GALAMSEY-Cocoa Farmers Have No Regret for Giving up Their Lands

Ghanaians prospect for gold to tackle poverty

By Edwin Apiah

Farmers in the Western region say it is sweet surrender to give up their farms to 'big-money' buyers interested in exploiting it for gold.

The farmers in the Wassa Amenfi East District of the region maintain that the 'golden pod' - cocoa - no longer provides economic returns worth their time and energy.

A farmer, Kwesi Nyarko, told Radio Maxx' Francis Whajaah after years of cocoa farming, paying school fees is still a headache.

"I have not been able to put up a single room all these years after farming", he said after he sold off a portion of his land for GHC30,000.

A land with higher prospect for gold can go for GHC40,000 while lower prospects go for 10,000 cedis, Francis Whajaah has found out. The farmers determine the prospect by examining the distance between the lands and the nearest gold mining site.

Kwesi Narko rationalised that as a farmer with 20 acres cocoa lands, he has had to struggle for fertilisers for his farms.

He says he last got 18 bags of cocoa fertiliser but pointed to some others who got as much as 100 bags of fertilizer except - they have no cocoa farms.

The fertilizer politicization in the cocoa sector is part of the reasons why he is gradually hanging his farming boots for a one-off buy-out of his cocoa lands.

The capitulation in the face of Chinese cash has seen a disturbing destruction of cocoa farms to the more rewarding work of finding gold.

And gold is rewarding. In 2015, gold brought in $4.33 billion. Cocoa beans grossed $1.98b. And so it appears, a golden stone is better than a golden pod.

Eager to share in this revenue going to government, foreign nationals have descended on Ghana's forests, farm lands and river bodies in a madrush for gold.

Lands and Natural Resources Minister has revealed the country lost 2.3 billion dollars’ worth of gold through illegal mining popularly known as galamsey.

Locals says Galamsey is an avenue for survival

Finding willing collaborators from the corridors of power to the bushy paths in farms, this subversion of the land is coming at great ecological loss.

In Ghana, it appears economy is more important than ecology and so destruction of the environment appears not to be an alarming reason to halt illegal mining.

But the danger from ecological destruction has escalated to a sanitation crisis. Rivers are now too polluted to serve as sources of water for water treatment plants.

The rivers, hitherto white have now turned into a colour too harmful to contemplate drinking. Gold is a good colour for jewellery but a cancerous colour for drinking.

And so in the Eastern region where river Tano is found, water is fast becoming a scarce commodity in surrounding communities.

The action of government agencies in dealing with the menace is few and far between.

A taskforce to crack down galamsey in 2013 is believed to have grounded to a halt for political reasons.

While the take-over of cocoa farms in the Wassa Amenfi East District is peaceful even if detrimental, the take-over of cocoa farms in Goaso in the Asunafo North Municipality of the Brong Ahafo Region is nothing short of violence.

In a classical case of  'if persuasion fails, force must be applied', galamsey operators there have destroyed three cocoa-growing communities - Manukrom, Atoom and Tipokrom.

Moving clandestinely and under the cover of darkness, the powerful aggressors for gold raze farms. The farmers are incensed yet helpless, shocked yet falling short of mounting any worthwhile resistance.

They have threatened to burn down their farms in protest of weak government response just as a Tunisian burnt himself in protest over harsh economic conditions. It triggered what is known as the Arab Spring.

Editorial

WHO RUNS IN 2020?

The debate over who would lead the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 elections is a useless and needless one.

As has been said over and over again, no matter who is elected as the presidential candidate of the NDC, the party would very easily lose the elections on account of disunity.

If the party also fails to pursue policies which would endear it to the people of Ghana, it would lose elections no matter who may be its presidential candidate.

There are also many organisational matters, including fund raising, how to make executives functional and the establishment of true and proper women’s and youth wings.

The choice of a presidential candidate cannot and would not resolve these issues.

Our advice is that the party should focus its attention on re-organisation and move away from the wasteful debate on the choice of a presidential candidate for 2020.

Budgetary Allocation to Interior Ministry Woefully Inadequate

Major Derrick Oduro

By Joseph Opoku Gakpo

Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee has described as woefully inadequate, allocations made to the Ministry of Interior in the 2017 budget.

