Why Are Labour Leaders Silent Over Obotan Scandal

Kofi Asamoah, TUC Secretary-General

By Ekow Mensah

Leaders of organized labour appear to be running for cover following the re-focus of the media on the Obotan scandal early in the week.

When contacted, some of the leaders claimed that they were hearing of the scandal for the first time and were therefore not in a position to comment.

Radio Gold was told that the Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Brother Kofi Asamoah was out of the country and could therefore not be interviewed.

Interestingly, the Obotan scandal broke out in 2003 and received substantial media coverage forcing the Kufuor administration to order the Serious Fraud Office to investigate.

In its report, the SFO strongly recommended that a number of individuals and companies should be prosecuted for conspiracy and fraud arising out of the gross mismanagement of pension funds.

The report recommend the prosecution of Ken Ofori Atta, Director of SSB Investments Limited, Ekow Awoonor, Director SSB Investments, George Otoo, Director, Enterprise Insurance Limited, Daniel Seddoh, Director of Obotan Developers Limited and Charles Asare, Director-General of SSNIT.

The companies which were to be prosecuted included SSB Investments Limited, Enterprise Insurance Limited and Obotan Developers Limited.

According to the SFO reports these companies fraudulently obtained US$ 2.2 million from the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to develop a residential community with recreational facilities but not even a block has been planted in the soil after more than 10 years.

Many workers have questioned the commitment of labour leaders to the protection of Pension funds given their loud silence over the Obotan affair.

It is also claimed that some of the individuals and companies involved in the Obotan affair are seeking to become fund managers, trustees and custodians of 2nd Tier pensions for public servants.

The support these individuals and companies continue to receive from the leadership of organized labour is shocking.

The question is, when will organized labour and its leaders speak to the Obotan scandal?

We are waiting for an answer.

ICC ‘too busy’ to prosecute Israel

Fatou Bensouda, ICC Chief Prosecutor

By Gordon Duff

The ICC decided that though Israel is “most likely guilty of war crimes” in their attack on an unarmed aid convoy in 2010, the International Criminal Court refuses to move forward. 

An examination of the ICC and its new Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda brings another point to light. The ICC itself continues to be fully complicit in the crimes it was set up to prevent.

In a move, outlandish, outrageous and certainly a precedent for disenfranchisement for the International Criminal Court, the ICC has decided not to prosecute Israel. 

This time it is for the execution of 9 journalists and activists on the Mavi Marmara, part of the Gaza Flotilla carrying medical supplies to that encircled bastion.

It isn’t that the ICC doesn’t recognize this as a war crime, in fact quite the opposite. The ICC was very clear, there was no question of Israel’s guilt in an action that was not only a war crime but violation of maritime rules as well, an act of piracy only a few miles away from the same area where Israel attacked the USS Liberty, killing or wounding 201 American naval personnel in 1967.

From CNN: The International Criminal Court will not prosecute Israel for a May 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship that left eight Turks and an American dead, even though there’s reason to believe war crimes were committed, a prosecutor with the Netherlands-based court said Thursday.

While conceding that war crimes may have been committed in the botched raid, the potential cases “would not be of ‘sufficient gravity’ to justify further action by the ICC,” prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said.

“In the final analysis, I have, therefore, concluded that the legal requirements under the Rome Statute to open an investigation have not been met and I am announcing that the preliminary examination has been closed,” Bensouda said.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, the Gambian born and Nigerian trained wife of a Moroccan businessman with strong ties to both Israel and the United States, has never considered a case outside of Africa.

Professor Kevin Jon Heller at the University of London cites Bensouda’s history of inaction.

From an article in the Toronto Star, dated October 13, 2014:

“That there is no formal investigation outside Africa is ‘absolutely unconscionable,’ says Kevin Jon Heller, professor of criminal law at the University of London’s school of Oriental and African studies.

‘It makes no legal sense, it makes even less political sense,’ he says. ‘That I think you could put squarely at the feet of Fatou Bensouda because she’s had three years to investigate in Colombia, or Afghanistan or Georgia, or somewhere. The only situations worth investigating are not only in Africa.’”

The timing of Bensouda’s announcement is, in itself, curious. Israel has, over the past few months, engaged in a pattern of criminality at an unprecedented pace, even bombing United Nations facilities in Gaza, using precision guided munitions supplied by the United States. 

