THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM ( PART TWO)

By Peter Kofi Amponsah                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         The words Positive Action which Nkrumah used at the June 1949 rally in Accra, spelt fear in the minds of the opponents of the CPP. In fact, it was one concept which the colonial authorities and their local agents feared even more than the devil fears the  “Holy Water”.  As soon as it became known that Kwame Nkrumah intended leading the Party in a campaign of non-violent positive action, rumours that plans were being made to deport him from Accra were put into circulation. Shortly after this, Nkrumah received a letter asking him to appear before the Ga State Council, in order to discuss the “unfortunate lawless elements in the country and any possible solution”.     

                   

Nkrumah went along with two of his supporters and was surprised to find that among those present were the ex-members of the Working Committee of the UGCC. The agenda that had been drawn up for the meeting was never referred to. The whole purpose of the meeting appeared to be to censure him for introducing the words Positive Action into the country and thereby threatening violence. What exactly do you mean by Positive Action? Kwame Nkrumah was asked.

He took time to explain as fully as he could, but as he had expected, it did not satisfy some of his long-standing political opponents who were present. The Ga Mantse who was presiding then told Nkrumah to convene a meeting of his followers and explain to them in the same terms that he had just used to the meeting, the meaning of Positive Action, and report to the Ga State Council when he had done so. This meant that the Ga Mantse himself was fully satisfied with his explanation. 

Kwame Nkrumah agreed to do as the Ga Mantse had directed and he left the place immediately. Within few hours Nkrumah had completed a pamphlet entitled “What I mean by Positive Action”. Five thousand copies were printed. He called a mass meeting at the Arena and read the statement out to the crowds. He then reported to the Ga State Council that he had carried out their wishes.

After this Nkrumah made a tour of the Western Province to explain to the people in the more inaccessible areas what Positive Action entailed and how it should be used. He stressed the point everywhere that it would be used only when all had failed.

The Report of the Coussey Committee was published at the end of October 1949. It provided for Legislative Assembly consisting of eighty-four elected members and included three ex-officio members to be nominated by the Colonial Governor. These were the Minister of Defence and External Affairs, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Justice. The Constitution was considered unsatisfactory by CPP Central Committee and by the rank and file of the Party.

The reason for this was that under this document Real Power still resided with the Governor who retained the right to veto any decision taken by the Assembly. In essence, all that was provided for in the Coussey Constitution was a small measure of African participation in government. The Constitution virtually assumed that the colonial system would remain for an indefinite period.

Kwame Nkrumah’s response was to call together a Ghana People’s Representative Assembly. The object was to mobilize all sections of the people to oppose the Coussey Report and to demonstrate the readiness of the people for full self-government. Over fifty public organizations took part, including trade unions, the co-operative movement, youth, women and ex-servicemen. Apart from the Statutory Territorial Councils, the only two organizations which refused the invitation were the executive Committee of the UGCC and the Aborigines Rights Protection Society.

The Assembly passed a resolution stating that the Coussey Report was unacceptable to the country as a whole, and declaring that self-government should be granted immediately. The Assembly also drew up a memorandum outlining the structure of Central and local government which must be incorporated in a new constitution.

At a meeting of the National Executive Committee of the CPP, Kwame Nkrumah was empowered to send a letter to the Colonial Governor Sir Charles Arden-Clarke on 15 December 1949. This was to inform him that if the Colonial administration continued to ignore the legitimate aspirations of the people as embodied in the amendments to the Coussey Committee Reports by People’s Representative Assembly then, the CPP would embark on a campaign of Positive Action based upon non-violence and non-co-operation.

On the same day, Nkrumah printed on the front page of the Evening News a rousing article: “The Era of Positive Action Draws Nigh”. Then in front of a large crowd in the Arena, he warned the British colonial Government that if nothing had been done within two weeks concerning the CPP request for a Constitutional Assembly, Positive Action would begin.

