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Ghana: Achieving Reconciliation
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Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra)
EDITORIAL
25 July 2008
Posted to the web 25 July 2008
In the modern world of today, the Truth and Reconciliatory agenda has become the established path to achieving national healing, peace and reconciliation.
This is especially so for countries in political transition, coming from a history of serious human rights violations. Ghana was no exception to this new democratic healing, as the country set out in her first-ever constitutional power change, in 2001, to cure the highly polarised country.
In December 2001, the Parliament of Ghana passed a law to establish the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC). It came into force on 7 January 2002, when it received Presidential assent.
The Commission was inaugurated on 6 May 2002. It was mandated to investigate past atrocities and human rights violations, recommend appropriate compensation for victims, and reconcile the nation.
By establishing the NRC, Ghana joined a group of transitional democracies in the world, intent on achieving one people, one country, with one common destiny.
However, the one question begging to be answered is whether the NRC, really did bring any true national healing and reconciliation to Ghanaians.
Before, during, and after the remit of the NRC, there were mixed reactions and expectations among Ghanaians, of the ability of the NRC to heal the wounds of the past, end the cycle of vengeance and vendettas, and restore peace in the country.
The Chronicle would like to ask whether the nation has seen real reconciliation?
The Ghana National Party (GNP), in a story carried in this issue of the paper, states, "the political climate is still volatile and polarised."
The Party further enunciated about the strong indications of a polarised country, along ethnic and political lines. According to the GNP, this was evident in the fact that the likes of former President Jerry John Rawlings, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, and other members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), refused accept the recent national awards.
The GNP's statement also requested political parties, not to make political capital about the prosecution of their members, which is also an issue that has sharply polarised this country.
There existed a concern, that at the end of the work of the NRC, Ghana would become a more divided country than before.
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Is that what we are seeing today and did reconciliation elude us?
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