CJA CONDEMNS PETROL PRICE INCREASE

B y Ekow Mensah

CJA Demonstrators

The Committee for Joint Action (CJA) has unreservedly condemned the recent petrol price increases announced by the Government.

In a statement issued in Accra yesterday, the CJA said the increases betray the principles which underlined the elections campaign of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2004 and 2008.

 The full text of the Statement is published below;

The committee for Joint Action (CJA) condemns the recent increase of the prices of petroleum products without reservation. In our view the increases betray the principles which underlined the election campaign of the national Democratic Congress ( NDC) in 2004 and 2008. 

There are also an indication of the growing insensitivity of the Ghanaian political elite to the worsening plight of the working people and the underprivileged.

The CJA is shocked by the fact that the NDC administration is today repeating the same justification put forward by the Kufour government for fuel price increases/ these justifications have ranged the imperative of combating fuel smuggling across Ghana’s borders.

The claim that Government is subsiding the prices of petroleum products is at best fraudulent having regard to the numerous taxes which have been imposed on the products. In making this claim the CJA has also taken it into account the fact that ex-refinery prices used in calculating ex-pump prices are assumed and could be far away from real cost.

As a fact increases in the prices of petroleum products have a ripple effect throughout the country and ought not to be done without proper consideration of its social, economic and political impact.

We call on the Government to reverse its decision on fuel prices increases as a matter of urgency.

Convener.

EDITORIAL

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Sometimes it is extremely difficult to tell the difference between the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Over the week-end, the NDC Government announced increases in the prices of petroleum products, something which the party opposed when in opposition.

The shock of it all is that the NDC administration is using the same arguments it rejected in the Kuffour era to justify the increase in the price of petroleum products.

The question is, did we go or did we come?

It is important for both the NDC and the NPP to realize that the people of Ghana cannot be fooled by their trickery.

The increase in the price of petroleum products will have a ripple eff3ect throughout the economy and its consequences would be economic, political and social.

If the NDC administration is guided by its own interest, then it should very quickly reverse the decision to like the price of petroleum products.

A word to the wise is always enough.

Why would Israel murder Prisoner X?

Ben Zygier wearing Israeli military uniform

By Jim W. Dean

Ben Zygier (Prisoner X)

None of our intelligence community sources think Mossad spy Ben Zygier hanged himself. They think the Israelis snuffed him. Why? You can’t hang yourself in a facility like that. They just don’t allow it. And if he did, then he got some help… if you know what I mean.

So the day after the Australian TV show broke the story, the only debate has been over why he was killed, and where were his family and the Australian government during the whole time. Where do they get off accepting Israeli military censorship on the murder of an Australian citizen, even a Mossad agent?

I had been ready to run with this story twice but there were a few big holes and new information filtering in, what we call a moving story. I am glad I waited as there have been a lot of twists and turns, beginning with the Australian government stating that after assurances that Prisoner X’s rights would be protected, the family never asked them to do anything.

Benjamin Nyetanyahu

 Daddy Zygier was a big Australian Anti-Defamation League guy, and who knows, he may have sponsored this own son into the Mossad and is still licking his regret wounds. But to say and do nothing for your own son, to pull the Zionist wagon and help them kill your kid; that is beyond pitiful.

This just seemed hard to believe, no consular visits, no family… how could that be possible? Today we learn that the family and the Australian government, to their shame, cooperated with the Israeli regime. It turns out that he did at least have legal representation.

Avigdor Feldman, a leading Israeli attorney told Ynet, “When I saw him, I saw no signs that he was going to kill himself. He sounded rational and he asked pertinent legal questions that I can’t expand on.” The international media uproar caused Israel to lighten the gag order, where we learned that senior Justice Ministry officials oversaw the proceedings… but on whose behalf?

But things get even more weird. After only a few months of pre-trial detention he died, two years ago, but the Justice Ministry said that only six weeks ago was it ruled a suicide. Why so long? His body gets shipped home for burial, and almost two years goes by and neither parents nor Australia are screaming for a formal cause of death? Who has the pressure to shut people up like this?

Canadian Flag

Canada has the worst reputation for being under the Israeli influence boot, compliments of the powerful Lobby crowd they have there, the ones that are supposed to be figments of anti-Semites’ imaginations. Australia is number two, a combination of its small population and public general disinterest in foreign affairs, except when on holiday.

Israel, the family and the Aussie government all thought that it had blown over and been forgotten, except for one media group, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Foreign Correspondent program

But we must also thank the confidential Israeli sources they had. Yes, the killing of Prisoner X did not go down well with everyone involved, and some leaks developed or we would know nothing at all. Maybe this was motivated by his not being a Palestinian. Maybe the concern was, “They should not be able to do this to a Jew, even one charged with treason.”

The unfortunate young Mr. Zygier must have done something which made the Mossad people very unhappy. They were willing to risk an international incident over it, not something they are really shy about, but risky just the same. Many stated that his incarceration was unprecedented, but they were wrong. It has happened before, in a different way but one which gives us some clues about Zygier.

In 1983, Russian emigre and famous scientist Marcus Klingberg was arrested by the the Shin Bet for spying for the Soviets. They had suspected him since the early 60’s but it took a long time to catch him. He had a secret trial and was sentenced to twenty years, the first ten in solitary confinement.