The Colonial government responded with a wave of arrests. Editors of newspapers founded by Kwame Nkrumah were imprisoned, and Nkrumah himself was charged with contempt for an article which appeared in the Sekondi Morning Telegraph. He was given the alternative of fine of three hundred pounds or five months imprisonment. The fine was paid by party members, and Nkrumah continued the work of organising the party and people for Positive Action.

                                                                       

As Nkrumah observed, in our present vigorous struggle for self-government, nothing strikes so much terror into the hearts of the imperialists and their agents than the term Positive Action. This is especially so because of their fear of the masses responding to the call to apply this final form of resistance in case the British Government fails to grant us our freedom consequent on the publication of the Coussey Committee report.

After several meetings with the colonial authorities, when it was clear that no progress was being made on the question of calling a Constituent Assembly, Nkrumah called a mass meeting in Accra on 8 January 1950 and proclaimed the start of Positive Action. He then traveled to Cape Coast, Sekondi and Tarkwa to declare that Positive Action had begun. He called for a general strike. It was to include all but those engaged in maintaining essential Services, such as hospitals and water supplies. Shops and offices closed. Road and rail services came to a standstill.

 

The Colonial Government responded by banning public meetings, Newspapers were censored. In a desperate effort to do something before the situation got out of hands, an old British Colonial method known as  “Intercepting a Social Revolution” was employed. Kwame Nkrumah was invited to meet the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs led by Sir Tsibu Darko and Nana Ofori Atta II, to discuss a peaceful settlement. Nkrumah agreed and was accompanied by three other Central Committee members of the CPP to the meeting at which he explained to the Chiefs that Positive Action must continue until self-government was achieved. Kwame Nkrumah realized that the chiefs present did not support the views expressed by the Ghana People’s Representative Assembly. He warned the Chiefs that unless they supported the liberation movement they might be compelled to flee and leave their sandals behind them.

This statement was taken out of context after the 1966 coup and later twisted to give the impression that Kwame Nkrumah had the intention to abolish chieftaincy. But the fact is that the independence was won for the chiefs and people of Ghana.

On 10 January, after a CPP mass meeting in Accra, the situation became so tense that the Governor declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew. The offices of CPP newspapers were raided and closed down. CPP leaders throughout the country were arrested.

Almost daily now the police raided the party headquarters in an attempt to arrest as many of the leaders as they could round up. Nkrumah looked at them disinterestedly as they searched the place for he knew, as well as they did, that he was safe for the time being. He was  to be their final kill. The idea was to make him see all his comrades safely behind bars before he suffered the same fate. This method was meant to break down his nerves and to run to the British authorities and on bended knees seek forgiveness for his ways. But this did not happen.

According to Nkrumah, suffering and sacrifice are inevitable in revolutionary struggle, since no colonial regime makes a voluntary surrender of its power. It may, in the initial stages of a revolutionary struggle, try by velvet glove treatment, to block revolutionary progress. But when direct confrontation occurs, and vital pillars of the colonial power structure are threatened by revolutionary forces, it resorts to the most brutal and repressive action to suppress them. It is at this stage that the heaviest casualties of revolution occur. Sometimes there is open armed conflict; in which case there are casualties in the physical sense, and loss of life.

Other times, the confrontation is non-violent and the casualties of the revolution are those who suffer arrest and imprisonment, victimization, persecution, and all the many other forms of repression employed by colonialists when their back are against a wall. With the call for Positive Action in the Gold Coast in 1950, a point of open and direct confrontation had been reached. The response of the Government was immediate. A state of emergency was declared, a curfew imposed, public meetings banned, and progressive newspapers closed down. Most of the CPP Leadership was arrested and thrown into prison.

Anticipating his ultimate arrest, Nkrumah had made it clear to the people during his recent tours of the country that if at any time he should be arrested, it was important that they should keep calm and make no demonstration of any kind. He knew that the people would support him to the end, and he too would not fail them.

