Reconciliation needed for national unity

Dr Baffour Agyeman-Duah, Associate Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), on Friday said although democracy thrived on different opinions, an unhealthy situation could develop when citizens were sharply divided on political issues.

He told the Ghana News Agency in Accra that this could become especially disturbing when these divisions were strong enough to threaten national unity.

Dr Agyeman-Duah was commenting on the on-going debate on the National Reconciliation Bill, which has split Parliament down the middle.

MPs of the NDC walked out of Parliament last week when the Attorney-General Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was rounding up debate on the National Reconciliation Bill. The minority accused him of using insulting language.

Dr Agyeman-Duah said even in western countries, which had advanced democracies based on differences in opinion, national unity basically overrode those differences.

He said as a result of extreme abuses in the past by some governments, there were people with very strong political feelings, which were not complimentary to the growth of democracy.

Dr Agyeman Duah said although certain governments were so structured as to facilitate human rights abuses, such as past military regimes, it would be important to take care of all people with grievances irrespective of which kind government must have been in power.

While the government bill limits the work of the National Reconciliation Commission to military governments, the NDC wants all governments since independence in 1957 to be looked at.