The book, The Last Spy

The Russians tried to work a trade for him with an Israeli pilot, but that fell through. In 2003 he was finally released from his medical house arrest and off to Paris he went to enjoy retirement with his Order of the Red Banner of Labor. He even wrote a book called The Last Spy. Don’t bother looking. There are none around. They have been ‘cleaned up.’

KGB spy Mr. Klingberg had been keeping the Soviets up on Israel’s biological WMD development. Imagine that. And to make the story more interesting, due to his professional esteem he had traveled to America, where the Soviets and Israelis both shared a spy getting some stuff here.

Where is the Zygier link in all this you ask? Israel is well-known in the international Intel community to having been a WMD proliferator, and to be fair, not the only one… and I do include Western nations in that, also. Welcome to the real world. And it would be a good bet that the Israelis have the goods on most of the others, so there has been a long running game of chicken, “I won’t tell on you, if you don’t tell on me.”

America is in a very delicate situation on this. At Veterans Today we have been doing an analysis of how much uranium ore the Zios could have brought in, at what ports (none really), and where did they hide the huge reprocessing facilities to make the hundreds of nukes that they have. And then there was the small matter of the huge amount of money to pay for it all.

We concluded that they did not make much at home. Someone(s) provided them much of their weapons grade material. Many know of the NUMEC scandal at the Apollo plant in Pennsylvania where your usual dual (and maybe not dual) loyalty Jewish scientists diverted plutonium to Israel. It was a sad period for American counter intelligence which was an utter failure.

Americans suffering from nuclear poisoning in Apollo are suing for compensation. And these long suffering souls might continue to be betrayed by their own government who does not want to break the nuclear ambiguity arrangement to never acknowledge Israeli nukes, or what part America played in their birthing.

President Obama

 Betrayal of its good friend America has been a constant theme in our history with Israel, who has run industrial-scale espionage operations against us. This was done with little fear of prosecution due to the political protection provided by treasonous Americans, and more than a few of them in very high government positions.

But things could be changing. We had North Korea test a small hydrogen bomb recently, referred to for the first time as a mini-nuke. Various nations have voiced their public concerns, but without publicly asking who supplied them. Yes, that is exactly what I said. We know that there is absolutely no way that they even begin to have the knowledge to make such a bomb. Our first hydrogen bomb was so big (physical size wise) that you would not believe it if I told you.

Someone supplied North Korea the technology. Due to the Israelis’ past history of nuclear espionage and having passed things around, not for free I can assure you, they are at the top of the list. Britain has a major nuclear proliferator but one living quietly in retirement in the British countryside, very comfortably, a Mr. B.

Israelis’ deepest darkest secret is their own proliferation. We deny what they have because all of our aid is illegal because of it, all a hoax on the American people. It’s also a cause of the disdain we are held in by those who know that we supplied nuclear weapons material to them against our own and international law, while being against proliferation.

They would definitely kill you to stop that from happening, and some Americans would be happy to help them. We have no direct evidence that Zygier was involved in proliferation, or maybe even learned of it and that turned him around. But Israel walks an eternal tightrope where it is the enemy of everyone, including its own people which it ruthlessly exploits with endless victim and fear mongering. It fears exposure of all it nasty deeds, to friend and foe alike.

Avigdor Liberman

Ben Zygier was a threat to the Zionist regime on a proliferation level. That is why he is dead, and why they won’t talk. What else would cause a mother and father to abandon their son, their proud Mossad son? They loved Israel more, which all the Diaspora spies do.

But the saddest thing of all, which we hope we can talk to the Aussies about, is criminal negligence toward these young Jewish kids. They are all aiders and abettors with Israel in a kind of espionage white slavery racker, where these impressionable young people go to Israel to do their military thing. Most would never consider serving in their birth country military. They consider that for suckers.

While there, the Israelis have two years to screen who would be good hard and soft espionage talent. The hard ones would be like our dead Mr. Zygier the Mossad man. The soft ones go home to be involved in political espionage, media, academic, etc. spying and betraying their birth country for the Israelis. These kids aren’t born this way. It’s what they are taught, so their teachers carry part of the blame.

Israel has always had the most threatening weapons of mass destruction. It continues playing victim to Iran, who has none. And the American taxpayer is subsidizing it all while Israel holds an entire people in bondage. It really makes you want to rethink that evil empire thing.

Guantanamo Bay: American hell on Earth

By Dr. Dylan Murphy

''Been to Hell and back'' Abdelazis Naji Prisoner number 744 - released from US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in July 2010.

The eleventh anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay military prison has recently passed with barely a murmur from the mainstream media or western governments. There are 166 prisoners still held without charge or trial. 85 of these prisoners have been cleared for release by the Bush and Obama administrations yet they remain in prison with no end in sight to their incarceration.

Almerindo Ojeda from the UC Davis Centre for Human Rights and lead investigator for the Guantanamo Testimonials Project has been documenting evidence of the abuse of these prisoners. On RT's show Breaking The Set he recently commented,''Nobody speaks for them, there has been a conspiracy from all branches of US government to keep them there and they just languish. These 85 are not terrorists''.