At a meeting of the Legislative Council on 20 January, Sir Tsibu Darko deplored the  “disruption” of the country’s peace and supported the emergency measures imposed by the colonial government. His motion was supported by other African members of the Council, including Dr J.B. Danquah, 2^nd Vice-President of the UGCC.

Kwame Nkrumah learnt later, that some of the people who filed libel actions against him and his colleagues were urged to do so by certain government officials who hoped to put an end to his political work, and to force the Accra Evening News to close. At a later stage, Dr J .B. Danquah sued the paper for libel for an article written about the Kibi ritual murder case. He was awarded damages, and not content with this, bought the rights of the paper. But Nkrumah and his colleagues anticipated him. The Head Press, as it then was , was immediately taken over by the Heal Press, which continued to published the same newspaper under a new name –Ghana Evening News.

While Kwame Nkrumah was in prison and the party organization was in its most critical period, he was told of an incident at a rally in Kumasi when a woman party member by name Ama Nkrumah, got up on the platform and ended a fiery speech by getting hold of a blade and slashing her face. Then, smearing the blood over her body, she challenged the men present to do like wise in order to show that no sacrifice was too great in their united struggle for freedom and independence. This dramatic episode was said to have had a deep impression on Nkrumah.

In May 1951, the CPP appointed four women to become propaganda secretaries. They were: Madam Ama Nkrumah, Mrs Letitia Quaye, Mrs Hanna Cudjoe, and Madam Sophia Doku. These women, and many others were the main backbones during the critical period in the independence struggle.

During the arrest and detention of the Big Six, as they came to be known a number of things happened. In the early hours of the morning of their third day in custody they were suddenly awakened and told to pack at once and to be ready to leave by 3 a.m.. It was only later that they discovered the reason for this sudden removal. Apparently, when the youth of Ashanti heard that they had been detained in Kumasi prison, they planned, under the fearless leadership of Krobo Edusei, to attack the prison and release them. What the outcome of this would have been no-one knew because, when they got to know of the plan, the prison authorities wasted no time in getting them quietly out of the way.

In fact, a number of real heroes of the battle for independence are yet to be identified and recognized. This is a task that has to be performed in a comprehensive way.

Kwame Nkrumah again, used the back of Krobo Edusei as a support to write out his official resignation letter from the UGCC, and then read it to the crowd. The reaction was immediate and their cheers were deafening. Then one of the women supporters jumped up on the platform and led the singing of the hymn Lead Kindly Light, a hymn which from that time onwards was sang at most CPP rallies.

Much of the success of the Convention People’s Party was due to the efforts of women members. From the very beginning women were the chief organizers. They traveled through innumerable towns and villages in the role of propaganda secretaries and were responsible for the most part in bringing  about the solidarity and cohesion of the party.

It is important to remember that as a result of the system of Indirect Rule which the British imposed throughout their colonies, the Gold Coast government depended heavily on the power of Chiefs and District Commissioners  ( DCs). The increase in the power of the Chiefs was not popular with the membership of the UGCC, nor with the youth.

It was also the result of this situation that led to the formation of the Ashanti Youth Association (AYA ), in 1947, and sought the replacement of Chiefs on the Legislative Council and also demanded self-government within five years.

Paa Grant, one of the most outstanding nationalists this country has ever produced was also frustrated with the same situation and his bold attempt to correct the anomaly led to the formation of the UGCC. To prove this point, let us examine the following extracts from an article written by one A.B.Chinbuah, published in the Daily Graphic of March 30,2005.

“Paa Grant was disappointed that the efforts made by various political and nationalist organizations like the Aborigines Rights Protections Society which saved us from the evils of the Crown Lands Bill of 1896 and the Land Bill of 1897, had hit rock bottom”

2. “The chiefs had compromised their position and felt comfortable in the Joint Provincial Council which denied membership of the council to the  fierce and  strong intelligent critics of the colonial government except those who  were amenable to their views and beliefs.

