ACCRA, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has called for peace and reconciliation among residents of the Upper East regional town of Bawku, which has been engulfed in conflict for some time now.
Speaking after receiving a Bawku peace mediation report on Tuesday from the Asantehene (King of local Ashanti people), Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, at the seat of government in the national capital, Mahama stressed the need to reconcile the feuding factions involved in the conflict.
"The outcome of the report is not a winner or a loser issue, but how to reconcile the two factions for peace," he said.
The government would work with the recommendations of the mediation committee to ensure lasting peace in the area, Mahama said.
The Asantehene, who led the mediation process, underscored the need for collective commitment to the recommendations contained in the report.
"I'm here to present the facts as they are for us to have peace. I'm not here to give a judgment as to who was right or wrong," Otumfuo Osei Tutu II said. "The report should bind on all of us. I have explained to the various parties. It was mediation, not arbitration."
The Bawku conflict is a long-standing chieftaincy and ethnic dispute primarily between the indigenous Kusasi and the settler Mamprusi communities in and around the Bawku township in Ghana's Upper East Region, near the northern border with Burkina Faso. ■