The remaining prisoners are divided into two groups. Half are scheduled for trial and the other half will never be released. Almerindo Ojeda has stated that the US military will not release these 40 prisoners as they are,''considered too dangerous to release and impossible to try. Now why are they impossible to try? It's because the evidence doesn't bear trial or because the evidence [against them] is torture''.

Of the 166 prisoners still at Guantanamo military prison there are twelve people who have been locked up there since day one back in January 2002. One of these twelve is Shaker Aamer, who is a permanent British resident and is married to a British citizen, who has been cleared of any wrong doing by the US authorities but they won't allow him to return to his family in London.

For these twelve prisoners life is a daily nightmare as they wait endlessly in an American made purgatory languishing with no hope of release. Almerindo Ojeda has observed:

 ''For them Guantanamo is a daily reality of unfair procedures, of solitary confinement, of undue punishment and also of indefinite detention. People don't talk about that very much. Under normal circumstances you get a trial and a sentence that has a beginning and an end. Here you have neither''.

According to US military authorities these prisoners are not lawful combatants and are not there as prisoners of war. Therefore they have no rights what so ever. This is clear evidence of how since 9/11 the American military and political establishment has thrown the Geneva Convention and other aspects of international law out of the window. For them the entire planet is a battlefield and their endless military campaigns respect no borders or rules of war/law.

It is all too easy for many people in the West to shrug their shoulders and say there is nothing we can do about this. Worse still is the attitude: what does it really matter what happens at places like Guantanamo. What has happened at Guantanamo Bay military prison are crimes against humanity which should never be forgotten. These crimes should be investigated and those responsible should be brought to justice and punished.

The evidence of criminality at Guantanamo Bay is overwhelming and should be enough for any court to convict those responsible. In 2003 the American Civil Liberties Union filed a freedom of information request with the US government for access to documents relating to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. This led to the eventual release of 100,000 documents detailing the abuse of people held in US military prisons. In January 2007 the FBI provided over 800 of these documents, 500 of which related to Guantanamo Bay. The UC Davis Centre for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas has launched the Guantanamo Testimonials Project. This has organized the released of redacted FBI documents into an online archive open to public study. These testimonies of FBI agents who visited Guantanamo Bay detail physical, medical, religious, verbal, psychological and sexual abuse of prisoners.

Many prisoners told FBI agents that torture was the primary method used to obtain information,
''When asked about [redacted] [he] advised that he only made that statement because he was being beaten''.

Standard mistreatment of prisoners includes the use of isolation, physical and verbal abuse in an attempt to break prisoners who will then confess to anything their interrogators want to hear:

''After being interview by two females, he was taken to the ''dark place''. At the ''dark place'', a hood was placed over his head and he was yelled at and beaten. [redacted] stated that because of his treatment at the hands of his captors he provided the interrogators with whatever information that they wanted to hear''.

Another prisoner told an FBI agent of a similar terrifying experience.

According to [redacted], an unknown number of guards entered his cell, unprovoked, and started spitting and cursing at him. The guards called him a ''son of a bitch''a ''bastard'' then told him he was crazy. [redacted] rolled on to his stomach to protect himself.... a soldier named [redacted] jumped on his back and started beating him in the face. [redacted] then choked him until he passed out. ...[redacted] indicated that there was a female guard who was also beating him and grabbed his head and beat it into the cell floor. … the camp warden visited him at the hospital and told the doctors to immediately return him to the camp''.

Another common torture method was to use isolation, temperature and food/water deprivation to break a prisoner and to get them to talk:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair food or water. Most times they has urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room that the bare footed detainee was shaking with cold. When I asked the MP's what was going on, I was told that the interrogators from the day before had ordered this treatment, and the detainee was not to be moved''.

Other forms of abuse include prisoners being threatened with dogs, prisoners being told that their families had been arrested and would be moved to foreign countries for interrogation if they didn't talk, prisoners having their head and mouth covered in duct tape.

The abuse got so bad that many prisoners resorted to hunger strikes in protest:

 The mental condition of the detainees is to the point where the detainees are all participating in a hunger strike. The detainees are upset with the way they are being treated by the guards. They are upset because they are being held as prisoners without being charged with a crime or being released''.

Many prisoners have committed suicide due to the abuse and/or torture they suffered. The first three suicides at Guantanamo Bay military prison were found hanging with cloths in their mouths with their hands bound behind their backs. Almerindo Ojeda has made the point how can you hang yourself with your hands bound behind you back? He has called for a full and impartial investigation into these deaths and of all those who have died under suspicious circumstances at Guantanamo. Not surprisingly, none of these suicides have been investigated as is required under article 121 of the Geneva convention.

President Obama is not only ignoring international law he is ignoring his own executive order that the Guantanamo military prison be closed down. Days after his re-election Obama closed down the government office given the job of working to close Guantanamo down.

The Obama administration seems determined to not only defy international law it is also waging a massive campaign of persecution against whistle-blowers who expose America's war crimes. John Kiriakou is a former CIA investigator who has exposed how torture was official US policy at Guantanamo and other military prisons. He has recently been sentenced to two years in prison for this. In a recent interview John Kiriakou noted how CIA torturers, politicians who conceived of torture as official military policy, lawyers who gave ''crazed legal analysis'' to sanction the torture and former agents who write books justifying torture are not facing arrest or any kind of legal sanction. He added, that he knows of one former CIA agent who destroyed evidence of torture and is presently engaged in a book tour, giving speeches around Washington DC saying how great torture is.
 

