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Citizens Outline Guidelines For Peaceful Coexistence After Years Of Civil Conflict


  13 Juin      46        Société (44866),

 

MONROVIA, June 12 (LINA) – Residents of Sinje Town in Garwula District, Grand Cape Mount County have named forgiveness, confession and sports among several others as key factors that have enabled them to live peacefully with each other after the 14 years of civil conflict in Liberia.

 

Speaking at a Town Hall meeting organized by the civil society organization, Center for Peace Education recently, the over 20 middle-aged and older residents confirmed that after the civil conflict, there was huge bitterness in everyone’s heart towards those that committed crimes in the community during the civil conflict.

 

One of the participants, Bakiru Sonii, recounted that after the war when they started returning from their various hideouts, strangely, those people who carried out the crimes against their own communities came along with them to the very community.

 

He said from the onset, the community members that those crimes were perpetrated against wanted to explode on the perpetrators for what they did to them during the civil war.

 

However, he said, the community soon realized that those people were members of their own families and that to repay violence with violence would only deepen the crisis.

 

So he indicated that since they were willing to show remorse for their ugly acts the community decided to forgive them.

 

« We are Muslims, » he said. « Our religion teaches us to forgive those who wrong us; so we forgave them; from then on we started living freely with each other, » he narrated.

 

In addition to forgiveness, Sonii also told the organizers of the Town Hall meeting that sport, particularly football, played a key role in bringing unity among perpetrators and victims in the community.

 

He said they organized football matches between former rebels and civilians aimed at cementing the relationships among them.

 

Also speaking was 60 year-old Madam Jebbeh Lebie, who said she lost her husband and three children during one of the attacks on Sinje Town in the 1990s.

 

She said after the war she has never seen those that killed her family members, but noted that even if she sees them she will not do anything to them because she has forgiven them.

 

« The forgiveness that I am talking about is from my heart and not only from my tongue, » she intimated.

 

For his part, the Executive Director and Founder of the Center for Peace Education, Mr. Mainlehwon Ebenezer Vonh, thanked the people of Sinje Town for sharing their experiences with his organization.

 

He assured them that the views will be included in the nationwide survey that is being conducted by the Center to know how Liberians in general managed to live peacefully with each other after a protracted period of bloodshed.

 

According to Vonh, the Town Hall discussions will continue at the weekend in Tienii Town, Tewor District, following which they will go to other counties to hold the same discussions.

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