Don’t lynch gays –Presby Moderator

Rt. Rev. Emmanuel Martey

Lynching gays is akin to jungle barbarism, the staunch anti-gay Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana has said.

Describing homosexuality as a “sickness”, Reverend Prof Emmanuel Martey said, even though same-sex relationships are “filthy, un-African and un-biblical”, no one had the right to pronounce instant justice or arbitrary death penalty on self-confessed gays.

“…If somebody confesses to be a homosexual or somebody comes out of the closet, as they say, that doesn’t mean that the person should be lynched; that doesn’t mean that the person should be killed. We are not in the jungle”, he admonished.

Rev Martey said gays, just as witches, are “sick” people who need healing not killing.
“…Witchcraft is a sickness and homosexuality is also a sickness and you help the sick person to get healed so why should you rather kill”, he wondered.

“…I am against homosexuality but that doesn’t mean that homosexuals should be lynched or should be maltreated; no that is not what the Bible teaches”, the Presby Moderator told Joy FM Monday. 

Editorial

COMMENDATION

Professor Emmanuel Martey, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana deserves commendation for boldly speaking out against the blatant violation of the rights of people with “unusual” sexual orientation.

 He says that lynching gays is akin to jungle barbarism.

It is significant that Professor Martey is himself a strong anti-gay campaigner.

The point is that even criminals have rights which need to be respected in any democratic dispensation.

The frenzy in punishing difference in the long run will undermine democratic practice and simply create a path to compliance with the norm even when it doesn’t make sense.

The Insight commends Professor Martey for his courage.

GMO Foods

Mr Kingsley Ofei Nkansah (GAWU)

Stakeholders in the Agriculture sector have been tasked to prioritize the fight against the introduction of GMO foods into the country.

Speaking to Radio Ghana, the General Secretary of the General Agriculture Workers Union of the TUC, Kingsley Ofei-Nkansah said the strong advocacy being engineered by some self-seeking individuals and giant agri-business corporations in Western countries is a ploy to make developing countries such as Ghana more dependent.

Mr Offei-Nkansah noted that apart from its negative health implications and possible destruction of the country's bio-diversity, it is a blatant lie that the introduction of GMO is the best way to improve food production. 

MP calls for a Revolution

Mr Kofi Osei Ameyaw

By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Friends, on Tuesday night, I read a news report on PeaceFmOnline that the NPP MP for the Asuogyaman Constituency in the Eastern Region, Kofi Osei Ameyaw, was calling for a revolt; this time, a “personal revolution” on an “individual level” in Ghana.

He was said to have written on his Facebook wall that the country needs another revolution, “a revolution not born out of envy, personal interest and greediness”.

“Revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall,” he stated.

Here is the kind of revolution he is clamouring for: “One that seeks the interests of all including the unborn, one that impels the just man to hate the evil one and the evil man to respect the just one. A revolution that makes us generous towards good and build a generation of Ghanaians who love each other mutually, help each other naturally and attain happiness by way of virtue.”

The NPP MP later told Peacefmonline.com that “the most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first.”

(Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/ Peacefmonline.com/Ghana, available at http://elections.peacefmonline.com/pages/politics/201401/185045.php)

I doubt if this kind of “personal revolution” is possible; but I don’t doubt the heavy political currency inherent in this call.

Interestingly, comments from those responding to the news report published by PaceFmOnline suggest that he is calling for something akin to the cataclysmic events initiated by Jerry Rawlings in 1979 and 1981. They supported Osei Ameyaw’s call, as is evident in this one (reproduced unedited but not in all caps as in the original):

“I will be the first to jump on to the street to support a revolution. With the kind of corruption, ineptitude and insults to the ghanaian, i pray for a change, even if it is a violent one. Where in the world will this fortiz-merchant bank no.ns.ense happen and members of government will defend it. Listen to the f0.0lish and no.nsen.sical reasons given by doe-adjaho in dismissing the petition of the minority. Si..lly & st.u.pid!!! If the rawlings of 1979 (not the present rich bourgeois one) had come today, he would kill politicians, parliamentarians and ministers - they are too corrupt and insulting ghanaians whiles they steal from us. The anger is growing and one day...”

Oyiwa!! Osei Ameyaw’s call has already assumed a huge political dimension, making it a scary thing!!

I have questioned the real motive of Osei Ameyaw and wondered what exactly he might be driving at. Knowing very well how some politicians hide behind ambivalence to foment trouble, I decided to unpack Osei Ameyaw’s call.

Is he saying that a revolution is better than the democracy that Ghana has practised for nearly 22 years now? Or that a revolution at the personal level will be spontaneous (for that is what a revolution involves) and solve problems better than our democracy is doing? Or will it give him and his political camp the reprieve that the electorate have denied them? When is a “personal revolution” not a political revolution?

Because of the support for Osei Ameyaw’s call by opponents of the NDC government, I will be right to broaden issues for comment. The call in itself is shocking, unexpected, misplaced, and politically hazardous. It has nothing good to offer anybody and can easily be dismissed as the workings of a terrified mind, considering where it has come from and the character behind it. More clearly, the political camp to which Osei Ameyaw belongs also raises eyebrows, not because it is capable of initiating and prosecuting that revolution but because it may just be complicit in clinging to any straw in sight to pursue its morbid political agenda that scared away the electorate at Election 2012.

Osei Ameyaw hasn’t told us that he was influenced by his political camp to make that call, but knowing very well the lessons that history has taught some of us about that political camp, we won’t be surprised if later developments link that call to covert agitations in that camp.

What makes the call ridiculous goes beyond Osei Ameyaw as an individual. He is one of the numerous Ghanaians who rushed out of the country when Rawlings announced the June 4 Uprising: “Fellow countrymen, there is a revolution in this country; and this revolution has been engendered by the fact that the ordinary Ghanaian has been suffering for far too long!”

Thus began what would shake the country to its foundation in the 100 days that the AFRC ruled the country with “unprecedented revolutionary action”, which sent into self-imposed exile many of those now back in the country and making ugly noises on radio stations and social media.

They feared their own shadows at Rawlings’ second coming on Thursday, December 31, 1981, and took to their heels only to return when the atmosphere was created for the 4^th Republic.

Interestingly, Osei Ameyaw couldn’t live in Ghana when the Rawlings revolution was raging. He took shelter in Australia and was later reported to have been involved in some fraudulent deals, which he vehemently denied but which evidence adduced by those making allegation highlighted in public discourse as a stain on his reputation.

Well he has put that behind him and found solace in contemporary Ghanaian politics, having once being in Parliament and held a Deputy Ministerial position under Kufuor. He lost his seat after the 2008 elections but has bounced back.

Indeed, the motivation for making such a call goes beyond whatever Osei Ameyaw might have. A lot exists for us to know that the going is really tough for our friends in the NPP, having lost two general elections in succession and being unable to turn the situation in their favour.

As the situation stands now, they can tell that they have an uphill task in any attempt to win political power through the ballot box. No day passes by without their complaining about one thing or the other in connection with the electoral system.

They tested the pulse of Ghanaians with their petition against Election 2012 and might have seen the huge barrier in front of them as we inch toward Election 2016.

Rabble-rousing, vain threats, and plain sabotage cannot win the day for them. They see clearly the thick brick wall to which they have dragged themselves and are scared stiff of the future.

So, where should they turn? Make calls of the sort that has come from Osei Ameyaw to intensify their strategy of creating panic situations in the hope that they can find something to capitalize on.

I am certain that those who may be tempted to think the way Osei Ameyaw is doing are even not sure of what a personal revolution entails. Or how they will position themselves if their expectations are met.

We may easily write off Osei Ameyaw as a mere irritant, but we won’t do so yet, especially when we place his political thinking within the larger context of the NPP’s grand agenda of undermining the Mahama-led administration (or anything NDC).

We heard them say that they would make the country ungovernable; their public utterances, actions, and declaration of intents have confirmed to a large extent the kind of politics they are doing—portraying themselves as if they own Ghana and must be deferred to as such by all others not in their political camp. They can’t bring themselves to accept the fact that they were rejected at the polls and should cut their coats according to their sizes.

The majority not in their camp detest that kind of disdain but our NPP friends won’t let up.

As the going continues to be tough for them at every turn— frustrated more by their own book politics than anything else—and desperation throws them into a spiral, they appear to be reaching their wit’s end in Ghanaian politics.

What to do next in desperation but turn to scare-mongering? Weird!!

What Osei Ameyaw has advocated is one such act of desperation; but its boomerang effect will worsen plight, not pave the way for any political gain.  

He insists that “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”—the very expression used by Rawlings at the initiation of June 4, which itself is a throwback to what is attributed to Abraham Lincoln or one of those prominent citizens of the United States.

Revolutions or revolts occur when the objective reality of the situation in a political system makes them inevitable. They are not imposed on the system by any desperate individual.

That is why I want to caution Osei Ameyaw to tread cautiously. The objective reality of the situation in Ghana has no room for any revolt or revolution of the kind that he is imagining and endangering himself to propound.

Ghanaians are more interested in living their lives as they are now than risking them in support of any wayward politician’s desperate bid for political power through the backdoor. If Osei Ameyaw thinks that what the Supreme Court didn’t help the NPP to achieve it can do so through ill-considered political manouevres like the revolution or revolt that he is calling for, he won’t survive. 

I hope the security agencies will take up this call for strict monitoring and consequent action to deal with those who think that God has anointed them to rule Ghana and will do anything at all they imagine to impose their will on Ghanaians. It has some subtle elements bordering on subversion!

If the ballot box won’t save them in this democracy, is it a revolution that will? Aren’t they already known as people who fear “revolutions”? Such characters!!

I shall return…

E-mail: mjbokor@yahoo.com

Join me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor to continue the conversation.

GMOs, Weaponized Foods And Homosexuality

By Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
I am so happy and relieved that more and more people are becoming aware of the GMO threat to our lives! And they are not loving it! I used to complain in frustration that we Ghanaians only prefer to discuss football, tribal politics, and homosexuality.

Gone are the days when an article on GMOs attracted only one or two comments, whilst anything on gay rights enjoyed a steady stream of traffic. Now, things have changed.

Under a news item on Ghanaweb's General News of Saturday, 28 December 2013, sourced from Daily Guide, titled "GMO debate sparks confusion among intellectuals", I counted as many as 74 comments! an overwhelming number of which remained strongly opposed to using Ghanaians as GMO guinea pigs.

The thing about GM foods that I find difficult to accept is the fact that they simply want to impose it on us. When anyone complains, all we hear is that they are acting out of fear. Don't we no longer have a right not to eat the food we are afraid of?
The other day, Professor Walter Sando Alhassan, an advocate of GM foods in Africa, was on the radio answering Blakk Rasta's question that as a Muslim, if the genes of a pig is inserted into rice for whatever reasons, he would not eat that rice.

Yet Prof. Alhassan is an avid defender of these corporations who spend millions of dollars against any form of labelling of GM foods! Of course, he would pay lip-service to the calls for labelling, but do everything to ensure that that is not going to happen!

For instance, Prof. Alhassan supports the Plant Breeders' Bill in its current form. He appears even more informed than most of our law-makers, and the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. He ought to know that by the passage of this Bill, Ghana loses the very right to either ban, or even call for the labelling of GM foods in the future.

Clause 23 of the Plant Breeders' Bill states clearly that "A plant breeder right shall be independent of any measure taken by the Republic to regulate within Ghana the production, certification and marketing of material of a variety or the importation or exportation of the material.”

Just compare this with Article 12 section 2 of the Fourth Republican Constitution of Ghana:

(2) Every person in Ghana, whatever his race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, religion, creed or gender shall be entitled to the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the individual contained in this Chapter but subject to respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for the public interest."

Under the Plant Breeders' Bill, the plant breeder has every right to insert the genes of a pig into rice and bring it to the market without labelling it. Muslims will not even know whether or not the rice they are buying in the market contains the genes of a pig! The law even prevents the government from asking for a label!

Whilst our own human rights are clearly subject to the "respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for public interest", the plant breeders rights are not subject to such things! they are indeed "independent"! And any attempt to control them could attract judgement debts for "the loss of business opportunity and profits".

The real problem is that whilst it is not going to be easy for the consumer to know what is inside the food we are eating, it would be relatively easier for the plant breeder to use food as booby-traps. We know of rats whose testicles turned blue after eating Monsanto's GM food. Sterility ensued.

Monsanto or any racist plant breeder can carefully study the specific effects of GM foods on the human body and use it for a devastating effect! We already know attempts have been made by some sick minds to find some sort of biological weapons that only kill black people. Why should the plant breeder enjoy such a right in a proud, independent, and free country like Ghana?

We must not forget that Monsanto Corporation has a sordid history of being a military contractor to the Pentagon, furnishing the US army with Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Weaponizing our food for the army is therefore not as far-fetched as an idea for any informed Ghanaian who cares about our safety. So many things can be done to the food.

It is very important that the plant breeders' right is brought under the control of the government. In the 21st century, and with the advent of genetic modification of food, nothing should be ruled out. Your genes could be degraded or altered to such an extent that you might only give birth to homosexuals after eating certain foods, who knows? And they will never come and inform you about it That is why our food must always be under our control!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!

Zuma launches new ANC manifesto

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa

By Matuma Letsoalo

President Jacob Zuma took advantage of the audience at his keynote address to remind everyone that Nelson Mandela was a member of the ANC.

President Jacob Zuma launched the ANC manifesto on Saturday, with his keynote address focusing more on what the party has achieved over the past 20 years than what it intends to do going forward.

But with only a few months left before the national elections, Zuma did not miss the opportunity to remind all that former president Nelson Mandela belonged to the ANC.

“Comrade Madiba exemplified the importance of adherence to the core values and tradition of the ANC. He was unambiguous about the fact that the ANC has always been the organisation best placed to unite the broadest cross-section of South Africans around the objectives of the National Democratic Revolution and put in place a united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa as enshrined in the Freedom Charter,” said Zuma.

But the ANC under Zuma has been criticised for not living up to Mandela’s standards, with the spending of over R200-million to upgrade his Nkandla homestead cited as an example.

Despite all the criticism, the ANC managed to fill the 60 000-seater Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit and four additional overflow areas.  And with the thousands of members carefully selected from their respective ANC branches, Zuma received loud applause from his supporters this time around.

Zuma was embarrassed in front of international guests last month when a large crowd booed him during Mandela’s memorial service at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg.

NDP commitment Zuma reiterated the ANC’s commitment to implement the National Development Plan (NDP), which alliance partners have criticised as being too similar to the neo-liberal Gear.

The NDP is a living and dynamic document and the overwhelming majority of South Africans support its objectives of eradicating poverty and inequality. The ANC urges all our people to actively participate in its implementation, to move our country forward.

Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini on Saturday changed his tune when he said Cosatu supported the manifesto, which included the NDP.

Dlamini, who is a close ally of Zuma, said the labour federation would throw its support behind the ANC ahead of the elections.

This contradicted the stance taken by Cosatu’s largest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa), which took a resolution at its special congress recently not to campaign for the ANC and withdrew its financial support.

Jobs and mining Zuma said his administration would create six million work opportunities by 2019 through the consolidation of the Public Works programme.

He said the ANC would move ahead with measures to strengthen the state mining company and ensure increased beneficiation for industrialisation.

“We have also broadened Mangaung’s call for increasing the share of mineral resources rents and will embark on comprehensive review of our tax system,” said Zuma.

He said the party’s priorities remained education, health, rural development, land reform and food security, the creation of more jobs, decent work and sustainable livelihoods, and the fight against crime and corruption.

“We are also continuing to expand access to housing and basic services and building integrated human settlements.”

Ariel Sharon: Buddha or butcher of Middle East?

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

By Gul Jammas Hussain

Voltaire once said, "Men use thought only to justify their wrong-doings, and words only to conceal their thoughts."

With former Israeli general and prime minister Ariel Sharon’s long-anticipated death, the Western media has gone to great lengths to paint him as the Buddha of the Middle East.

The whole world knows that he achieved his nirvana in Beirut in September 1982 at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps when Lebanese mercenaries backed by Israeli forces slaughtered thousands of innocent Palestinian and Lebanese Muslims.

Sharon, who was in a coma for eight years after suffering a stroke in January 2006 at the peak of his power, died on Saturday aged 85.

He was the man whose list of crimes against humanity equal, if not exceed, those of Adolph Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic. Sharon actually considers Milosevic his "soul-mate" and once said talking to a Belgrade newspaper that "the Israelis stand together with you against Islamic terrorism".

It was shocking to see how such an epicenter of evil and brutality was declared "a man of peace" not only by several Western leaders, but also by some of the most powerful world media outlets. Journalist after journalist, and commentator after commentator would manipulate their respective media to preach to their audiences in the world over how Sharon had metamorphosed from a scourge into a saint.

The primary reason they offered as proof of Sharon’s metamorphosis was how he, acting against the wishes of the Israelis, ended the Gaza occupation in August 2005. They stressed that he was going to be more successful in executing that type of disengagement operation in the occupied West Bank as well.

They created the impression that he had undergone a complete change of heart in the last few months of his rule; it would have been far better, they implied, if he had stayed at the helm of the Tel Aviv regime a bit longer so that peace could return to that most maligned land.

Of course, the power and influence of the Western media has been there all along but its manipulative powers once again became more clear when Sharon's death was announced on January 11, 2014. The media used this opportunity to whitewash Sharon’s lifetime legacy. It simply displayed the worst kind of penchant to twist the facts and presented the carnivorous wolf as William Blake's little lamb.

In their bid to pay their last homage to Sharon, the Western media went an extra mile to change the nature of his actions. Claiming his dirty deeds were taken only for the sake of Israel's self-interest, the media presented them as moves to create peace and harmony in the region – the most trumpeted move among them was his decision to discontinue settlements in the Gaza Strip.

His policy to carry out the disengagement process was depicted as an epic struggle in which he emerged as a true hero.

No one bothered to inform the viewers that under the terms of the Oslo Accord signed between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, Israel was supposed to vacate the West Bank and Gaza by April 13, 1999, not by August 22, 2005. On the contrary, Sharon had no intention of leaving the West Bank while he enjoyed America's support in this respect.

In reality, the dimensions of the Gaza withdrawal plan ran counter to the spirit of all UN resolutions and peace plans, including the Oslo Accord and the April 2003 roadmap.

Under the Gaza plan, Israel intended to dismantle all Israeli settlements set up on land that for some 1400 years belonged to the Palestinians, not the Israelis. When Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, it evicted Palestinians by blowing up their homes, destroying their orchards and diverting water to Jewish kibbutzim (settlements). These settlements were illegal and a built-in violation of international law that forbids the occupying power from altering the occupied territories' demographic character.

Also at that time, the manipulation of visual media concealed the fact that those evicted from their settlements had occupied them illegally, in violation of international law and moved away only some thirty kilometers from their former Gaza homes to the West Bank and not to Israel. Moreover, they had been paid an average of $1.5 million per family as resettlement compensation.

Rather melodramatic scenes were shown over and over again on all major Western TV channels, but the spectacle of tears also exposed indirectly the hypocrisy of the entire media charade: if illegal Zionist settlers were feeling a bit miserable while leaving their illegally obtained homes, imagine how all those Palestinians who were rendered homeless in their own land by Israel 46 years ago must have felt. It also obscured the tragedy of 13,350 Palestinians who were thrown out of their houses by Sharon's policy of collective punishment by demolishing their houses for allegedly “harboring suspect Palestinian fighters” in them.

In rounds of applause by the media commentators for Sharon's "courageous and painful step", it was also forgotten that despite the Israeli pullout in 2005, the regime in Tel Aviv had retained control of Gaza’s airspace, territorial waters and border entry points. The movement of Palestinians and their contact with the outside was still controlled by Israel which maintained troops along the Egyptian and Gaza borders.

Gaza is cut off from the world. All three of its exits, subject to arbitrary closure, are controlled by Israel and Egypt. The restrictions on movements and closures have already led to a massive fall in Gazans' living standards where per capita income for a Palestinian averages US$ 870 compared to US$ 34,870 for an Israeli. Keeping in mind this monkeying by the Western media, one can only pay tribute to Dr. Joseph Goebbels who believed "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

No wonder that upon his death, Sharon – the butcher of Beirut and the architect of the Middle East bloodbath – has earned such encomiums from his advocates.