Calls for Guantanamo military prison to be closed down have come from all over the world. These include the European Parliament, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Bishop Desmond Tutu and many others. The Close Guantanmo campaign in America sent a message to President Obama shortly after his re-election:

''Before 9/11, indefinite detention used to be associated only with regimes that prided themselves on their disdain for the rule of law; dictatorships, in other words. Nearly eleven years after the prison at Guant?namo opened, two successive U.S. administrations -- that of George W. Bush, and, since 2009, that of Barack Obama -- have demonstrated that America is no better than these dictatorships.

Let this be the last year that Guantanamo remains open. 

Is the church ready for a black pope ?

By Finian Cunningham

Is the Catholic Church ready for a black pope? That is the question many inside and outside the world’s largest Christian organization are asking following the surprise resignation of Pope Benedict XVI this week.

Cadinal Appiah Turkson of Ghana

The German pontiff, formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he was elected in 2005, is the first leader of the Catholic Church in 600 years to retire before death. Most of his predecessors, who trace their official lineage back nearly 2,000 years to Saint Peter, the first pope, have died while still in the top job.

At age 85 and citing failing health, the outgoing pope has triggered a wave of speculation on who will be his successor. That will be decided next month when the church’s cardinals from various parts of the world convene in Rome to elect the new pontiff.

Not only should the next leader of the Catholic Church be black, but also the mere fact that the above question is posed in the way that it is - is the church ready for a black pope? - betrays a deep unspoken racism, not just in the church hierarchy but in the European-American centric world that it reflects. Of course the Catholic Church should have a black leader. What on earth, or heaven, is the deliberation about?

First of all when we say “black” we mean all people who are non-white; those from Africa, Asia and the Americas, that is, outside the Euro-North American realm.

The election of a black pope is a simple matter of justice. Most of the Catholic Church’s one billion membership stems from outside the traditional power base of Europe and its white North American colonial extension. While the church’s numbers have been dwindling particularly in Europe over recent decades, it is growing steadily elsewhere in the world.

Former Catholic Pope Ratzinger

Nearly half of the church’s worldwide followers now come from Latin America. With a population of nearly 200 million, Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world.

The church is growing rapidly in Asia too, with major population centres in the Philippines, China and India.

However, it is Africa where the Catholic Church is seeing its most spectacular growth. Over the past century, the numbers of Catholics on the continent have grown from some two million in 1900 to a present day figure of 180 million.

By the year 2025, the African church is projected to rise to 230 million, when one in six Catholics worldwide will be African.

In the space of one hundred years, the balance of demographic power in the Catholic Church, in terms of its ordinary membership, has swung diametrically. Whereas before, three-quarters of the church’s followers resided in Europe and North America, today more than 70 per cent of the world’s Catholics are living in Africa, Asia and Central, South America.

In a word, the Catholic Church today is black.

Therefore, it is entirely proper that the leader of this church should be black. This is not just a basic matter of democratic fairness. To not reflect its membership leaves the Catholic Church open to accusations that it is white-dominated and Eurocentric, in the same way that many other international institutions are failing.

 The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations with its white-dominated Security Council are other examples of this racial divide of the world that does not reflect humanity’s democratic composition and concerns. If these organizations are failing in their humanitarian commitments and duties, then it is plausible that their undemocratic administrative structure is central to the problem.

Apart from the question of democratic principle, there are many other good reasons why the Catholic Church should choose its next leader from beyond its traditional white conclave.

As the infirmed Pope Benedict said in his resignation speech this week, the primary purpose of the church is preaching the gospel, meaning the “good news” of God for mankind. That vocation is fittingly suited to those parts of the world where the church is young, growing and energetic.

After all, the description “Catholic” derives from the Greek word “katholikas” which means “universal”. The church should therefore demonstrate its purpose and meaning by having a figurehead that reflects its presumed universalist body.

The scandals that have greatly wounded the Catholic Church in recent years, causing its membership to hemorrhage, are largely problems emanating from Europe and North America. The clerical child sex abuse that emerged during Benedict’s eight years as pontiff has plagued the church with disillusionment and dwindling numbers. Clerics who engaged in these crimes have been seen to be based mainly in Europe and North America, and the church hierarchy in these countries, including the pope, has been accused of callous negligence towards victims and, worse, cover-up of the scandal.

The theft and subsequent release of confidential documents by the Pope Benedict’s personal butler last year also sparked embarrassing scandals over financial sleaze and money-laundering in the Vatican’s lucrative bank dealings - one of the richest institutions in the world owing to centuries of European colonialism. The butler’s disclosures also shed light on petty-power bickering among the Vatican hierarchy, which reinforces the notion that it looks like a rich-man’s club completely out of touch with the concerns of the rest of the world.

It seems a patent matter of justice that a worldwide church should not be made to suffer because of the sins of its white and mainly European leadership. This leadership has inflicted deep damage and should therefore makes amends by at least relinquishing its monopoly on administrative power.

