Accra, Sept. 2, GNA - Peace Seekers International, a non-governmental organisation, on Tuesday said it has initiated moves to meet and reconcile with former President Jerry John Rawlings.
"We are ready to stretch our hands of friendship to him as his former boys, we believe there must be an end to hostilities in the interest of nation building," the Coordinator of Peace Seekers, Alhaji Abubakar Daanaa, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Accra.
The group comprising former Military, Police and Intelligence personnel is led by Group Captain Thomas T. Kutin, a former Commissioner of Transport and Communications under the Acheampong Regime. Alhaji Daanaa said Ghanaians must begin to think about national interest and be prepared to sacrifice personal interest for the benefit of future generations.
"Hostilities, cold war, rancour and bitterness retard progress and we are prepared to bury the past and focus on the future in unity." He said Peace Seekers would also initiate moves to reconcile President John Agyekum Kufuor and former President Rawlings. The two men are prominent personalities and Ghanaians stood to gain from if they co-operated, Alhaji Daanaa said.
Alhaji Daanaa said as a first step towards reconciliation, Peace Seekers organised a get-together at the weekend for some victims and perpetrators of atrocities to strengthen the reconciliation. He said the media hold the key to true reconciliation and they should be held accountable for any derailment.
Alhaji Daanaa expressed regret that as victims and perpetrators try to reconcile some media practitioners continued to read unjustifiable and unnecessary meaning to it.
"Some of them behave as if they stand to benefit from a divided, troubled and tension packed society. This must stop."
Group Capt. Kutin said: "It is only when peace has been made among the living that the dead, who have been wronged will smile for peace on earth and, indeed, rest in peace."
He said members of the group have opted for reconciliation and were prepared to forget the past and to focus on the present and look forward to the future.
