THE SEARCH FOR PEACE IN BAWKU - PRESIDENT'S ROLE SIGNIFICANT (Pg 31) 02-06-09

Story: Kofi Yeboah

THE personal involvement of President John Evans Atta Mills in the search for peace in Bawku remains significant in spite of last Sunday’s sporadic shooting in the town that resulted in the reported killing of three persons.
The Executive Director of the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), Mr Emmanuel Bombande, who made the point, said the President’s personal involvement, particularly by bringing together the leaders of the two factions, was crucial in resolving the conflict and incidents like last Sunday’s shooting should not be allowed to derail the initiative.
“We should not be distracted by this particular incident,” he told the Daily Graphic via telephone from Sweden, where he is a guest facilitator at a Peace Academy.
Mr Bombande said although the President’s intervention was laudable, it was not the end of the matter, and therefore called for a national stakeholders’ meeting involving the Bawku Municipal Assembly, National Security, National Peace Council (NPC), traditional leaders, opinion leaders, and women and youth groups in Bawku to find a lasting solution to the conflict.
He said there was a lot of hope for peace in Bawku but he was quick to add that a lot depended on the two factions to show commitment to the peace process.
At a meeting with the Paramount Chief of the Bawku Traditional Area, Naba Abugrago Asigri Azoka II, at Bolgatanga last Wednesday, during his two-day visit to the Upper East Region, President Atta Mills reiterated the government’s commitment to the maintenance of peace and stability in Bawku and its surrounding communities.
He appealed to opinion leaders in Bawku to lend their support to the government’s effort to secure peace and security in the area, particularly so because the recurrence of the conflict had adversely impacted on development projects in the area, apart from the huge sums of money the government was spending to maintain peace.
However, while the President’s footprints were still fresh after his departure from Bawku, shooting broke out in some parts of the town, resulting in the killing of three persons as confirmed by the police.
Mr Bombande said there was the need to separate such minor incidents from the President’s peace initiative, adding that, “It’s important to stay focused and ensure that what the President has started works”.
According to him, the masterminds of the violence were armed bandits who tended to exploit the psychology of fear in the people to facilitate their livestock trade.
Mr Bombande blamed the renewed clashes on security lapse, explaining that the similarity between last Sunday’s incident and another one that occurred earlier within the same area raised questions about whether or not the security personnel were on top of their job.
He stressed the need for the security to put their act together to flush out the armed bandits in order to have peace in Bawku.
Mr Bombande said the shooting incidents also confirmed the heavy circulation of small arms in Bawku, which he attributed to the fear generated by the December 2007 clashes.