The Executive Director of the West Africa Network for Peace-Building (WANEP), Mr Emmanuel Bombande has suggested that instead of imposing a solution on the feuding factions in the Hohoe conflict, the two communities involved must be supported to produce sustainable outcomes for themselves. He said the Gbi Traditional Council and the Zongo community must be brought to the negotiating table to engage and understand their relationship and the extent to which that has been damaged to breed hatred and suspicions that led to the recent violent clashes between them. Four people died following clashes between the two communities in the Hohoe districts of the Volta Region. Commenting on the processes of restoring peace in the vicinity and ensuring that politicians do not take advantage of the conflicts, some of which has been recorded at various parts of the country, Mr Bombande who spoke on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM Tuesday, emphasized the need for the State to help the factions to discover for themselves how to resolve their own problems and how to coexist as one people. “The state (must) support the type of respected elders who are able to help the communities in Hohoe engage in their own processes of social analysis, conflict analysis and in so doing a mediated process in which the outcomes come out very clearly (as) how do we respect one another? How do we give to one another the human dignity that we all deserve? How do we coexist recognizing our diversity…and then we can move on?” The Executive Director of WANEP cautioned against the use of committees of inquiry in resolving issues of this nature, saying that such committees are tasked to probe and that where there is probe there is an inquisition into who was right or wrong and what sanctions should be proffered. Doing this, he insisted, will deepen tensions and pitch the government of the day in favour of one community as against the other while being unable to tackle the root cause of the conflict. “…Otherwise you can have a probe like we had with the Wuaku Commission but the political will even to implement the outcome of the probe will not even be there because no government will want to implement a report in which it will be seen to be looking bad before one community. “And that’s why the Wuaku Commission, even after government produced a white paper…, they could not go around implementing it because the moment they start to implement it strictly they are basically telling one community that we don’t like you…" “And that is why the emphasis should not be on treating the symptoms… we must go to the roots and to go to the roots our assumption is not that somebody brings the solution but the people who are in the conflict are helped to come out with their own outcomes and solutions,” he concluded.