Today’s Catholic Church is not only black. It is mainly poor. Most of its membership - like the world at large - is struggling with violent conflict and economic exploitation in order to feed their families.

In his official meetings with US presidents Bush and Obama, Pope Benedict gave emphasis to the issues of abortion and what might be referred to as “life ethics” such as contraception and gay marriage.

It is true that Benedict criticised the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, but not nearly as forcefully as he should have done. These are after all huge crimes of genocide and aggression that have set a dynamic for many other neo-imperialist wars that are now raging across the Middle East and Africa, Syria and Mali being the most recent cases.

When did Pope Benedict denounce the continual threat of nuclear war against Iran issued by the US and its surrogate Israeli client? Or the illegal and barbaric American and European sanctions that are inflicting so much suffering on the people of Iran? The pope is not just a leader of Catholic Christians, he is supposed to be a voice for all of humanity, whether Christian, Muslim or any other.

 What the Catholic Church and the world needs is a leader who speaks up unequivocally and vociferously against the massive structural violence and violations that are indisputably the result of Western government foreign policies. Such a leader needs to condemn the American and European perpetrator presidents and prime ministers of these abominations, not to indulge them with reverential meetings to discuss ethical issues.

The politically conservative German pontiff, known for this theological dogmatism, failed conspicuously to denounce capitalism. As with most of the European and North American hierarchy, the outgoing pontiff seems to be oblivious to the fact that this elite-driven economic system dominated by Washington, London, Paris and Berlin is literally crucifying the planet and its people with poverty, disease, hunger and ecological destruction.

The Eurocentric Catholic Church with its long succession of white popes reflects a world that has become warped and corrupted by elite domination, manifested in capitalism and warmongering imperialism that subjugate the world’s majority in conditions of poverty and conflict. Those chains need to be broken. If the Catholic Church is truly guided by God’s good news, then it must break from the pernicious paradigm of elite domination and open up to the reality and needs of the common human condition.

 

One final irony is that history shows that Africa - while being a recent growth area for the church - is also crucial to its origins and subsequent spreading of the religion. In years following Jesus, his disciples took his teachings from Palestine to Alexandria, in Egypt, as well as Constantinople, Antioch and Rome. One of the four evangelists and friends of Jesus, Saint Mark, was from Cyrene, in what is now modern-day Libya. Mark along with others brought the early church to North and East Africa. At least three of the early popes - Victor I, Miltiades and Gelasius I - were from Roman-occupied Africa. It was only in the following centuries that the Catholic Church became centered on Rome and most of its popes thereafter were Italian and European.

So the historical precedent for an African pope is strong, as well as the modern need for a more representative church that truly reflects and speaks for the human concerns of the world.

A black pope would be long-overdue good news, and a good

PROFESSOR

Professor Francis Nkrumah

Professor Francis Nkrumah, the first born child of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Ghana Medical School, located in Accra, Ghana. Professor Nkrumah undertook his medical training in Berlin where he qualified in 1961. His post-graduate training in Pediatrics and Public Health was undertaken at the Children's Hospital and at Harvard School of Public Health, both in Boston, Massachusetts. After his post-graduate training he returned to Ghana and worked as a Pediatrician and lecturer in Pediatrics at the University of Ghana Medical School. In 1983 he moved to the University of Harare, in Zimbabwe, where he served as Professor of Pediatrics for seven years. In 1990 Professor Nkrumah returned to Ghana to begin serving as the Director of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, located at the University of Ghana in Legon. It is well known that he led the Institute with distinction until his retirement in 2001, at;, which time the University of Ghana appointed him Professor Emeritus.

Professor Nkrumah has undertaken re- search on many of the major infectious diseases that face children in developing countries, including malaria and measles.  Moreover, he has always been a strong supporter of vaccination and has played a major role in the formation of a number of important committees established by major international organizations-such as the World Health Organization and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-directed at improving the use of established vaccines. These efforts have contributed immensely to the research and treatment of measles, polio, malaria, and meningococcal disease.

Recently, the Editor of the Nkrumaist Review posed the following questions to Professor Francis Nkrumah:

ENR: How would you assess the progress we have made in Africa, if any, towards your father’s vision of one
united socialist Africa?

PFN: In order to put it into perspective and assess the progress or lack of progress we have made in Africa in realizing my father's vision of one united, socialist Africa, one has to revisit the main tenets of that vision and its political origins and underpinnings. The balkanization of Africa, its colonialization and exploitation by European  powers over a period of 200 years, left Africa, at the threshold of national independence in the 50's and 60's, weak, vulnerable, politically divided and susceptible to continued exploitation. Nkrumah was forthright in realizing that imperialism, during the post independence period, would continue to assume new forms and subtler disguises to create client states, and fan fires of sectional interests in order to keep their stranglehold on Africa's resources. He was convinced that Africa's hard won freedom stood open to danger so long as individual independent states of Africa remained economically apart and without a common defense policy. This danger could only be overcome by presenting a united front and maintaining a continental purpose. He was resolute that the forces that clamored for unity far outweighed those that divided us. In my father's view, the liberation of Africa encompassed a lot more than just political freedom from the yoke of colonialism. Africa had to liberate itself from poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance, internal conflicts and exploitation. A united socialist Africa would assure the public ownership of the means of production, the resources and their use in fulfillment of the needs of the people.

