Amissah-Arthur: Stop creating unnecessary tensions

Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has called on Ghanaians, especially political leaders, to guard against statements which may create ethnic tensions and divisions among the people.

He said political differences among people should not be the basis for provoking individuals into chaos. Vice President Amissah-Arthur made the comments after visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial where he laid a wreath at one of the mass graves in Rwanda.

The vice president was in Rwanda to attend the first Meles Zenawi Symposium on Development organized by the Meles Zenawi Foundation in collaboration with the African Development Bank and the Government of Rwanda.

The symposium, which was on the theme: “African Democratic Developmental State” was to create a platform for rigorous intellectual high level deliberation and indepth analysis of issues related to development.

The concept was inspired by the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, whose commitment to see the state play a prominent role in building robust accountable institutions and facilitating rapid sustainable development. It is also considered as a viable alternative to the neoliberal model of the 1980s and 1990s.

The Rwandan genocide, which occurred in 1994 as a result of ethnic incitement and hate speech, led to the killing of about one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus over the period.

Mr. Amissah-Arthur, who was emotionally touched as he went round the memorial, said, though the human spirit is forgiving, the lessons from the tragedy is that it must not be allowed to happen again.

He praised the Rwandan people for not seeking to revenge against perceived perpetrators but trying to create harmony among the people. “Nobody wishes for a thing like that to happen anywhere. It is a lesson for all; political divisions whether real or manufactured should not lead us to such a situation.”

He also stated though the Rwandan people have been able to forgive but they are not forgetting this monumental tragedy.

He said the 1994 Rwandan genocide was a horrible thing but expressed the hope that the people would put the past behind them and forge ahead.

Mr. Dennis Karera, Ghana’s Consul in Rwanda, who was a former member of the resistant movement which fought for the liberation of the country, Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), stated that lessons Ghana can learn from the Rwandan experience is that the leadership of the country must rise above the artificial or real division among the people.

He said there could be problems only if some of these leaders joined the fray to sow seeds of division among the people. He praised Ghana for being peaceful and a model in terms of its democratic experience to the rest of the African continent.