-Dr Kwesi Aning
Posted: The Chronicle | Wednesday, November 04, 2009
By Charles Takyi - Boadu
The head of the Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution Department at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, Dr. Kwesi Aning, has warned that the 2012 elections will undermine the peace Ghana is enjoying, if the current skirmishes at the Kokomba Market in Accra, and Bawku in the Northern Region are not contained.
Dr. Aning was speaking on the topic ‘Actors in election violence; motivations, causes and manifestations’ at a conference in Accra, under the theme ‘Preventing election violence through legal enforcement and political tolerance’.
The programme was organised by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), in collaboration with the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to provide an opportunity to discuss the problem of election violence in Ghana, in order to find a lasting solution to it.
Taking a cue from violence that occurred in places like Akwatia in the Eastern Region, Tain in the Brong Ahafo Region, and Chereponi in the Northern Region, during and after the 2008 general elections, he said, “I think it is natural to to recognise that 2012 has the potential of being the most violent elections in this country.”
He has therefore stressed the urgent need for all stakeholders, including civil society groups, security agencies, media, the various political parties, especially the two major parties, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), and their agents, to guard against it, since it had the tendency of plunging the entire nation into chaos.
“We are going to see a dramatic escalation of violence as we move towards 2012,” said Aning.
This, he said, was due to the fact that there was an incentive structure and a profit motive attached to the violence that has characterised certain areas, saying, “if we don’t deal with them, they may become the defining points in our history.”
He discounted the usual rhetoric that Ghanaians were friendly and hospitable, since, according to him, that is only meant to please the international community, whilst Ghanaians are enemies of themselves.
He noted that the two major political parties - NDC and NPP - are fond of promoting violence instead of giving Ghanaians hope.
The Security Expert envisaged that the violence that would characterise the 2012 elections, would start from the primaries and transcend to the national platform, believing that the oil find and exploration could also contribute to this violence, as witnessed in other countries.
Dr Aning said Ghanaians seem to have lost control, since, according to him, the country and its citizens are currently driven by monetary benefits, whilst the country is being militarised.
It is thus feared that by the year 2012, the tools for the perpetration of some of these violent acts that have characterised our elections, would be employed through the use of machetes rather than guns.
“I shudder to believe what will happen when we open the voters’ registration in 2012,” he said, with a note of caution, “let Rwanda stand as an abiding caution to us.”
He also cautioned the media to desist from writing things that had the potential of giving substance to acts of violence, since, in his observation, headlines of the various newspapers in the country, for the past one month, bear the semblance of a worrying trend of violence.
Chaired by a former Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice V. C. R. A. C. Crabbe, the programme brought together the Country Director of the UNDP, K. K. Kamalddeen, the Deputy Interior Minister, Kwasi Appiah-Kubi, and the head of Programmes at the CDD, Kojo Asante.
The forum provided an opportunity for participants to discuss the problem of election violence in Ghana, and to answer questions bordering on what should be done to rid elections in Ghana of violence and intimidation.
No comments:
Post a Comment