The object of socialism, my father believed, was to effect social justice and human development for all, with the state making sure that all its citizenry have equal access to development and advancement. It was only within such a context that true democracy could evolve and be expressed.

Nkrumah advocated for a "Union of African States," a Community of African States, with members of the Community maintaining their own national identities and constitutional structures-a union without insistence on abrogation of sovereignty of individual states but with defined and reserved areas for common action e.g., a united, joint defense policy and strategy; common economic planning and integrated policy; and a common foreign policy agenda, pursued solely in the interest of Africa. Unfortunately, there was a deliberate attempt both outside and within Africa (including among some of his contemporary fellow Heads of State) to misrepresent or misinterpret the zeal, crusading passion, and burning urgency with which my father articulated his vision on African unity as signs of personal ambition for continental leadership. I wonder if we have missed the boat. We certainly have not made much tangible progress so far in moving African unity forward as conceptualized by Nkrumah.

ENR: What do you consider to be' the remaining obstacles or challenges that we, as Africans face in the struggle to liberate African along lines outlined by Osagyefo, Dr Kwame Nkrumah

PFN: Colonial rule for most African states ended in the late 1950's and 1960's, yet we as a people are still struggling to liberate ourselves from poverty, disease, ignorance, conflict, economic exploitation, etc., and Africa continues to remain at the periphery of global affairs. The African at the beginning of the 21st century is still not master of himself! We have not been able to accept or actualize many of the ideas and principles Nkrumah tried to get across nor heed the warnings he somehow managed to foresee.

Many obstacles have stood and still stand in the way of translating many of the fundamental political and economic ideas and convictions of my father into action and realization, e.g., African unity, Pan-Africanism, and socialist economic transformation. The transition from pre-independence nationalism to post-independence socialist transformation of society as envisaged by Nkrumah still eludes us. These obstacles were and sadly are still being driven by both internal as well as external forces.
 

Most of the internal factors are self-inflicted. Foremost among them is simply a failure of political leadership in Africa-the in- ability or unwillingness of its leaders to rise to the responsibility of true and caring leadership. This includes usurpation of people's will and power by tyrants of all shades; grand corruption; lack of adequate and functioning institutions of State to guarantee rights of citizenry; ethnic conflicts fanned by both internal and external vested interests; and a mentality of maintaining the 'sanctity' of colonial borders at all costs. Of course, the greatest external challenge we face today is the continuing and persistent neo-colonialist economic exploitation of Africa's resources, nowadays under the guise of so-called globalization.

Our greatest challenge, however, is to convince current and emerging African leaders that the future security and welfare of our people lie in our own hands and that the will and interests of the people are always paramount.

ENR:  Your father was influenced by many persons and by a variety of ideas during his lifetime, especially during his formative years in the United States and in Great Britain. Which persons and which ideas do you believe had their greatest impact on the ideological development of Kwame Nkrumah?

PFN: As you are aware, my father spent 10 years in the USA as a student (from 1935 to 1945), initially at Lincoln University, a predominantly 'black' University then, where he studied sociology and theology as an undergraduate and then at the University of Philadelphia as a graduate student in education and political philosophy, It is not easy to specifically pinpoint the ideas and influence that motivated and inspired him in these formative years as a student to embark on the political path he chose subsequently. There must have been a progressive buildup of intellectual interest and commitment on issues relating to Africa's liberation and the abolition of the colonial system, especially in the later stages of his graduate studies as exemplified in some of his student academic essays. His exposure to black nationalist literature and associations, especially in Harlem, where he spent his summers, and to the writings of Marcus Garvey and DuBois, would have influenced and inspired his already aroused interest in Pan-African and liberation ideologies. DuBois, in particular, had contributed so much in documenting the work of black intellectuals and scholars on the history of Africans in the Diaspora, and Marcus Garvey had passionately articulated his doctrines of "Africa for Africans" and 'Back to Africa' in writings which were readily available to Nkrumah.

 

But one person who had a long lasting political and close personal relationship with my father was George Padmore. Padmore exerted, I think, considerable intellectual, political and ideological influence on Nkrumah, especially during his two years stay in the U.K., from 1945 to 1947. Both of them had been joint Secretaries to the Organizing Committee which planned the 1945 Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester. Padmore was an intellectual political guru, well versed in the international politics of the left and very active in the Pan-African movements in the UK; he was also an important link figure between Diasporan Africans and colonial Africans. He and Nkrumah shared a common political and ideological platform that was anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, Pan-Africanist, and socialist. Pad more, I think, provided that intellectual and political companionship that my father needed in the early years of his political life in the UK, and subsequently when he became advisor to my father on African Affairs in Ghana. On a personal note, I always viewed Uncle George as a second father. He and Dorothy, the wife, were always very kind to me. His premature death must have been a great loss to my father.

ENR: No one talks about the ‘African Personality’ anymore. During your father’s adult lifetime, however, he talked about it constantly. What, in your opinion, did he mean by the ‘African Personality’  and do you still find it relevant today, especially within the context of the ongoing debate around ‘globalization ?

