Guineans urged to cultivate peace, national unity

Guinea's Prime Minister Mamady Youla has launched an awareness tour in the capital Conakry to urge the population to live in harmony and national cohesion, an official source said Wednesday.

The tour began in Kaloum commune, the capital's central business district. While in Kaloum, the prime minister urged the residents to embrace virtues of dialogue and national unity because "without peace and unity, the country will lag behind in development matters."

Youla noted that regardless of his government's efforts to create jobs and an ideal business environment, without national cohesion, all these efforts risk to be in vain.

The prime minister's office promised that the tour will extend to the four other communes of the capital.

The sensitization tour comes amid deteriorating political atmosphere in the country due to tension between the government and opposition. The latter announced a peaceful march on Aug. 16 in Conakry.

Guinea's civil society equally launched an appeal to political actors, urging them to prioritize dialogue instead of use of force.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, an association of Guinea business people calling itself Organized Group of Guinea Businessmen (GOHA) urged political leaders in the country to engage in dialogue to end the current political crisis.

"GOHA is deeply concerned that each day, our country's political climate continues to deteriorate. This is more worrying given that economic recession was worsened by the Ebola epidemic that spread for two years before being eliminated," the business people said in their statement.

GOHA noted that regardless of the existing differences, dialogue was the only way of resolving them.

The group equally urged the government to compensate businesses that were looted or destroyed during recent opposition protests in the capital Conakry. Endit