The committee is thus asking government to review the amount and increase the allocation.

The house on Friday approved the allocation of GH1.571 billion to the Interior Ministry for the financial year ending December, 31 2017.

Chairman of the committee Major Derrick Oduro (Rtd) told the house: “the budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Interior, unfortunately, remains woefully inadequate.

"If Ghana is to continue to enjoy accelerated economic development and growth, it is important that premium is placed on the protection of human life and property,” he said on the floor of parliament as the house approved the budget.

Various security agencies including the police, immigration service and prison services fall under the Ministry of Interior.

“It is imperative that the budgetary allocation is reviewed with the urgency that it deserves to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the ministry and its agencies,” he added.

Major Oduro, however, did not state how much more should be added to ensure effective work at the ministry. It should also be noted that the approval represents an increase in the GH1.3 billion approved for the ministry in 2016.

He also expressed concern about the inability of government to pay rent for personnel of the security forces, resulting in threats to eject some of them.

The house has approved a budget of GH821 million for the Ministry of Defence for the 2017 fiscal year. The committee demanded that government to as a matter of urgency releases funds to defray the outstanding bills of the ministry that has hit GH250 million.

Parliament is additionally calling for increased funding to the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs. The house approved a budget of GH34 million for the ministry, one of the lowest allocations to ministries in the budget.

MP for Keta Ricahrd Quarshigah says the ministry needs more money to resolve religious and chieftaincy conflicts across the country, compared to when it was previously focused it focused only on chieftaincy.

“The re-aligned Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs is a very serious ministry because its activities will impact on the social nerve of our society, the reason for which I will even imagine that the GH34 million allocated to it is not enough,” Mr. Quarshigah said.  

He is also championing that the National Hajj Board is moved to the new ministry from the Office of the President.

“It will no longer be resolving chieftaincy disputes alone, but issues that we have within Christianity as well as Islam, the reason for which I would even imagine that the Hajj Board will now be a subset of this ministry,” Mr. Quarshigah added.

He observed that provisions made in the budget for the ministry was heavily skewed towards issues of chieftaincy whilst neglecting the religious issues.

“The issues the ministry’s budget attempts to cover are all chieftaincy related. Are there no plans to resolve disputes between traditional authorities and churches during the times when bans are placed on dancing and drumming, where both sides refuse to agree lead to chaos?” he quizzed. 

Help reduce unemployment – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Akufo Addo

By Kent Mensah

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has indicated that the fastest way to resolve the issues of an economy that does not meet the needs of the people and of an alarming rate of unemployment lie in entrepreneurship, business and technology.

According to President Akufo-Addo, the country has not come to terms with the image of the entrepreneur in our country, adding that “we seem unsure about the definition of what constitutes business.”

Nonetheless, the President has noted that “it is time to take entrepreneurship seriously”, explaining that “successful economies always depend on entrepreneurs running successful businesses.”

President Akufo-Addo made this known when he delivered a speech at the International Conference on Entrepreneurship, Business and Technology (ICEBUT), organized by the Methodist University College Ghana, on Monday, March 27, 2017.

The President noted that it is in the interest of all stakeholders that “those who set up ventures and take business risks are able to generate wealth”, adding that “this is the sector that must grow, for it is the sector that will provide the cure for our unemployment crisis.”

It is for this reason that the President has assured that impediments, largely found in the public sector, which include petty corruption and excessive regulation, which demoralize businesses will be removed to ensure that the businesses grow.

The ‘Asempa Budget’, the President added, “has shown that my government is serious about its part of the bargain and is committed to strengthening business and the private sector.”

On the role of educational institutions, President Akufo-Addo noted that “educational institutions would have to take a closer look at their curriculum content and the way they teach, and align it with present day realities”, as “the value of a university is measured by how easily its graduates find jobs.”

The President also urged businesses to employ the use of technology in the running of their businesses as it “formalizes their operations without much cost.