Since the Gaza attacks, killing thousands including 570 children, Israel has seized religious shrines and engaged in an accelerated ethnic cleansing program in the occupied West Bank. 

These acts are all war crimes according to the Geneva Conventions but seemingly invisible to Bensouda.

Bensouda, heavily criticized for her inaction, claims she has no jurisdiction other than in Africa and that the court can only take on cases when she has been directed by specific unnamed members of the UN Security Council. 

In fact, no one has been able to ascertain a pattern or logic to any of her actions as she typically falls back on excuses, claiming the court is underfunded or subject to unspecified extralegal prohibitions placed on the court by groups she is unwilling to name.

Murder and Piracy

The case for prosecution over the Israeli attacks on the Freedom Flotilla in 2010 involves an almost limitless number of war crimes, many of which were filmed. 

The unarmed flotilla was attacked in international waters, an act of piracy. 

Journalists and activists were executed, some shot through the back of the head while being held down by IDF “commandos.”

American Marine, Ken O’Keefe, a peace activist among those on the Mavi Marmara, disarmed and captured 3 Israeli “commandos,” taking them prisoner and holding them until the ship was swarmed by up to 200 attackers.

Americans Among the War Criminals

Among them, nearly a third were dual US/Israeli citizens, engaged in acts inconsistent with both international and American prohibitions. 

The following text, the oath of allegiance that binds all Americans, makes this issue clear.

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

The oath fails to mention war crimes, genocide and ethnic cleansing specifically but it is not unreasonable to assume that it prohibitions of such acts on behalf of even the Israeli government are clear within its meaning.

The Attack, the Apology

Israel then took control of the convoy, taking the ships to Israel, where passengers, including O’Keefe, were interrogated and tortured. 

The medical supplies onboard were stolen, later to show up in Africa, sold there by an Israeli owned firm located in Cameroon according to a former Pentagon official.

In May 2014, then Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan agreed to accept an apology from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who openly admitted the attack was an unjustified violation of international war. 

Netanyahu admitted personally not only authorizing the attack but directing its planning and execution as well.
Bensouda, who never considered charges against Netanyahu, in actuality never investigated in any way. 

No witnesses were interviewed, no investigators were involved, no documents were reviewed and no written accounts were taken into consideration. 

In fact, that the ICC could come to a finding at all is unusual as there is no evidence that any required legal process was ever initiated.

ICC Complicity

Bensouda’s claim that the incident failed to meet criteria as a war crime based on “scale” is unsupported by language within the Rome Statute. 

The attack on the flotilla was a major military operation with over 2000 Israeli military involved including units of the Israeli navy, the IDF and Israeli Air Force.
The ICC’s failure to act based on capricious interpretation of statute in the face of Netanyahu’s admission of guilt will likely have repercussions.

There is little question left that the ICC is ineffective and has systematically targeted African leaders with a history of anti-imperialist stances.

Fatou Bensouda, the first woman, the first Muslim to assume the post of Chief Prosecutor for the ICC, has through her inaction in the face of blatant disregard for law on the behalf of Israel, permanently stained her tenure representing an organization long in need of reform.

With tens of thousands facing potential war crimes charges, more than half Americans, elected officials, military or privatized military and intelligence corporations under contract, and conflicts spreading from the Ukraine to Cape Town to Islamabad and beyond, the promise of international justice continues to remain unrealistic.

More needed to tackle Ebola

Cuban Doctors at work

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Cuban healthcare workers have played a leading role on the African continent for decades. The revolutionary government views its work in the fight against the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) as a manifestation of internationalism and solidarity with Africa.

In a surprised twist in diplomatic protocol for Washington, the administration of President Barack Obama noted the role of Cuban doctors and nurses in Liberia, where they will be working in a facility that is being reconstructed as a treatment center. Cuban healthcare workers have been deployed to Liberia and Sierra Leone, two of the three countries that have been at the epicenter of the most recent and widespread EVD outbreak.

Recently, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf inaugurated the first of 17 new Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) that are being constructed with funds donated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). At the ceremony in Congotown, near the capital of Monrovia, Johnson-Sirleaf expressed her gratitude for the donor countries that have contributed to the project so far.

