COMINSUD, a Community Initiative for Sustainable Development is a development organization that works to empower communities towards achieving their development goals.
It is inline with their vision, advocating for a responsive society where the principles and standards of good governance are respected and upheld for sustainable human and environmental development, that through its director Fon Nsoh, decided to have different stakeholders discuss how to embrace tolerance as a way to reach sustainable peace.
The President of Workers Trade Union of the transport Synester for the Northwest Region was present at the workshop, he beleives that some measures taken by government, have in a way worked well for them.
"We have discussed about how peace can return to our region. We have made an evaluation of how things have evolved, as we celebrated 19years of our syndicate. With the evaluation we made, concerning what government has done so far, taking a few measures has made some of us in the transport sector very happy".
" The Bambui- Bambili is well tarred, we appreciate govt for it. We have complained about too much control on the Bamenda-Bambili road, we have not succeeded to cause the authority to reduce it but there is one thing that pleases us; security control documents only and when you have the required documents, there will be no need for the driver to give money".
Mayor of Njikwa expressed that the population in the red zones need more attention. To him it will appear that, a part of that population have been left on their own.
"My Municipality is in the periphery of this country, we have seen some relative peace in the urban areas. This is not the case in the rural areas,where the population in rural areas have been taken as victims".
"Our military are stationed arround administrative units. It is difficult to cover the entire subdivision, this makes some of the population to be abandoned and vulnerable to these bans or these individuals that carry guns and terrorizing the population. This has a huge negative impact on some of our development projects, where we have delays and some cannot even be executed".
The Mayor of Bafut, Mayor Ngwakongho Lawrence that the strict implementation of the law at some point isn't a very peace way of doing things. He explained further to our Civiclens reporter.
"I have preached on the issue of insecurity that the strict implementation of the law at one point becomes injustice. Reports from community memebers, reporting some of the uniform people to us whom we thought we could collaborate with to bring back peace in our municipality. Yet they are the ones instigating hate; moving to people's housing, locking their shops, holding bikes and asking books of vehicles that are packed".
" I wish to use this opportunity to plead with forces of law and order within our various subdivisions, that they should understand that it is not the full implementation of the law that brings peace but to look at the facts that one can bend the law to lur the population to even talk to those in the bushes to lay down their arms. Sometimes when we decide to speak with the forces of law and order, they begin to quote us or give us adjectives that we are amba mayors because we are protecting the interest of the people", Mayor of Bafut.
The coordinator of COMINSUD, Mr Fon Nsoh has explained that there was need for the session, counting 7years gone with a crisis that is rocking the region.
"What we observe is that while we have a reduction of confrontation between the military and members of non-state armed groups, we have had an increase, an upsurge of suffering face by the population by those holding arms".
"We are reflecting on how we can contribute, on how to reduce incidences of violence, if not stop incidence of violence experienced in the region, build more tolerance and open Northwest society".
"One way of achieving this is to have an open dialogue with different stakeholder groups. It is posible to have this kind of discussion with the administration, the forces of security and defence on one side, and other other side different sectors of the population: traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society", Coordinator COMINSUD.
This activity is inline with the International Day of Peace celebrated every 21 September, done in 2023 under the theme; "Actions for Peace: Our Ambition for the #GlobalGoals".
Community initiative for sustainable development is by this activity boosting the need to harmonize, increase voices for a peaceful and more tolerant society.