3. Casely Hayford, Kojo Thompson and people of the like minds who were advocating more power had all been silenced. PAA grant turned his attention to the independent struggle for the people of the Gold Coast.

In 1947 he became a fully fledged politician, fighting for the independence of his country from the British colonial rule and used his immense wealth to that effect On March 21 1947, he asked some personalities in the Gold Coast, including R.S. Blay, J.B.Danquah, Awoonor Williams, Lawyer Akufo Addo, Obetsebi Lamptey to meet him to discuss the formation of a national political body or an organization to fight towards the attainment of economic and political independence.”

We can see from this extract that the initiative for the formation of the UGCC as an anti-colonial movement to fight for the independence of this country came from Paa Grant and no one else. However, whether these important legal personalities he invited for this purpose had the same anti-colonial world outlook as himself is the critical question which needs to be answered by the people of this country. This is because after the 1966 coup, several attempts were made to attribute some people’s merits to others, and thereby turning the history of this country upside down.                  

This situation provides a valuable guide in our study of what constitute National Security Problems in a Neo-colonial State. Because the government and the security services of a neo-colonial state, do not work in the interest of the country and its people, but in the interest of a foreign neo-colonial power. Under such a situation, patriotic citizens become targets of covert security operations by the counterinsurgent units of the National Security apparatus. The relationship between some patriotic citizens and the chiefs during the period of indirect rule, is a classic example. This is why the names of certain personalities, including traditional rulers who resisted every temptation to betray their own people and work for a foreign power must be written in Gold for their remarkable courage and their incredible display of patriotism

One of the most dramatic demonstrations of patriotism by another outstanding traditional ruler during the struggle for freedom, took place in the Western Region.The Omanhene of Essikado, Nana Kobena Nketsiah, who owned the recreation ground at Sekondi where Empire Day was usually celebrated announced that the ground was not available. He could see no point, he said, in going to salute a flag under which the people were nothing but poor slaves. He had a gong gong beaten throughout the town forbidding school children as well as adults from going to the park. His orders were obeyed and the twenty-fourth May came and went, uncelebrated. Very wisely, the white administrative officers made no attempt to interfere with the Chief’s directives.

When it became obvious that Britain could no longer prevent her colonies from gaining their freedom, a secret policy known as “pursuit of empire by other means” was developed under the control of Sir Andrew Cohen, Head of the Africa division in the British colonial office from 1946 to 1951. He later became the Governor-General of Uganda. He was Known as “the king of Africa” because of his control over British policy for the continent.

Under this policy, Britain’s visible empire was to become an invisible one. There would be a shift toward black majority rule in colonial Africa, but this would be a sham independence. Africa was to be looted the same as always, but under private auspices instead of London in its own name.

The hatred that the British establishment had for Kwame Nkrumah emanated principally from the fact that he was always a step ahead of them, and this resulted in their inability to implement this policy in their dealing with him. According to Nkrumah, “The peoples of the colonies know precisely what they want. They wish to be free and independent, and to be able to feel themselves on an equal with all other peoples, and to be unrestricted to attain an advancement that will put them on a par with other technically advanced nations of the world”.

This statement was contained in the first book written by Nkrumah in 1942, entitled “Towards Colonial Freedom”, and it is clear that the desire expressed here is completely incompatible with the policy of the pursuit of empire by other means, under which Britain’s visible empire would become an invisible one for the purpose of looting Africa’s resources.                                                                                                          

. “What the people of this country want is real political power to manage their own affairs without leaving power in the hands of a single person appointed by an alien power, however paternalistic or kind”.

Kwame Nkrumah maintained that when  a people who have smarted under a foreign rule suddenly wake up to the indignities of such a rule and begin to assert their national and inherent right to be free then they have reached that stage of their political development when no amount of oppressive laws and intimidation can keep them down.

