General News of Saturday, 23 August 2003

Source: GNA

Liberians in Ashanti hail peace accord

Kumasi, Aug 23, GNA- Liberians in Ashanti Region have hailed the peace accord reached among the warring factions and brokered by ECOWAS under the chairmanship of President John Agyekum Kufuor.

They also congratulated Mr Charles Gyude Bryant on his election as chairman of Liberia's Interim National Government, which will take over the reigns of power in October this year.

A statement issued in Kumasi by Liberians in Ashanti and signed by Mr Amos Gibson, the Chairman, said they were particularly grateful to President Kufuor and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo for the crucial roles they played in the signing of the peace accord. They commended former President Charles Taylor for bowing to international pressure to step down to save the lives of innocent Liberians who were being killed.

The Liberians lauded President Obasanjo for accepting Mr Taylor in Nigeria and not succumbing to international pressure to hand him over to the International War Crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone. The statement said ECOWAS leaders have shown that Africans were capable of solving their own problems and that what the ECOWAS Mediation Committee had done should serve as a lesson to the rest of Africa that African Unity should not be only paper work but should be demonstrated practically.

"Never again should such a bloody civil war go on in any country with the rest of African looking on and saying it is an internal affair", the statement said.

The Liberians appealed to their brothers and sisters in Ghana to be law abiding, learn some trade so that when they return to their home country, they will have a starting base.

Liberians in the respective communities should always promote peace between themselves and their Ghanaian brothers and sisters, and hoped that the government and people of Ghana will continue to show hospitality towards them, the statement said.