NKRUMAH: SFG PRESENTS HIS PERSONAL ITEMS TO MAUSOLEUM

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

By Ekow Mensah

At a very solemn ceremony at the graveside of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, founder of the Republic of Ghana the Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) presented personal iteams of the Osagyefo to the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra .

The items including clothing were in the suitcase used by the Osagyefo on his peace mission to Hanoi.

They had been in the custody of his nephew Nyameke and were handed over to the SFG  13 years ago.

Justice Henaku, a member of the SFG presented the items to Alhaji Abubakari I.Osman, boss of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.

Present at the event were Professor Francis Nkrumah, eldest son o f the Osagyefo, Dr Don Arthur who designed the Nkrumah Memorial Park and Ivor Greenstreet, General Secretary of the Convention Peoples  Party (CPP).

Mr Henaku said the SFG decided to hand over  the items to be displayed by the Nkrumah Memorial Park to serve as an inspiration to Ghanaians in their struggle for the preservation of national independence.

He paid glowing tribute to Nkrumah for his role in the decolonisation process in Africa and elsewhere and for the inspiration he provided to all people fighting against domination and oppression.

He said the SFG is ready to work with all progressive forces to propagate the ideas and ideals of Nkrumah.

Alhaji  Osman appealed for public assistance in the running of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.

He said the Park has since its establishment not been allocated an official vehicle and that it has had to conduct its business with hired taxis.

He said the monthly  budgetary allocation for the maintenance of the Park is less than GhȻ2,000.00 (Two thousand Ghana cedis).

 

The Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum

Alhaji Osman said if the Park had the much needed resources it would have embarked upon an outreach programme.

The Park has no standby generator and its water supply is erratic.

Professor Francis Nkrumah, eldest son of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, praised his cousin Nyameke for taking good care of the items.

He appealed to all persons who have such items to send them to the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.

Professor Nkrumah suggested the estblishment of a Kwame Nkrumah Library at the Park.

Dr Don Arthur, recounted how the Acheampong Government had discussions with him about building a memorial for Nkrumah.

He said it was in 1982, that the PNDC took a firm decision to build the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.

Dr Don Arthur appealed to individuals and organisations to contribute generously to the running of the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.

Pupils of the Awopedic  school in Teshie provided traditional music and dance to make the event more colourful.

 

VEEP OPENS BOOKSHOP TODAY

His Excellency, Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur will open the “Freedom Bookshop” in  Accra this afternoon.

The opening of the bookshop is part of activities marking the 47^th anniversary of the overthrow of the Nkrumah Government by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America.

The bookshop has been set up by the Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) to make books by Nkrumah and about Nkrumah easily available to the Ghanaian public.

 It also offers other progressive books on African heroes and heroines and revolutionary struggles accross the globe.

An art gallary has also been attached to the bookshop which offers painted potraits of Osagyefo Dr  Kwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, Malcom X, Mahatma Ghandi and several others for sale to the general public.

 Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, former  Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana will launch a booklet titled, “Nkrumah And The African Revolution” at the event.

It was authored by Commander Jorges Risquet Valdes, leader of the Cuban internationalist forces who defeated the aparthied army aided by other imperialist and pro-imperalist forces in Angola.

It was presented as a speech at the 103^rd birthday of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah in Accra last year.

 Comrade Barzini Tandoh of the Third World Network will also lauch  the magazine, “The Nkrumaist” at the event.

The magazine is sponsored by he SFG and features articles authored by distingushed comrades such as Dr Gamal Nasser Adam, L.G.K. Nubour Ababio, Peter Kofi Amponsah and Ex-Lt Owusu Gyimah.

It is expected that some potraits of the Osagyefo will be auctioned at the event.

 

A NEW ‘SOCIALIST PARTY OF GHANA’ IN THE OFFING?

By Lang T.K.A. Nubuor

Lang T.K.A Nubour

1. Abstract of Proceedings

On this year’s Socialist Forum of Ghana’s (SFG’s) programme in observance of the February 24^th, 1966 coup d’état in Ghana, christened Ghana’s Day of Shame, a lecture at the Freedom Centre in Accra on February 20^th 2013 opened a week-long of activities. Prominent at the lecture were two of the founding members of the Socialist Forum of Ghana - Comrade Yaw Opoku and Comrade Kwesi Pratt. In quiet attendance was Prof. Akilagpa Sawyerr, a guiding light of the Marxist-Nkrumaist movement in Africa. Other great names associated with and involved with the movement, like Comrades Kwasi Adu of CJA fame and Justice Henaku Akufo, were also present on the occasion. Diplomats of fraternal countries graced the event.

