IS GHANA’S FOREIGN POLICY CHANGING?

President John Mahama, what is going on?

By Kwesi Pratt, Jnr

You cannot believe it, but it is true.

Ghana under the presidency of John Dramani Mahama has refused to vote for human rights in occupied Palestine.

This represents a low point in Ghana’s foreign policy which had as one of its pillars support for national liberation worldwide.

Even under President John Agyekum Kufuor whose government was seen as right -wing, Ghana supported the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.

 President Kufuor’s government also supported the two-state solution and vehemently condemned the building of settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

Ghana abstained in a vote on the observance of human rights in occupied Palestine at the UN Human Rights Council last week.

Ghana’s current stand comes after the visit to Israel by Honourable Hannah Tetteh, Ghana’s foreign Minister at the invitation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

During the visit, Ghana and  Israel are alleged to have signed a co-operation agreement in the area of security.

The two countries pledged to co-operate in the fight against Islamic terrorism.

Comrade President John Mahama, what is going on?

Those developments are particularly strange because President John Mahama was active in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) before becoming President.

The Government of President John Evans Atta Mills also keenly supported the struggles of the Palestinian people for a State and denounced Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.

This is the first time in more than 40 years that Ghana is showing signs of wavering over the Palestinian question.

 Even the European Union has decided to boycott Israeli goods made in these settlements.

The British Parliament in a non-binding resolution has supported the creation of the State of Palestine.

 Student activists in Canada and Australia are currently waging a campaign to boycott Israeli goods made in the illegal settlements.

 The Socialist Forum of Ghana (SFG) strongly supports Palestinian statehood and is opposed to violations of human rights in occupied Palestine.

 There is a very strong and credible information that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to visit Ghana at the invitation of the Ghanaian government as part of an African Tour.

Pro-Palestine activist are promising  to meet him at the airport with a massive demonstration.

Some analyst says that the strategy of the Mahama administration is to starve off possible Israeli support for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in this year’s election.

Editorial

WHERE IN THE WORLD?

Now the noise over the South African -3 appears to have died down and we feel compelled to make our views known.

As a matter of fact, no nation in the world would tolerate a situation in which foreign nationals arrive in the country and organise the training of opposition cadres in hand-to-hand combat, weapons handling, crowd control and VIP protection.

 Every security set-up in the world would be alarmed at such a development and would take appropriate measures to investigate and neutralise the threat.

Our question is very simple if no country can tolerate such a situation, then why should Ghana accept it?

The security services have done their job and they should continue to ensure that nobody takes the security of the people of Ghana for granted