The chief of peace and governance at the United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL), Sebremedlin Hagos, has called on Sierra Leoneans not to take the country to those dark days.
The Uniosil chief of peace was speaking yesterday at the YMCA hall, Fort Street in Freetown, at a conference organized by the Coalition of Civil Society and Human Rights Activists (CCHRA) on the examining of the roles of the media, political parties, the Sierra Leone police and the civil society movements in combating election violence.
Mr Hagos, who was deputizing Mr Victor Angelo, called on Sierra Leoneans to know the value of peace and to remember where they came from.
“Sierra Leoneans need to remember the days when they were at war, the place was complete darkness. If you don’t understand that it means you don’t know the value of peace,” he said.
He also said, “I know the value of peace because I have lived through the crisis in this country and I know how many check points I had to cross to reach Mile 91 to negotiate peace and how many harassments we went through.’’
Cautioning he stated that, “please don’t take the country to those dark days and remember we are at a cross road and any action that is detrimental to the peace and stability of the country will take us back to the violent years.’’
He called on Sierra Leoneans to sustain the peace attained, thereby conducting themselves to go through the electioneering process peacefully.
Mr Hagos therefore called on parties to adhere to the political party code of conduct and to also take into consideration the dignity of the state.
He thus expressed security concerns to the media by cautioning them to exercise their roles more seriously to avoid the implication of plunging the country into chaos, by taking into consideration peace and security of the country.
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