During the celebration of the 22nd anniversary of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Accord, the Director General of the Civil Service Agency of Liberia, Dr. Josiah F. Joekai, called on Liberians to recommit to unity as a way of protecting the peace that the country enjoys.
Organized by the Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation, in collaboration with the University of Liberia, the celebration brought together government officials, civil servants, students, local and International partners. Speaking in the Auditorium of the University of Liberia in Monrovia, Joekai said that as Liberians commemorate twenty-two years since the ACPA, they should recommit to unity, reconciliation, rewrite the history truthfully, implement justice, reform governance, build schools, hospitals, roads, and farms.
According to him, the Accra Comprehensive Peace Accord has given everyone the chance to live again, encouraging them to honor the legacy. The Director General of the CSA explained that twenty-two years ago, in Accra, Ghana, Liberians of every stripe sat together, warring factions, government representatives, political parties, women’s groups, youth leaders, civil society, and religious voices.
“With the leadership of ECOWAS, supported by the African Union, the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and others, they signed the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement. That day, the guns went silent. And Liberia was given, not its first chance, but another chance to live,” he added.
He narrated that the ACPA was more than a peace treaty, but was a rebirth, describing it as a covenant of survival. Dr. Joekai said that it was Liberians choosing life over death, reconciliation over vengeance, and dialogue over destruction. He noted that the ACPA closed a dark chapter in the history of Liberia and opened twenty-two years of reconciliation, endurance, resilience, and growth.
The CSA boos added that reconciliation without truth is shallow and peace without justice is fragile, saying that is why the government’s decision to establish the War and Economic Crimes Court is historic. “It signals that Liberia is finally ready to stop dancing around the truth. That perpetrators must account. That victims must see justice. The culture of impunity must end. This is not vengeance. This is not a division. This is healing. This is accountability. This is the only way to ensure that Liberia never again returns to war,” he explained.
Joekai told Liberians that the ACPA was not only about peace, it was about governance, which established institutions designed to prevent the abuses that had fueled war. According to him, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, where more than 600 innocents were massacred in 1990, must be preserved as a national shrine, a place of mourning, but also of learning.
Also, he said that the thirteen poles on the beach, marking the 1980 executions, must be replaced with a dignified national monument. The CSA boss disclosed that Providence Island, the cradle of our republic, must be transformed into a national museum, chronicling our journey from settlement to independence, to conflict, and finally, to peace. “When we remember, we heal. When we heal, we build rewriting history but remembrance alone is not enough,” he stated.
