead to the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

The former leader and warlord is on trial on charges of murder, rape, conscripting child soldiers, enslavement and pillaging.

In a courtroom in The Hague last month, he denied that he had ever eaten human flesh but did not dispute that there were some cannibals in Liberia during the civil wars.

He was handed over to the tribunal in 2006 following his arrest in Nigeria.

Sirleaf has admitted she met Taylor several times and helped raise funds for him but denies that she was ever a member of his National Patriotic Front of Liberia.

Liberia lies on the Gulf of Guinea, a region of strategic importance for its oil which has attracted the attention of many outside parties, especially China in recent years. The American rubber firm Firestone has operated in Liberia for more than 80 years and is the largest private employer in the nation.

Clinton heads later Thursday to Cape Verde, a small archipelago that is a close US ally. She arrived from Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, where she sought to build ties.

In an interview in Nigeria, Clinton -- who narrowly lost to Obama in her bid last year to be the first female US leader -- said no country could reach full development without women.

"If African women decided to stop working tomorrow, the whole continent would shut down. People wouldn?t eat. Crops wouldn?t be planted and harvested," Clinton told popular Nigerian television talk show host Mo Abudu.