PFN: Yes, my father in many of his speeches and writings used the term 'African Personality' to express and promote a common social and cultural consciousness that make us uniquely African. This inherent 'Africanness' had been badly brutalized, firstly through the traumatic and inhuman historical experiences of the slave trade and subsequently by the subjugation and exploitation of the African people through colonial rule. Africa, especially in the post independence era, needed to rediscover and re-identify itself in order to regain its self esteem, pride and self confidence. It needed to search and rediscover its true soul and create that African awareness that transverses religious be liefs, ethnicity and social class. I think Nkrumah wanted to rekindle that inherent spirit in us by referring to its totality as the "African Personality".

Does the projection of this identity have relevance today in the context of a globalizing world? Absolutely! Identity and culture should be the common thread that weaves society together to facilitate and create the platform for development. Europe, Japan, China, and India have not subsumed their identities under a so called globalised world; rather these identities are being enhanced. The globalization playing field is still uneven and we as Africans should take the advantage of what globalization offers without globalization taking advantage of us. As the world increasingly becomes interdependent, the' African Personality' and what it embodies should be allowed to contribute to that totality of human progress. In that context, the African personality/identity should not be viewed as static but continuously dynamic in keeping with a changing world, requiring reassessment, reevaluation and reaffirmation.

ENR: Your father’s contribution to the development of post-colonial Ghana was astonishing; and in practically every field of human endeavor: As Professor of Medicine, can you tell us of some of the specific contribution he made to the critical field of health in Ghana?

PFN: At independence Ghana inherited a colonial health system characterized by poor distribution and location of health care facilities. These were mostly in a few urban centers and catered mainly to administrative officials, their dependants and the civil service. A handful of mission hospitals provided mainly curative health services to a few rural communities. During the Post-independence period, the CPP government undertook a massive expansion of health delivery infrastructure and manpower training across the country. New hospitals (in Tamale, Effia-Nkwanta and Ho), clinics, and nurse training centers were built or expanded and a network of health centers provided for the rural areas. There was also a change in orientation from a predominantly curative service to increasing incorporation of public and preventive health, e.g., the establishment of the Ghana Field Services Unit.

One of the most notable contributions in the health sector that Nkrumah single handedly made was the establishment of the Ghana Medical School at the Korle Bu Hospital in 1963.
The rapidly expanding health services required that Ghana train its own national doctors in country. Initially, the USA government through USAID was to provide financing of the whole of the Medical School Complex project and provide American academic staff for the School. At some point in the negotiations, Nkrumah felt that the terms were not in the national interests of Ghana and abrogated the agreement. He wanted the Medical School to be established and run by Ghanaians. Dr. Easmon (who was appointed professor and first Dean of the Medical School) and other senior doctors at Korle Bu were then directed to establish the School with my father apparently telling them, "You can do it!" They took up the challenge and today the Ghana Medical School (incorporated into the University of Ghana in 1969) is one of the most accomplished medical training institutions in Africa.

ENR: The party of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the Convention People’s Party, has not been able to reach its fullest potential over the past decade or more. Can you offer any general and /or specific advice towards improving its stature as well as enhancing its image among the Ghanaian electorate?  

PFN: My father returned to the then Gold Coast in 1947 upon the invitation of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC). He served as its General Secretary, a position he held for almost
two years, albeit with increasing concern and doubt about the conservative political direction and thinking of the hierarchy of the UGCC. This was particularly apparent around issues relating to the strategies to be adopted in the struggle for independence. In 1949 he and a few like-minded colleagues split from the UGCC to form the Convention People's Party (CPP), a mass vanguard political movement with the principle objective of ending colonial rule and attaining independence for the Gold Coast. They adopted the slogan, 'Self-Government Now.' The CPP was built around Nkrumah, and his electrifying leadership of the party as a whole was never in question. However, at in- dependence and post-independence, the CPP found its core membership and hierarchy composed of an amorphous organization comprising truly committed comrades as well as some self-seeking individuals, national opportunists, praise singers, petty bourgeoisie, and many without commitment to any socialist ideology or the principles for which Nkrumah stood. In the aftermath of the 1966 coup, the CPP, without the cohesive leadership that my father provided, began to fall apart. A number of reasons contributed to this. The banning of the Party, post-coup, by the military/police regime, and the arrests and incarceration of prominent party figures created disarray in the party which was exploited by subsequent regimes and governments. Other factors include subsequent internal divisionism and factional mistrust; personal ambition and machinations for power; lack of real and creditable central leadership to inspire and maintain discipline; and above all, lack of ideological clarity. Also, the later emergence of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as a center-left, social-democratic party, presenting itself in some ways as an alternative to the CPP, certainly did not help the political fortunes of the CPP in latter years.

 

Prof. and Samia, CPP Chairperson

Is there hope for the full resurrection of the CPP to its past glory as a vanguard socialist political party devoted to the welfare of the masses? Conditionally yes! First and foremost, in my opinion the party should clarify its ideological stand, and exhibit unity of purpose and a commitment to principles arising thereof. Then, the party should embark on a major grassroots reorganization with clear cut messages of its sociopolitical and economic agenda that will appeal to the broad masses of the people. Party discipline, with creditable and committed leadership, will be essential. Lastly the party should advocate and exhibit a strong Pan-Africanist posture and vigorously pursue Nkrumah's vision of a Union of African states.

ENR: Your father's focus on African youth was unmistakable the establishment of the Young

Pioneers being only one manifestation of his determination to unleash the unlimited potential of African youth in the struggle to liberate Africa. How do you see the state of Africa youth today. and how do you believe we can make Nkrumaism relevant to their lives?

PFN: Yes, the future development of Africa to a great extent lies in the unleashing of the potential energies of its youth. Africa's youth must ultimately be prepared to serve as an instrument of change in society. Nkrumah was acutely aware of this and through the establishment of the Young Pioneer's movement and the Workers' Brigade sought to inculcate essential elements of nationalism and work ethos into the youth of Ghana.

Sadly, the state of the youth in Africa today is not a very pleasant and hopeful one. Travel anywhere across the length and breath of Africa and one sadly encounters literally hordes of unskilled, half-educated and unemployable youth loitering in our cities and towns without hope for a meaningful future or the opportunity to shape and contribute to one. Our educational, social and persisting neocolonial and nonproductive economic systems seem to have woefully failed a majority of our youth, with potentially grave social and security implications for the future. Moreover, our traditional value system, with its strong moral and ethical content, essential for national youth character formation, is being rapidly eroded through what I may call cultural imperialism under the false guise of globalization or modernization.

One of the fundamental pillars of Nkrumaism embraces nationalism, social justice, equity and equal opportunity. These guiding principles are still valid today and there is a need to truly translate them into positive and concrete action for the benefit of Africa's youth.

ENR: The February 24, l966 Coup has proven to be one of the most calamitous events in the history of Africa and of the African people. Can you share any reflections you may have of this event and its aftermath?

PFN: Yes, the 1966, February 24 coup undertaken by elements of the military and police, inspired externally by western imperialist powers and with the connivance of reactionary collaborators among our own population, was a tragic event in the history of Ghana and Africa. I was then in Boston, USA, undertaking my post-graduate residency program at the Children's' Hospital Medical Center, when news of the event was broken to me by the Director of the Hospital who had been informed through the State Department to convey the information to me! The coup was, however, not a total surprise to me since prior to it there had been a number of past failed attempts to assassinate my father. It seemed to me that in the eyes of the imperialist powers Nkrumah was preaching a dangerous gospel.

Here was this African leader shouting at the top of his voice, loud and clear, to the world and to his African brothers and sisters warnings about the dangers of neo-colonialism and imperialism, and advocating socialism, African unity and solidarity! To the western world he constituted a threat to their economic and geo-political interests; and the voice had to be silenced.

Was there any real justification for the 1966 coup? Apologists for the coup have, a posteriori, advanced the creation of a one parry state, compromised democracy and dictatorship, socialism and a drift towards communism, and economic hardship as possible justifications. My father, I think, genuinely believed that in the immediatepost-independence era, a one parry state could only function for the good of the people within the framework of a socialist state or a developing state with a socialist program. Such a state would govern through the people and not through class cleavages and interests. Economic hardship? Nkrumah requested Ghanaians to suffer a little for the common good. Within a short span of time after independence, the economic and social transformation of Ghana was obvious with evidence of modernization and industrialization: road networks and bridges, factories, air and maritime lines, vastly expanded educational and health infrastructure and above all the completion of the power generating Akosombo dam among others. The living standard of Ghanaians was among the highest in Africa at the time of the coup! Sadly, the 1966 coup brought about the sudden truncation of Ghana's carefully planned economic development and social transformation. 

ENR: Call you share wit h our readers any personal memories you may have of your father that our readers may find of interest in their effort 10 gain a greater understanding of Africa’s Man of the Century

PFN: Personal memories are meant to be personal and as such there is obviously a reluctance to share them with the public!
However, I shall very briefly use the experience of my marriage to my wife, Margaret, and how it came about to give an insight into how open-minded and accommodating my father was. 

Margaret's father was Solomon Odamtten, a well known high ranking opposition party member of the UP tradition, who had stood against my father in the Accra Central constituency in one of the national general elections and lost. I had met Margaret accidentally at a parry in Accra after our respective returns from our studies abroad; we liked each other and started dating. 

At that time, I played tennis regularly with my father early Sunday mornings at the Flagstaff house (together with Dr. Schandorf and Mr. Sonny Provencal). At one of these tennis sessions, my father made a sort of casual remark, "I hear you are dating one of the Odamtten daughters; is it serious?" When I responded in the affirmative, he said hmm and inquired if she was a tennis player. When I said yes and a good one too, he said, "bring the young lady along next Sunday," and that was it. 

Margaret became, from then on, a regular and loved part of the Flagstaff house tennis team. We got married a few months later. My father very much looked forward to these Sunday morning tennis and breakfast sessions. They were the few times he could really relax and not worry about the complexities of political issues and problems facing Ghana and Africa.

I saw my father alive for the last time in Bucharest, Romania, where he had been transferred to from Guinea for medical care. He was then terminally ill but still maintaining the spirit of the revolutionary freedom fighter. He died shortly after my visit.