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www.ghanaweb.com: General News of Thursday, 7 July
2005
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=85333

Liberian Refugees Set To Go Home

LIBERIAN refugees in Ghana, numbering about 42,000,
have declared their intention to go back to their
country to help rebuild it.

The about 42,000 Liberian refugees, who have been in
the country for the past 15 years, said no matter the
hospitality they enjoyed in Ghana, “there is no place
like home”.

The Chairman of the Buduburam Council of Churches and
Ministries, Rev Aloysius Kpadeh, and the Chairperson
of the Liberian Refugee Welfare Council of Buduburam,
Madam Alice Georgia Abraham, made the declaration at a
press conference in Accra yesterday.

The press conference, was organised by the Machiara of
the Pneuma Foundation-Ghana (MPF), a non-governmental
organisation, to announce the intention of the
organisation to organise a repentance convention in
Liberia before the elections in October this year.

Rev Kpadeh said, “Our time in Ghana is about getting
over. We need to go back to rebuild Liberia.”

He indicated that most of the refugees at the
Buduburam Refugee Camp were willing to return to
Liberia to resettle.

He, however, conceded that some of the refugees had a
“well-founded fear” because of the inhuman treatment
they went through during the conflict in Liberia.

That, according to Rev Kpedah, discouraged some of
them from going back, since they felt Liberia was
still not stable.

He said if the October 11, 2005 general election in
Liberia was held peacefully, virtually all the
refugees would leave Ghana for Liberia to resettle
there.

Rev. Kpedah expressed the belief that Liberia was
guilty of bloodbath, hence the suffering in that
country.

He recalled that people were killed, women were raped
and children defiled during the conflict.

“We had a covenant with God and we deviated from it.
That was the cause of the problem in Liberia,” he
said.

According to Rev Kpedah, if a nation broke its
covenant with God, the Almighty punishes such people
by sending them into exile.

He said every exile had a duration and stated that the
exile of Liberian refugees in Ghana “has come to an
end.”

For her part, Madam Abraham said, “We (the refugees)
have longed to go back to our home.”

“No matter what, there is no place like home,” she
added. Madam Abraham thanked the government and
Ghanaians for hosting them for the past 15 years,
saying, “We have enjoyed peace in Ghana.”

She said the hospitality the Liberian refugees enjoyed
in Ghana outweighed that of their colleagues in other
countries.

She apologised for the wrongs that her colleagues
might have committed during their stay in the country.

The Founder of the MPF, Brother Peter Anamoh, said the
history of blood guilt, which included the shedding of
innocent blood, rape, robbery, and corruption, loomed
over Liberia.

He said he received a vision from God to organise a
national repentance conference in Liberia to cleanse
the blood guilt of that country.

Brother Anamoh said the conference would be held in
Monrovia in September this year, where the citizens
would have the platform to repent so that God’s
healing could come upon the nation.

That, he said, would set the foundation for a peaceful
and prosperous Liberia beyond the elections in
October.

He, therefore, urged the Liberian political leaders
and citizens to settle their differences and forge
ahead for the development of their country.

Source: Daily Graphic

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