By Nyima Sillah
Chief executive officer of Africare Initiative has said the problem of 3 years could have been solve if the two parties had earlier hold talks.
Ms Marie Sock speaking to the voice in an exclusive interview said: “we did broker that first dialogue between the government and three years to the point where they were given a permit and when they were given the permit, it was very peaceful.”
She explained that, they made them sign a peace deal and the peace deal was, they pledge to Gambia our homeland that no matter what they do, they will maintain peace by all means for a better co-existence, adding “after that first conference, they did engage government noting that, ‘’we were the first entity organization to engage government and show them the peace deal’.”
According to her, the reason why that first permit was very important, was the fact that, at that point, no one knew what was really going to happen, and no one knew what was the capabilities of the three years and that was the biggest fair ever because we were talking about tourism been cancel, businesses been stop and people traveling.
”Three years is just not one group over here, you cannot negotiate with one group or talk to one group, you have to talk to all the groups especially when you are trying to broker a deal,”, she said.
”Let us respect everyone, let us respect each other, respect the role of law and also respect our word and be peaceful to each other”, she added.
JJ.Robinson, program director of Africare also said: “ they don’t wait till last minute and start doing things noting that, they saw it earlier and push it earlier.”
”It’s unfortunate that this issue could have been solve very amicably if our invited guests were on board from the beginning, it would have done much better because they look forward for government and stakeholders but even with our little organization we were able to change some mindsets on going,” he said.
”we are plaining to have another conference and even one on one engagement with citizens to teach them how this thing is done” noting that, they want to engage youth ambassadors that have been in the program to go around and teach people how to avoid this type of things,” he said.