An article published by the Voice of America on Nov. 1 reported that, “Some of the 90 doctors and nurses sent by Cuba to help the West African country, who attended the unveiling ceremony, will be working at a field hospital currently under construction at the former site of the Liberian Defense Ministry. It will be connected to the ETUs, built with funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID.”

Later in this same article, it states, “The largest of the 17 ETUs that the U.S. military is building in Liberia - which will house 200 beds - is located only a few meters from the site of the former Liberian Defense Ministry. The Cuban doctors and nurses will be mainly responsible for its operation. The other ETUs contain about 100 beds and cost between $ 250,000 and $ 500,000 to build.”

From the perspective of Havana, the VOA notes that, “Cuba's official government website confirmed that Cuban health personnel will begin working Monday (Nov. 3) at the newly-opened unit.”

Cuban healthcare workers have a long history of responding to natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Haiti during 2010, when they were the first to establish a field hospital. The Caribbean Island-nation has also trained countless numbers of medical personnel from throughout the world at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM).

Despite the over five decades of a blockade by the US against Cuba, the government is able to take a principled approach in working with Washington in the battle against EVD.

Former President Fidel Castro wrote an article published by Granma International, saying, “We gladly cooperate with American personnel in this task (the fight against Ebola), and not in pursuit of peace between the two states that have been adversaries for many years but, in any case, for world peace.”

The VOA reports that “Ronald Hernandez Torres, one of the Cuban doctors who traveled to Liberia wrote in Spanish on his Facebook page saying ‘This unit has the best conditions for patient care, and the best professionals from different countries working side by side.’ U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N., Ambassador Samantha Power, praised Cuba for its contribution to the fight against Ebola after returning from a recent trip to West Africa.”

The struggle continues against EVD

Another physician died on Nov. 2 in Sierra Leone, where the rise in outbreaks of EVD has shifted from rural eastern region of the country to the urban areas, including the capital of Freetown. Dr. Godfrey George reported that he was not feeling well and was transported from his place of work at the Kambia Government Hospital in the north of the country to Freetown, where he expired.

Four other doctors have died after treating EVD patients. These deaths take a tremendous toll on the country since it is the Sierra Leone medical personnel who are on the frontline against the disease.

Just four years ago in 2010, it was reported that the country had two physicians for every 100,000 residents. The country underwent a civil war for a decade and has only begun to recover from the war as well as previous decades of colonialism and neo-colonialism.

A regional conference of the World Health Organization (WHO) began in Benin on Nov. 3. Benin, a former French colony in West Africa, has not reported any cases of the disease.

The international assistance in the campaign to defeat the Ebola outbreak was high on the WHO agenda in Benin. Dr. Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO, stressed that, “The Ebola epidemic has set back political stability and economic recovery in the afflicted countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.” She also said the disease has taken a “heavy toll on front-line domestic medical staff.” (Associated Press, Nov. 3)

In Gueckedou, Guinea, in the south of the country on the border with Sierra Leone and Liberia, where this outbreak of the EVD is said to have originated, the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) envoy, Anthony Banbury, reported that the number of cases in the area had been reduced significantly.

“The first case of Ebola, in December 2013, was just down the road from here, so I was very interested and coming and seeing the situation on the ground for myself,” Banbury said, pointing out that, “happily, the number of cases in Guéckédou has gone down a lot.”

Banbury reported that the transmissions are declining and the number of cases in the area is almost zero. Even though there are cases outside the town, “there's been good progress made over these past months.” (United Nations News Center, Nov. 1)

However, another person working in the field in Guinea, Elisabeth Faure, the country director of the World Food Program (WFP), said that her agency has gotten involved with transporting medical personnel and equipment to treatment facilities. Faure’s observations paint another picture of developments inside the country.

“We’ve seen several waves, with the number of cases increasing and then declining and increasing and declining again,” Faure claimed. “But we’re now in a kind of third peak – by far the highest peak – with the highest number of cases since the epidemic started in Guinea.” (Guardian, Oct. 30)

Despite the international attention focused on the three African states most severely impacted, there are still not enough resources being directed to the most distressed areas. Those solidarity and human rights organizations in the Western industrialized states should demand that the governments in these countries provide the necessary medical personnel, medications and protective gear needed to successfully fight and eradicate EVD.

Goodbye G8, Hello BRICS. Out with the old, in with the new 

BRICS Meeting in Brazil 2014

The love affair between the Russian Federation and the G7 lasted for precisely sixteen years, from 1998 to 2014, when the arrogance and disrespect of the other G7 members came to the fore and Russia was excluded for reacting to the anti-Constitutional Putsch in Ukraine in which the elected President was ousted. This was a favor they did to Russia.

The reaction of the G7 members (USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan + the European Union) to Russia's response to the illegal Putsch in the Ukraine earlier this year practically says it all and explains why the foreign policy of its leaders has failed. The global threat to British and American citizens walks hand-in-hand with a foreign policy based upon arrogance, belligerence and intrusion. The French, and these days the Canadians, are by no means immune from this natural reaction, being guilty by association. You sleep with a prostitute and have unprotected sex, and you get infected, period.

With the inclusion of Japan, the G7 member states are the imperialist states of yesteryear, plus their colonies and the reactions of outrage and sullen loathing on You Tube to (many) videos of American soldiers giggling and laughing and shouting "Mother F*cker" at dogs that get blown up by IEDs are a telling insight into how these countries are viewed around the world.

A Japanese citizen might get away with a visit to Algeria, Libya or perhaps even Syria. A Briton of American dare not step off an aircraft in a growing number of countries, something which affects the Canadians by default. A Russian, a Brazilian, a Chinese, an Indian and a South African can, however, move around the world freely and be welcomed by all. For some reason it must be. A Briton or an American is regarded with mistrust, a Brazilian is regarded as a friend.

Therefore it makes sense for Russia to move closer to like-minded countries interesting in fostering global cooperation and friendship, instead of those staging illegal Putsches just because a country's government decides against a closer agreement with the European Union, or arming and aiding terrorists to destabilize governments they perceive as unfriendly, while at the same time they do illegal deals with others who occupy sovereign territories (Morocco, which steals resources belonging to Western Sahara).

It is the same as a few decades ago when these same Western powers were supporting murderous regimes and Fascist dictatorships across the globe, whose criminal policies and human rights atrocities they not only ignored, but colluded with, while in a demonstration of sheer hypocrisy, dared to accuse Cuba, for instance, of human rights abuses. Look at Cuba today - the focal point of human rights atrocities is centered on the torture and concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay.

In terms of GDP, the G7 registers some 34.2 trillion USD, with a total population of some 750 million. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, Indian, China, South Africa) has a total GDP output of nearly 15 trillion USD, and a population of 3 billion. The trend is for the economies of the G7 to stagnate as they are beset by problems related with ageing populations, while the trend for the BRICS is a far higher growth rate and younger populations. Coupled with this, the foreign perception and foreign policies of the BRICS outstrip the G7 by far.

From one side, a tired, imperialist and arrogant top-down, holier-than-thou approach with political strings attached; on the other, genuine friendship, cooperation, development, the desire for sincere cultural and economic ties. From the former, deployment and military bases; from the latter, development and education.

Watch this space. While the G7 tries to perpetuate itself by intrinsically linking the motor at the core of its policies to NATO, and tries to perpetuate NATO by provoking conflicts and then blaming others (for example Georgia, for example Ukraine, for example Iraq, for example Afghanistan, for example Libya, for example Syria), the BRICS will grow in the forthcoming years, and will include countries such as Nigeria, Indonesia, IR Iran, Venezuela, possibly Angola, as the geopolitical block shifts towards where the hearts and minds of humankind are located. The collective will of the CPLP Community (Portuguese-speaking nations, namely Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe Isles, Timor, Spanish-speaking Equatorial Guinea plus observer States, including Australia) is far closer to the BRICS than to the G7.

And the hearts and minds of humankind are not with the European Union, the USA or the G7. Everyone knows this and the failure of Western policy in recent years is a symptom of the disease which its political class does not know how to cure.

So in conclusion, the exclusion of Russia from the G8 by the G7 this year, albeit an act of rudeness and arrogance (but frankly, what to expect from them?) was also a huge favor they did Russia, in recent years so intent on speaking about its friends in the West when it was obvious to all that the West offers a bunch of flowers in one hand and has a knife and six stones behind its back in the other.

If the internal market and the world marketplace are the engines which drive an economy, then the BRICS are admirably better placed than the G7 for the decades to come. My advice would be not to listen to the West when they come crawling round your feet and to answer them with a massive slap on the face if they overstep the mark, which they will.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey