[ 2014-08-28 ]

Weapon buyback not panacea to Bawku conflict - Kwesi Aning
Security Analyst, Emmanuel Kwesi Aning says
government's decision to buy back weapons from
warring factions in Bawku in the Upper East
Region, will not necessarily lead to lasting peace
there.

Dr. Aning believes government must rather look
into the multiple roles guns play in the lives of
people of the area and tackle the problem from
that angle.

Recurrent gun violence in the Bawku area has
claimed scores of lives in the past decade with
its resultant destruction of property running into
millions of cedis.

Government on Wednesday offered a month's amnesty
for residents possessing illegal weapons turn them
in and receive cash incentives.

Interior Minister Mark Woyongo warned those who
fail to comply with the directive would be hunted,
arrested and prosecuted after the amnesty period.

Speaking however, on the Super Morning Show on Joy
FM, Thursday, the Director at the Faculty of
Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan
International Peacekeeping Training Centre
(KAIPTC) in Accra, noted that “weapons buyback
programmes operationally everywhere, have not been
successful”.

A similar exercise carried out by the government
in the year 2000 saw less than a thousand guns
returned, Dr. Aning told Super Morning Show host,
Kojo Yankson.

Relationship with arms
He maintained: “We need to understand the
multiple reasons why people get guns; we also need
to understand the demand and supply part of the
guns trade”.

“If people in Bawku feel insecure naturally, the
demand for guns will be very high because people
feel they would have to protect themselves and
those who supply…will make the guns
available,” he added.

He suggested a stakeholder conversation led by the
Ghana National Commission on Small Arms, and
factions involved in the protracted conflict to
“bring in the little that they have into the
pot”.

“I think probably, some kind of a stakeholder
conversation [with the Ghana National Commission
on Small Arms leading it] might be quite useful as
to what do we do, in ensuring that people actually
see it as their own interest, in handing these
guns back and reporting those who have those
guns”.

Dr. Aning wants the government to also adopt the
approach of letting residents know the economic
cost of the conflict to general development of
Bawku and the region as a whole.

“Let's give people a comparative basis to shift
from an environment of insecurity to one of
stability and development and let's put the
figures on the table…Let's get people to say
peace is much better than this consistent
recurrent violence in which some people are
profiting”.

Source - MyjoyOnline

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