The CPP had made use of the parliamentary procedures which the colonial administration had always practiced, and which it had foisted upon us, a system which it could not therefore condemn or refuse to recognize. The political chess game between Kwame Nkrumah and the British colonial authorities was clearly a clash of intellects, a real battle of brains, a battle involving sacrifices of an epic proportion, and Kwame Nkrumah and his men won in a grand style. The results of the Gold Coast elections provoked a broad international response. On the whole, analysts in the West came to the conclusion that this event signaled the beginning of the end of Africa’s colonial dependence.                                                                                   

The Prime Minister of the racist Union of South Africa Dr Malan, was particularly alarmed by the results of the Gold Coast elections. He declared that if other native territories followed this example it would mean nothing less than the expulsion of white men from practically everywhere between the Union and the Sahara”. However, he comforted himself with the thought that the Gold Coast experiment would undoubtedly fail.  Describing the scene during the first few minutes of his release from James Fort Prison on 12^th February 1951, Nkrumah writes:

“At one o’clock when the prison gates were closed behind me I realized why the government had tried to keep the news top secret. I don’t think I have ever seen such a thickly packed crowd in the whole of my life. I was too bewildered to do anything but to stand and stare. Any emotion that I might have felt was completely arrested”.

Nkrumah continued: “Slowly, as I filled my lungs with the pure air of

freedom, new life was born into me. This was the greatest day of my life, my day of victory and these were my warriors. No general could have felt more proud of his army and no soldiers could have shown greater affection for their leader

Editorial

JUDGEMENT

Eight months of speculation will come to an end today in perhaps a most dramatic manner.

It will become obvious to party supporters who have been deceived by their leaders that they have won the case that they were taken for a very long jolly ride.

All the parties to the dispute knew who was putting up a strong case and whose case was weak.

Yet the loser in the case carried a grand deception urging its supporter to prepare for victory at all cost.

In a few hours, we will know who the winner is.

 The most important point is that only the Supreme Court is clothed with the powers to make that determination and Ghanaians are bound by constitution to accept the judgement.

Those who refuse to act according to law must expect to be dealt with severely according to the laws of Ghana.

Indeed, nobody will be allowed to embark upon any adventurist enterprise.

The people of Ghana have said loudly and clearly that they will not tolerate misguided party elements who may want to instigate violence.

The Insight believes that the judgment will not undermine the peace and security of Ghana.

The first lady has gone mad again!

 

President Jonathan and wife Patience

By Salisu Suleiman

The ability to forget is one of the most important, if least acknowledged gifts of man. It is because we are able to forget things that we can go one with life, putting aside memories of lost ones as well as painful recollections of events that would otherwise make the very act of staying alive a struggle, and life, a running agony.

But while the ability to forget has its benefits, not many people learn lessons from life’s experiences. Some – either because they are essentially dense or deliberately obtuse – choose to dare fate. How else can one explain the actions of the president’s wife, Mrs. Patience Jonathan who thought it fit to close Nigeria’s capital down for an entire day, in what basically amounts to a brazen continuation of the campaign for her husband’s reelection?

For someone, who by her account, only just managed to come back from the dead after multiple surgeries and relapses, it seems that Mrs. Jonathan has not learned any lesson from that experience. Or it may be that the gift of forgetfulness has obfuscated her reasoning faculties. For anyone who had anything meaningful to do (like reporting to work to earn legitimate livelihoods) in Abuja, last Thursday was a commuter’s hell. The impunity with which major roads were closed off is a pointer to what Mrs. Jonathan would do if she were to remain in the villa beyond 2015.

As it were, many observers would say Mrs. Jonathan never really stopped campaigning after 2011, but has only changed styles. About two years ago, her attempt to share bags of rice in Abuja ended in fiasco when about 20 Nigerians were trampled to death in the mad struggle that ensured. She has been on a ‘thank you’ tour since the last election, distributing food items, clothing and cash at every stop. Her message: There is more where this came from. Reports suggest that each of the 30,000 women that participated in the Abuja jamboree with a mint-fresh bundle of N100, 000.

