Security experts deliberate on maintaining peace in sub-region

29/10/2010

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
SECURITY experts from Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria are meeting in Accra to strategise on how to maintain peace and security in the four neighbouring West African countries.
The four countries are also members of the Co-Property Alliance Zone (COPAZ), which seeks to promote peace and improve the free movement of people and goods across the borders of member countries.
The Executive Secretary of COPAZ, Dr Prince Fatai Adeyemi, said peace and security were crucial to improving integration of people in member countries, reducing poverty and promoting economic development.
“There cannot be social, economic, cultural development or genuine integration and social harmony without peace and development,” he said.
Dr Adeyemi said it was the objective of COPAZ “to make the zone one of the prosperous and peaceful areas in the sub-region”.
“The security of states, people and goods is the objective of the founders of COPAZ,” he said.
Dr Adeyemi said it was through lasting peace that nationals of member countries could enjoy happiness.
The acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Mr R. A. Satuh, noted that the four countries constituting COPAZ shared common historical, social and economic ties dating from the pre-colonial era.
He said it had become imperative to establish an alliance within the framework of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to work towards integrating the nationals of the four countries.
Mr Satuh said democracy was taking root in the sub-region, leading to the strengthening of relations.
He said peace and security based on democracy, accountability and respect for rule of law should be the pillars on which the integration of people in member countries should be shaped.
He said despite the growth of democracy in the sub-region, “violence, conflict, political instability and terrorism” continued to inflict some countries in the sub-region.
Dr Satuh said Ghana’s long experience in peacekeeping indicated that humanitarian relief and crisis intervention did not adequately address conflict situations.
That, he said, was because “the root causes of war and conflict are not tackled”.
“To succeed, an environment in which aspirations of the citizenry can be pursued legitimately and constructively should be created,” he said, and called for the development of inclusive platforms for political parties, the media and civil society to participate openly in such deliberations.
According to Dr Satuh, civil society and the media held the responsibility of building and strengthening peace and democracy in the sub-region and could contribute to promote ECOWAS’s protocols on Good Governance and Democracy, as well as the dissemination of issues on the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework.