Wa, Nov. 11, GNA - Senior Police officers from Upper West, Upper East and the Northern Regions are attending a three-day workshop at Wa to upgrade their skills on modern trends in conflict resolution and peace building. The workshop, that kick-started on Thursday, was organized by the Ministry of the Interior and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Mr Martin Amidu, Minister of the Interior, stated in a speech read for him by Alhaji Salifu Osman, Acting Chief Director of the Ministry, said the cost of peacekeeping was very expensive, hence, the need to adequately train the police on peace building rather than peace keeping. He said the Ministry with the support from the UNDP, had developed a National Architecture for Peace, under which the National Peace Council and Regional Peace Advisory Councils had been established. Mr Amidu announced that Cabinet had given approval for the National Peace Council Bill to be laid before Parliament, stressing that the country would soon have a Peace Council Law.

He said he had also initiated talks wit h the UNDP and the Police Administration to include Conflict Resolution and Peace Building in the Police Training School Curricular.

He therefore urged the police officers to take the training seriously so as to ensure that it benefited the society they protected. Mr Cezar Kale, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, noted that conflict was one of the greatest enemies of progress and development and commended the Ministry for the Interior and the UNDP for organizing the programme to train the police on how to build peace in society. He pointed out that the three northern regions had been bedevilled with conflicts with all efforts concentrated on peace keeping, which according to him, had yielded no positive results so far.

Mr Kale noted with certainty that these conflicts were the cause of the underdevelopment in the three northern regions. Security agencies, he stated, had an enormous role to play in conflict resolution because of their experience and urged the police personnel to use the workshop to equip themselves to help build peace in the three northern regions.

Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Police Training, ACP Kofi Boakye, noted that authoritarian tendencies could not help in resolving conflicts in this era of democratic dispensation and there was therefore the need to embark on a paradigm shift from authoritarian policing to democratic policing.

He said the police, who were at the forefront of conflict resolution, could either exacerbate or manage a conflict based on their level of expertise and approach. He therefore urged the participants to share their expertise to enable the resource persons to help them build on them.