If Nigeria were a different country, we might ask where and how Mrs. Jonathan gets the huge funds to oil her ‘generosity’. Did the first lady win a jackpot, or is the jackpot personified in President Jonathan? Did she get an oil license or is she, like her husband, a ‘godmother’ of the oil thieves in the Niger Delta? But those questions would be incredibly naïve, considering that the President’s septuagenarian mother, who could not buy shoes for her children only just recently, donated a multimillion naira hostel to the Federal University, Otuoke.

Whatever the sources of the funds that the president’s wife is using for her nationwide political inducement and from which his mother built and donated a hostel to the university, the conspiracy of silence in the media, civil society and even some opposition parties would only lend moral authority to this mentality of ‘it is my time, and there is nothing you can do about it’.

The first lady might also mistake the silence for a mark of approval and take even more blatant liberties with public funds. Perhaps, with this level of extra-budgetary, or is it unbudgeted expenses, it should not be surprising that President Jonathan’s government has consistently failed to implement budgets even with unprecedented borrowings.

If Mrs. Jonathan could stop and reason for a while, she would reflect on the examples of other equally domineering wives of presidents and how they ended. Perhaps, even the president would learn a thing or two from former president Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. His wife, Imelda was a manifestation everything a first lady shouldn’t be. Though from a deprived background, she met and married politician Ferdinand Marcos who later become the president of the Philippines.

As first lady of the Philippines for over 20 years, Imelda Marcos held several government positions in her own right, including governor of the metro Manila area and later served as a minister. (Mrs. Jonathan is now a permanent secretary). And just like Nigerians, while many Filipinos lived in poverty, Imelda Marcos became known for her lavish spending, including her famed ‘3000’ pairs of designer shoes (What it is about poverty and shoes?) In the end, Imelda and her husband fled the country, where he died. If that example is too distant, she should simply ask herself, ‘Where is Turai, today?’

Since the title of this piece was inspired by Olu Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, I might as well end it by quoting Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, who wrote, in a thinly veiled reference to the first lady, “Unlike crude oil, which can be refined, you can extract a hippopotamus from the swamps, but you cannot take the swamp out of the hippopotamus”. This may explain the futility in attempting to counsel anyone that is so completely at home in the muddy waters of presidential politics, power and patronage in Nigeria.

London: European capital of fugitive criminal

By Sergei Vasilenkov

If you committed a crime in your country of residence, go to London. London does not extradite. The British justice system is structured in such a way that offenders from any country except the United States can be granted asylum. This means not only shelter, but also the ability to live quietly, without looking back at the police. It is no accident that many oligarchs have a home in London.

The UK Home Office in 2012 identified a hundred people suspected of committing war crimes. These people have previously submitted applications to the immigration service of the country with a request for permanent residence. Most of them have been living in the UK for many years. These are people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Rwanda, Sri Lanka and Serbia.

According to the statements made by the British Ministry of the Interior, they are doing everything possible to prevent Britain from becoming a safe haven for war criminals. In fact, the situation is somewhat different. Legal courts tend to block the deportation of such criminals, claiming that they may face torture or death in their home country. Human rights organizations, in turn, insist that such persons should be criminally prosecuted in British courts.

Since the beginning of last year, the British police have studied approximately 800 cases of defendants suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Negative recommendations were given to 99 people who have applied for political asylum or a residence permit in the UK. Another 16 criminals requested a visa to enter Britain. Of the 99 suspects identified only three were deported. 20 of them have not been granted asylum, and 46 - citizenship. The fate of the others is unknown.

Over the period from 2005 to 2012 the British Ministry of the Interior has determined that over 700 war criminals reside in the country. According to the London police, at the moment 56 persons suspected of war crimes are under investigation. All of them are currently in the UK. Michael McCann, the chairman of the multi-party group on genocide prevention talked about the need to improve the transparency of official information about criminals residing on British soil.  He argued that the unit tasked with these matters has failed, and that a large number of mistakes have been made. He added that he suspected that the Ministry of the Interior kept facts to themselves and offered to figure out what was going on to reassure the public.

 In May of this year, five citizens of Rwanda were arrested in the UK. They are suspected of involvement in the genocide in 1994 when 800,000 people were killed. Interestingly enough, some of the suspects have been living in the UK for over ten years. Three suspects are in custody and two were released on bail. All of them have denied any involvement in the genocide.

In 2009 there was an unsuccessful attempt to banish these people from the country. However, the High Court ruled that there was a high likelihood that these people would not be able to stand trial in Rwanda. This case, according to human rights activists, clearly shows the problems that arise when dealing with such cases in Britain.

Kevin Laue, a legal adviser of the charitable organization Redress believes that the police needs to be provided with additional resources related to the investigation of such crimes, which requires political will and allocation of the required resources.

A survivor of the genocide in Rwanda said that she was afraid to even imagine meeting war criminals from Rwanda on the streets of London. These memories cause acute emotional pain. She said that these people should be sent to the country where they committed the crimes. If this is impossible, the criminals should be tried in Britain, as this would allow others to understand that punishment is still inevitable, no matter where the criminals are hiding.

One of the Rwandan criminals worked in a nursing home in Essex for several years. Many UK recruitment agencies do not conduct background checks when hiring. As a result of such negligence caretakers for elderly people could be those convicted of theft or violence. Recent checks have revealed over 220 agencies that employ unskilled and unreliable employees. One Birmingham agency employed 23 people with a criminal record, although the organization had a license and a contract with the city authorities for 800 thousand pounds.

For many criminals from different countries the United Kingdom has long been a second home. They can commit heinous crime at home, launder their money, come to England and live there peacefully. The tradition of requesting asylum is a long-standing one. Offenders only need to get into the UK, declare that they are persecuted at home for political, racial, religious or other valid reasons and ask for asylum.

Refugees in Britain receive everything they need from the government, including free housing, unemployment benefits, the right to work, and the prospect of an expedited citizenship. The only problem is the fact that they cannot return to their home country. But why would they go back to the country where they are wanted by law enforcement authorities?

In addition to common thieves and rapists, England is visited by people who committed certain machinations and earned a lot of money in their own country, but have problems with local law enforcement. They can start a new business in the UK. Everyone knows that Britain is a country with great business opportunities, particularly for people who have significant funds. They buy property in the UK and become citizens. British authorities will never extradite citizens with money. Some dishonest businessmen, but rather, swindlers, take advantage of this situation.

Such statement was made ​​by Russian ambassador in London Yuri Fedotov in 2009. He expressed regret that people who have committed serious criminal offenses can quietly disappear in the UK. According to him, there are about 20 people in England declared wanted in Russia. He particularly mentioned emissary of the Chechen terrorists Akhmed Zakayev.

According to the Russian Federal Security Service, Zakayev was planning to organize armed units in Dagestan and Chechnya to recreate the bandit underground. In 2001 he was declared wanted on charges of organizing murder of civilians and law enforcement officials. This man is also accused of terrorism by Russian authorities. However, London, referring to the abuse of process in the pursuit of Zakayev, granted the criminal asylum.

According to Fedotov, Russia regularly sends inquiries to the competent British departments and transfers materials collected by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, however, the British courts do not consider them. The British say that persons granted political asylum cannot be extradited. The examples include Berezovsky accused of tax evasion, the former head of the Bank of Moscow Andrei Borodin, accused of fraud, and others. All of them were or are still hiding in the UK. Others have homes in London in order to immediately land on the backup soil in the event of criminal charges.

Criminals flee to the UK because they are sure that they will not be extradited. But this cannot continue as there will be a day when the criminals start applying in the UK their bad habits brought from home, adding to the crime situation. If the British government does not change its policy, over time they will reap the bitter fruits of their short-sighted policies.