President urges healing, reconciliation
PRESIDENT Bharrat Jagdeo has called for healing and reconciliation as Guyanese celebrate the season of Christmas. In a message for the occasion, he said: "Peace is not only the absence of hostility. It is the genuine sense of feeling good because our relationships are based on mutual acceptance, respect and caring. "Let us commit ourselves to strengthen such relationships among one another." The President noted that Christmas marks the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ but over time it has assumed a "universal character and is celebrated by all our people." "The message of this season is one of hope, peace, reconciliation and goodwill to human kind. These themes are especially relevant in our multicultural society where tolerance and understanding are needed to foster greater national unity," he said. "Where there are rifts let us work for healing and reconciliation. Let us promote goodwill in our land; the sense of being open and well disposed to one another, across the divides of ethnicity, beliefs and politics", he appealed. The President added that children and the aged must have the country's attention at this time, noting that the nation must not also forget "the destitute, the less fortunate and those who are experiencing personal difficulties at this time." "This is an appropriate time to give them special consideration," he noted. "We must resolve that this compassion continues to flow into the New Year and the new century," he added.
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