Comrade Kyeretwie Opoku, billed to deliver the lecture, rather chaired it since earlier on a family tragedy had compromised his preparation. In his place, Comrade Kwame Mfodwo, who had returned from Australia after a three-decade sojourn there, delivered the lecture. Before he spoke, Comrade Yaw Opoku made some preliminary remarks calling attention to the Marxist basis of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s thought and practice. He traced Dr. Nkrumah’s political work and achievements to the application of Marxist dialectics in discerning the dimensions of Africa’s and Ghana’s developmental problems and the required solutions to them. Comrade Kwame Mfodwo then comes in on ‘The State in Ghana and South-East Asia’.

Before question time, Comrade Kyeretwie Opoku, who is also a prominent member of the SFG, made a summary of the deliveries by the two speakers and particularly pointed out that Comrade Kwame Mfodwo’s lecture was silent on the State-type operative in the countries he touched on. After this, the question time turned out in the main to be an occasion for suggestions on the way forward for the Left in Ghanaian politics. Special mention was made of the Left’s apparent lack of influence in the fashioning of state policies. In this respect, the revelation surfaced that the fashioning of state policies resides in the bosom of ministerial technocrats rather than the ministers of state who head them.

This revelation was concluded with the suggestion that the Left should endeavour to lobby the progressive youth to positions at the ministries to also exercise influence on policy formulation. To build up such youth, suggestions stressed the need for the Left to carry its message to the youth through channels of communication that addressed them verbally rather than by way of the written word. The youth, according to this perspective, generally shun the written word: messages could effectively get to them through the cultural media where listening is the main means of information reception. While these, in the main, were not contested, the SFG leadership stressed on the question of organization/party formation.

2. The Preliminary Remarks 

 At the head of proceedings, Comrade Kwesi Pratt set the ball rolling at the full house of the Freedom Centre with an announcement that a family tragedy having befallen the advertised speaker at the lecture, Comrade Kyeretwie Opoku, a change had been made to replace him with Comrade Kwame Mfodwo. He would rather be the chairman for the occasion. Additionally, Comrade Yaw Opoku would make some preliminary remarks while Comrade Kwame Mfodwo was being awaited. Comrade Kyeretwie then took over and explained the line that his presentation would have followed but for the disorganizing tragedy of a brother’s demise. He then introduced the two speakers while expecting Comrade Mfodwo.

In his preliminary remarks, Comrade Yaw Opoku explained the theoretical principles that informed Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s intellectual and political life. He emphasized what he called the Marxist scientific socialist principles to be the basis upon which Dr. Nkrumah operated. He was particular about the dialectical principle concerning the inter-connectedness of things universal. He was not impressed with the current CPP’s neglect of Nkrumaism; by which he implicitly meant the Marxist dimension of Dr. Nkrumah’s thought and ideological system. He considered these as preliminary remarks to an issue that continually rendered him sad – the question of Dr. Nkrumah’s Atomic Energy Project and its abandonment.

According to him, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had been able to acquire from the Soviet Union a vital core for the installation of the Atomic Reactor at Kwabenya in Ghana for industrial purposes. He stated February 24^th 1966 to be Ghana’s Day of Shame for the very reason that at a time when no African country had access to such a priced facility the military regime of Major General E.K. Kotoka and General A.A. Afrifa, being advised by Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia and others of the Danquah-Busia tradition, surrendered that device to the United States of America as a gift. The Americans were then ignorant of the device’s technological know-how. The betrayers of Ghana and Africa just dashed out the device for US knowledge gain.

Ghana Atomic Energy Commission

Nothing pained Comrade Yaw Opoku more than the subsequent sharing among the political elite in Ghana of portions of the over 4,000 acre land that Dr. Nkrumah acquired for the Project. While ministers of state grabbed portions of the land to build their private houses on, other portions were given to institutions like the Ghana Fire Service for their own development. And one minister has built his house just 200 metres away from the site of the reactor! As at now, over 2,000 acres of the land have been taken away. In collaboration with the United States, Ghana’s political elite have denied Africa of this very important source of energy for its industrialization.  This, Comrade Yaw Opoku repeated, represents the Shame.

This exposition on the betrayal of the best interests of Ghana and Africa by the neo-colonial political elite through the established neo-colonial state in Ghana was followed by Comrade Kwame Mfodwo’s lecture on ‘The State in Ghana and South-East Asia’. The essence of Comrade Mfodwo’s lecture could be stated as the employment of the State in South-East Asia to wrestle development advantages from its relations with the West while in Ghana the role of the State has been taken over by Christian fundamentalism in individual interests. He illustrated how the military in South-East Asia, through the State, financed companies like Samsung, Hyundai, etc. and insisted that they paid back after reaching assigned export targets.

The hall rocked with laughter when Comrade Mfodwo added that failure to meet the said targets invited not only the withdrawal of further financial support and repayment of the previous loans but also imprisonment. He stated that in respect of sanitation the magic wand was corporal punishment. He explained that these measures appeared to emanate from the military culture of discipline that insisted on meeting targets. He added quickly that he was not recommending those actions for application in Ghana but that he was only narrating what was done by the State in South-East Asia. This brought him to the situation in Ghana where he expressed surprise at the state of affairs upon his return recently after decades.

Comrade Mfodwo observed that the fact that currently many Ghanaians he met explained situations from the Christian pastor’s point of view and preferred taking their problems to the clergy meant the Church’s assumption of the role of the State. This, to him, implied that the Church must be made to play its role in a way that this author unfortunately could not determine since the speaker had moved from the microphone. Whatever he had said made those in front who heard him laugh out loud. Comrade Mfodwo later told this author after the session that at present he was more concerned with the pastors and, in fact, he had a lot to say from face-to-face encounters with persons like Bishop Dag Heward-Mills to pastoral billboards.

3. Questions Time

SFG Convener Kyeretwie Opoku

 Comrade Kyeretwie Opoku then summed up the views of the two speakers and invited questions from the floor. There were about eight persons who took to the microphone. One of them, the first, was disturbed by the current situation whereby there were many on the Left with brilliant ideas but who were not influencing the policy direction of the State. He called for the massing up of such individuals in an organization to make an impact in the manner of organizations like Imani who were represented at State forums. His militant posture reflected the intensity of his passion for advance in Left wing politics. His position received applause from the audience. The next two contributors were similarly concerned but it was the second of them who appeared to have been taken more seriously.

That third contributor, a civil servant (retired?), spoke from the position of his experience in the ministries. He explained that contrary to the received version the ministers who headed the ministries were for the most part ignorant of the work therein. Signally, he stated that it was not their party government’s policy or programme that determined the direction of affairs at their respective ministries and therefore the State. Policy directions were essentially determined by the permanent high officials of the ministries. These high officials prepared the speeches of the ministers who only went to read them out to the public or the nation. For him, therefore, what amounts to capturing such positions through lobbying was a needed strategy for assuming the power to determine the direction of State policy.

In his opinion, the progressive youth must be virtually smuggled into the ministerial institutions of State to give the Left control over the determination of State policies. His faith in the powerlessness of political appointees who head the ministries was deep. Dr. David Pessy, a member of the SFG, later frowned on this suggestion and made light of it. Before that, Comrade Kwesi Pratt came in to stress the need for an organization. He briefly traced the efforts of four comrades over a decade ago leading to the current state of the Socialist Forum of Ghana and the Freedom Centre as well as the publication of nine books and pamphlets and the impending opening of the Socialist Bookshop within a few days.

This, he stated, nonetheless, was not sufficient. Efforts to run a study group have also not received the needed support from comrades who could lead discussions. He was convinced in the propriety of forming an organization of the Left. This was later followed with a call from Comrade Yaw Opoku for the formation of a political party. He called it the Socialist Party of Ghana. He did not give details of how the party would be formed. He believed, however, that the party must be formed this year, 2013. Given his view that the CPP had abandoned Nkrumaism, it appeared that the proposed Socialist Party of Ghana would be an independent political party guided by the tenets and principles of Marxism-Nkrumaism.

4. Observations

The immediate impression at the opening lecture of the Ghana Day of Shame programme is a general dissatisfaction of those in attendance with the neo-colonial State and the state of the Left whereby apparent individualistic efforts hold sway. The need for the organizations and individuals to constitute themselves into a single organization is transparently clear to all. What does not appear clear is whether the projected party is intended to operate within the constitutional framework of the Ghanaian neo-colony. But this is to pretend not to see what is obvious. For, the immediate observation is a scene of well-meaning persons in a general desire to replace the personnel of the neo-colonial state with the latter sustained.

The stage was set in the lecture where, until the chairman compelled the speaker to clarify his position to the contrary, Comrade Kwame Mfodwo operated with an undefined State. In the process, our civil servant veteran took the lead and elaborated a scheme to get the progressive youth infiltrate the governmental machinery of the neo-colony to assume the perceived real seat of State power. Dr. Pessy described the act as ‘smuggling’, to the utmost discomfiture of our veteran. The scheme did not question the legitimacy of a clearly rotten State which is beyond reform or repair. That night an interview with the heads of the Board and Management of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on Metro TV lay bear the rottenness. 

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

The reality of the African neo-colony, like that of Ghana, is such that however progressive an organization or individual might be, once they assume control over the neo-colonial State they find nothing but a total state of rottenness that cannot be redeemed but fit only for Kokompe (scrape dealers). The ‘smuggling’ scheme adumbrated here represents an innocuous scheme for a civilian kind of coup d’état. Hence, the similarity between what Comrade Mfodwo renders of the South-East Asian situation and the ‘smuggling’ scheme. In both categories those who really exercise power are not accountable to the people. But a ‘Socialist State’ without a decisive People’s Power structure could be devastating indeed. 

That is why we need a clearer picture of the projected Socialist Party of Ghana. Is it projected to operate within the constitutional framework of the neo-colonial State? If the answer is positive then another round of fruitless takeover of the neo-colonial State can very well be anticipated. Is it projected to operate essentially outside the neo-colonial framework in direct confrontation with it? Certainly, this is the preferred choice. But the scope of the required organizational framework for such an enterprise goes beyond the neo-colony. It is clear that as portrayed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah that organizational framework embraces the entire continent. For, victory in a single neo-colony unconnected with others is a still-born.

We might still ask: Is it projected within the neo-colonial legal framework but with ambitions beyond capturing neo-colonial State power? Surely, this is the pragmatic step to take. In this direction, in accordance with the principles of Marxism-Nkrumaism as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah develops them in his Class Struggle in Africa and Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare, both legal and illegal means must be employed to finally effect the replacement of all neo-colonial States in Africa. Certainly, to struggle in parliament for a constitutional dismantling of the neo-colonial State and replace it with a People’s State cannot be an illegal act. But such acts of negotiation as the sole method of struggle have long declared themselves anachronistic.  

Let all genuine progressive organizations and individuals operating under the Marxist-Nkrumaist banner of Revolutionary Pan-Africanism reflect over these issues before taking the next step. For, in the final analysis our objective is the crystallization of the All-Africa People’s Revolutionary Party and its supportive State organs of the new Africa in prosperity under the People’s Republican State of Africa. All these in the fulfilment of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s dream of a truly liberated socialist united Africa.  Before then, let us reflect and reconsider the February 24^th 1966 act of betrayal as AFRICA’S DAY OF SHAME but not just GHANA’S DAY OF SHAME. For, since then Africa has never been the same – it is dislocated.

The Struggle is our Struggle!

Revolution or Death!

Forward ever, Backward never.

February 21, 2013

Pharmaceutical terrorism

  

By Yuram Abdullah Weiler

 “The policies Iran is pursuing are unacceptable, and until Iran’s leadership agrees to abandon this dangerous course, we will continue to use tough and innovative means to impose severe economic and financial consequences on Iran’s leadership.” - U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner.

The United States has declared war on Iran - economic war by means of sanctions which threaten the lives of Iranians who are forced to depend on Western-manufactured pharmaceuticals to fight cancer and other life-threatening diseases. The goal of the ever-escalating U.S. sanctions against Iran may very well be armed conflict, with sanctions merely a method, to quote former U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, of “how we [the U.S.] should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot.”

Initiated by the Zionist lobby AIPAC in 1995, the U.S. sanctions, which arguably constitute an act of war, fall under the auspices of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI), originally established by the Bush administration to combat terrorist financing. Sanctions are now managed by David S. Cohen, undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence; Daniel L. Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing; and, Adam J. Szubin, director of the office of foreign-asset control, all bureaucrats with careers spanning the administrations of several U.S. presidents. This troika of tyranny, referred to as “America’s sanction cops,” has been working for almost ten years with the U.S. Congress, under constant pressure from the Zionist regime, to design ever tougher sanctions against Iran.

A victim of US pharmaceutical terrorism

According to Geithner, “The harsh consequences of funding terrorism have succeeded in deterring donors across the globe.” Unfortunately, the sanctions have also succeeded in deterring Western pharmaceutical companies from undertaking business transactions for medicines greatly needed in Iran, despite the Washington regime’s official, but not legally binding, verbiage to the contrary:

“The U.S. Government’s commitment to facilitating humanitarian engagement with the Iranian people is manifest in its longstanding policy to authorize exports or re-exports of humanitarian goods, such as agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices, to Iran,” states the Office of Foreign Asset Control, U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Indeed from a legal standpoint, the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012 Section 1244 (e), seems very clear in its humanitarian exception for medicine:

“The President may not impose sanctions under this section with respect to any person for conducting or facilitating a transaction for the sale of agricultural commodities, food, medicine, or medical devices to Iran or for the provision of humanitarian assistance to the people of Iran.”

However in reality, the complexity of the U.S. sanction regimen and the severity of the penalties, which range up to fines of USD $1 million and imprisonment up to 20 years, have discouraged the profit-hungry U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers from risking their bottom right corners to do what is morally right. In one instance, a representative from an Iranian pharmaceutical firm flew to Paris with documentation confirming the legality of a business transaction only to be told by the French banker, “Even if you bring a letter from the French president himself saying it is OK to do so, we will not risk this.”

Timothy Geithner

 Iran, whose pharmaceutical sector amounts to some USD$3 billion per year, imports roughly 30% of its medication, and is relying increasingly on China and India as U.S. sanctions close the door to business with American and European drug firms, whose exports to Iran fell 30% in 2012. In some cases, finding substitute drugs to fight certain diseases, such as hemophilia, cancer or multiple sclerosis, is impossible because heavily guarded patents make them unavailable except from Western sources. The net result for patients in Iran is that it may be virtually impossible for them to obtain critical live-saving medications, which means effectively that the U.S. sanctions have pronounced a death sentence upon them.

Manouchehr Esmaili-Liousi, a young 15-year-old boy from the city of Dezful, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan who suffered from hemophilia, was the first victim to die due to a lack of medicine caused by the sadistic U.S. sanctions against Iran. Condemning the sanctions, Ahmad Ghavidel, the director of Iran's Hemophilia Society, said that “sanctions hitting medicine in Iran are causing a silent death and are a ploy to hurt the health of Iranian people.” Naser Naghdi, the director general of Darou Pakhsh, Iran’s largest pharmaceutical firm, said bluntly, “There are patients for whom a medicine is the difference between life and death. ... If you have cancer and you can't find your chemotherapy drug, your death will come soon. It’s as simple as that.” U.S. Representative Brad Sherman (D, CA) admits that the misery and death inflicted on Iranians by the sanctions is intended. “Critics argued that these measures will hurt the Iranian people,” he said, adding malevolently, “Quite frankly, we need to do just that.”

Cynics arguing in favor of continuing the inhumane sanctions are quick to point to the previously mentioned “humanitarian” loopholes and some even go so far as to blame Iran, the victim, for mismanaging its pharmaceutical supply chains. Even U.S. President Barack Obama has callously remarked that Iranians should blame their leaders for the medical supply shortages. However, former Woodrow Wilson Scholar, Siamak Namazi, puts the blame where it belongs squarely on the U.S., explaining, “But, there is no mistaking that the scarcity of medicine and medical equipment in Iran started with the tightening up of sanctions. ... Shortages began when the continuous tightening of sanctions eventually placed overwhelming obstacles in the way of humanitarian trade.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran President

Let us examine the behavior of the United States under its own definition of international terrorism. According to the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, section 14, found under Title 50 of the United States Code, Chapter 35, Section 1701:

“The term 'act of international terrorism' means an act: (A) which is violent or dangerous to human life and that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or any State; and (B) which appears to be intended - (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.”

Concerning (A) above, certainly, the U.S. sanctions are dangerous to human life and withholding needed medication from a patient would be a violation of the laws if committed within the United States, so (A) applies. As for (B), based on Representative Sherman’s remarks, the sanctions are intended to do harm thereby intimidating the civilian population, so (B) (i) applies. Equally certain is that the sanctions are intended to intimidate and coerce the government of Iran into caving in to U.S. demands regarding its peaceful nuclear energy program, as is clear from U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner’s quote at the beginning of this article, so (B) (ii) also applies.

The legal conclusion appears inescapable. Based upon the above definition taken from its own laws, by imposing its Zionist-devised sanctions against Iran, the United States is committing an act of international pharmaceutical terrorism. But Manoucher’s parents already know this, as do the 8,000 Iranians with similar blood diseases, as well as the millions of Iranians suffering from kidney diseases, cancers, multiple sclerosis and other life-threatening diseases.