<<Print>>

My first article on the above subject titled “Guantanamo Detainees: Don’t depart from Dzi Wo Fie Asem,” was written principally to bring to the attention of President Mahama and his team of security and foreign policy advisers the inherent dangers in accepting the now much-talked about two Guantanamo former detainees of Yemeni origin into this country as refugees.

Even before the initial publication, I was convinced based on the available information that the two former detainees themselves will not likely pose any security challenge to this nation. I did believe government officials when they assured that adequate preparations and background checks were done to ensure that Ghanaians or the Ghanaian society does not face any danger from those ex-detainees.

However, my source of worry was the potential danger from various anti-American militants or extremists groups who would perceive Ghana as one of the so-called allied or collaborators of America in the fight against international terrorism. The fear was that, just a perception of that could endanger the security and safety of Ghanaians and Ghanaian installations both within and outside the borders of the country as it is happening to countries like Kenya, Turkey, Egypt, UK, France, Saudi Arabia and many others.

Soft targets such as our embassies abroad and shopping malls within the country could be potential targets by those extremist groups who always perceive America’s friends or allies as enemies and therefore targets of attacks, especially using any asymmetrical method, like suicide bombings.

However, three issues which happened in the last forty-eight hours convinced me that the President is right on this issue and I am wrong! These individuals detained at Guantanamo are both victims of the US lawlessness and an albatross on the neck of President Obama who had promised during his election campaign in 2008 to shut down the detention camp but is facing stiff opposition from members of Congress including some from his own party. Responsible leaders of the world therefore need to rise-up and support the American President to correct this historical mistake, shamelessly initiated by the Bush administration.

The first issue that convinced me for the need to accept these detainees in this country was an international media report in the last two days of some seven other former Guantanamo detainees including the famous Shaker Aamer staging a peaceful protest in the UK calling for the shutting down of the facility and claiming that a lot of their former colleague inmates are actually innocent and are being kept there by the US in contravention of all internal norms and conventions.

The second issue was the interview granted yester by the two Yemeni former Guantanamo detainees to the Ghanaian media distancing themselves from any act of terrorism and expressing gratitude to the Ghanaian people and their hospitality. They actually showered praises to our soccer icon and captain of the senior national team, Asamoah Gyan.

The final issue was the persuasive explanation of President Mahama in his press briefing on 12 January, 2016. The President was categorical that all the background security checks were done on the former detainees and there is actually no risk to the security of this nation. The President further insinuated that the two detainees have freedom of movement within the boundaries of the country but had to be escorted by operatives of the national security wherever they go. He posited that providing solace for the two Yemenis was based mainly on compassionate grounds and in compliance with our international obligations as a responsible member of international community.

As for the allegations of personal financial inducement on the President, I said in my earlier article that that cannot be possible in this circumstance and those spreading the rumor are doing so out of political mischief. The President himself also reiterated that “there is no monetary consideration and the US itself would have disclosed if there was any monetary consideration. What you are seeing on social media that I collected $300 million to accept these detainees is absolutely untrue.”

While fully agreeing with President Mahama in his decision to accept these Yemeni former detainees, after getting apprised of all the details now, I think that we now need to question the morality of the United States, the so-called bastion of democracy and the rule of law on how they could subject human beings to this dehumanizing experience. Are they upholding democracy or hypocrisy? For how can a democratic state like US raid a place with their armed forces, rounded up innocent people and detained them for 14 years without putting them on trial?

The disturbing aspect is that some of the detainees were actually sold to the Americans by the various armed groups (bounty hunters) in Afghanistan with the false belief that they were the hard core jihadists that the Americans were looking for. How different is buying innocent people, detaining and torturing them from slavery and kidnapping that some of these terror groups like the Islamic state (IS) are accused of perpetrating?

After detaining these innocent people, the armed guards in Guantanamo Bay were authorized to torture them to extract confessions. So various forms of torture were meted out to these innocent people and the whole world was standing aloof, perhaps because of the fear of the might of the US.

According to international media, “Aamer, a Saudi-born British resident, had been detained by Afghan bounty hunters shortly after 9/11. He was handed over to the US forces as a potential al-Qaida suspect and transferred to Guantánamo Bay in 2002. Allegations were dropped against Aamer in 2007 but it was another eight years before he was released.
“During his time in captivity, Aamer’s lawyers said he was tortured and held in solitary confinement for 360 days. In 2005, he lost half his body weight during a hunger strike.

In his interview with the Mail on Sunday, Aamer alleges that he had about 200 interrogations during the 14 years that he was held. He claims to have been tortured using methods including sleep deprivation and being shackled to the floor in sub-zero temperatures.

He alleges that his head was banged against a wall at the US Bagram airbase where the “enhanced interrogation technique” was going on.”

From the above and even many other instances in the past, one finds it difficult to accept the logic of US incessant meddling in other country’s internal affairs while preaching their ‘concept’ of democracy and human rights globally.

The immorality of the US in matters of war was first manifested in August 1945 when it dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing at least 129,000. These bombings happened despite the fact that the WW2 had almost ended and Nazi Germany, which was the chief protagonist had surrendered in May the same year to the allied powers. In fact up to now US remains the only country on the surface of earth to have used nuclear weapons against an enemy state, yet they have the effrontery to go round the world ‘lecturing’ people and their leaders ‘various concepts’ of democracy, human rights and rule of law.

From this sordid episode of 1945, the US has been waging wars upon wars in the world often unprovoked in order to dominate, bully or plunder resources of other countries especially the weaker ones. Other countries are just destabilized or their leaders deposed and killed without any justified reason. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and many others are some recent examples of these US policies.

So the simple advice one would like to proffer to our policy-makers is that any time they are dealing with the US, they should be mindful of the fact that the American political and military elites do not believe in any form of morality in their affairs with other nations and can contravene international law with impunity if their interest is at stake.

We should also be careful the way we expose or carry ourselves as friends or allies of America on serious international issues especially those relating to war. For all America’s enemies across the world see America’s friends as enemies too. But on these two Guantanamo refugees, I think Ghana is unlikely to face any violent response from any quarters because we are helping to correct the mistake of a lawless superpower.