Oguaa NGO takes steps to help maintain peace

Cape Coast, Aug. 30, GNA- Professor Awuku Sakyi Amoah, Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, on Thursday observed that conflicts and wars created many conditions, like human rights abuses, which enabled the AIDS pandemic to flourish. He said physical and sexual violence, forced displacement, collapse of social structures and the breakdown of rule of law, put people at much greater risk of being infected with HIV/AIDS. Prof. Amoah, made this observation in an address read for him, at the launch of 'global peace mission', by the Centre of Awareness, an NGO based in Cape Coast, at Cape Coast.

The mission, aims at forming global peace groups leading to a broader 'International Movement for Peace' to supplement peace efforts of the United Nations (UN).

Prof Amoah welcomed the initiative by the NGO and pledged the Commission's support towards the attainment of the desired objectives. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Reverend Professor Emmanuel Adow Obeng, in a speech read for him, underscored the importance of peace, describing it as the forerunner of success, without which no organization could progress.

He said life was about relationships, and not about acquisition of wealth and stressed the need for people to accept each other's views and co-exist peacefully so as to promote the development of society. He advised the NGO to ensure that its activities transcend politics, religion and tribalism, and to focus on issues that bring about peace to humanity.

In a statement the Anglican Bishop of the Cape Coast Diocese, Bishop Allotei Allotey, urged politicians to seek for political power with the intention to serve humanity, and not for their selfish interests.

Sheikh Abubakar Hassan, Central Regional Chief Imam, advised Ghanaians to consider themselves as "brothers and sisters" and endeavour to co-exist peacefully in order to ensure the socio-economic development of the country.

Mr Samuel Ato Duncan, Executive President of the NGO, noted that when the 'International Movement for Peace' (IMFP) was formed, it would work closely with political, religious and ethnic leaders to adopt and implement policies that would foster peace, unity and reconciliation.

Mr Duncan called on all, irrespective of one's political or religious affiliations to join hands with the Centre to build a peaceful, united and reconciled world.

Nana Kwabena Nketia, Omanhen of Esikado, who presided, said there was the need to determine the causes of conflicts, to ensure that they are efficiently resolved, since peace is a difficult thing to maintain.