“It is time to utilize them to the full, instead of the one-upmanship gadgets they tend to be currently. A smart phone can enable a market woman decide when the best time is to make the planned trip to the orange farm for her purchases, because she can see the state of the oranges from her home or office 200 kilometers away. That same smart phone would hold all the records of her previous transactions and enable her conduct her banking. The possibilities are endless and we have the opportunity to make rapid progress, with the aid of technology to create wealth,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo also urged for the development of “partnerships between industry and universities to ensure that the next generation of business leaders are appropriately trained. Our educational institutions need to know, at first hand, what is happening in industry and train their students accordingly. This is a fundamental imperative if we are to achieve best practice and create jobs. We ignore the teachings of two of the most powerful economies of our era, the German and the Chinese, to our cost.”

To this end, President Akufo-Addo was glad to learn that the Methodist University College Ghana, through its Centre for Entrepreneurship Education, Research and Training (CEERT), has developed programmes aimed at developing skills for the business community, and creating entrepreneurial managers for corporate, as well as for individual businesses.

“It is equally good to learn that the entrepreneurship training the University College offered national service personnel in the Brong Ahafo Region in 2014, as part of the University’s social responsibility and extension services, is turning out to be a success. I would want such a programme to be rolled out nationally to affect a greater number of service personnel. The new leadership of the National Service Scheme will be alerted to the potential of this programme,” he said.

Source:Starrfmonline.com

Nkrumah founded Ghana; just as Jesus championed Christianity – Mahama

Ex-President John Dramani Mahama

By Delali Adogla-Bessa

Former President, John Mahama, has waded into the long-standing debate over the founders of Ghana, affirming that Kwame Nkrumah is to Ghana what Jesus Christ is to Christianity.

Responding to a question during the first book reading session of his autobiography; ‘My first Coup D’etat’ at the University of Ghana on Tuesday, Mr. Mahama said Nkrumah is undoubtedly the founder of Ghana.

“Certainly, one thing we can’t run away from is that, he [Nkrumah] is the founder of our nation. He led the independence struggle. Many people contributed and it happens; in Christianity, there is John the Baptist, there are all the apostles, but who is the champion of Christianity, Jesus Christ,” he said.

The former President stressed that, hailing Nkrumah was not tantamount to the relegation of other persons who played a role in the independence, but the spark of Ghana’s independence was to be given due reverence.

“We don’t undermine the role other people played… but you cannot recognize all those who took part. There is that person who gave the critical spark that eventually led to independence. And you cannot run away from the fact that it is Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.”

Mr. Mahama has in times past held Kwame Nkrumah and his ideology, and it was no different this time round, as he hailed him as a visionary who was unappreciated in his time.

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

“I believe that one of the things he tried to do was to build the infrastructure of this country and use it as a platform to industralise the country. I believe his vision was far ahead of the country itself and most of us didn’t understand what he was trying to do. But today when we look back, we can see what he was trying to make of the is country.”

How the debate began

President Nana Addo’s speech delivered at Ghana’s 60th independence anniversary parade came under attack over what some said was a skewed account of Ghana’s history to suit his father, Edward Akufo Addo and uncle, J.B Danquah who played vital roles in Ghana’s journey towards independence.

Though some have argued that the President did not seek to downplay Nkrumah’s vital role that led to Ghana’s independence, others believe Nana Addo attempted changing Ghana’s history in favour of his father and uncle.

The Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye, is one of such persons, who described as palpable falsehood, claims that Dr. Kwame Nkrumah founded independent Ghana.

The Political Science Professor argued that, the independence struggle was not championed by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah alone, and so the glory of independence could therefore not be attributed to him.

But the Convention People’s Party (CPP) insisted the President deliberately skewed Ghana’s history to put his uncle, and father in good light.

Africa Gives Much More Than It Receives

Africa Miners working for transnational corporations

By Gerald Caplan

According to the New York Times, Donald Trump’s transition team wanted to know: “Why should we spend funds on Africa when we are suffering here in the U.S.?” Curiously enough, most Americans probably would have agreed with Mr. Trump that this was a real question. But they all share an entirely false premise.

America and the rest of the rich world have actually been ripping off Africa for the past 700 years, ever since the Portuguese began the slave trade, all the while insisting that Africa has been the beneficiary of this relentless exploitation. It’s been one of the great hoaxes of the past millennium.

Slavery and the slave trade, upon which Western Europe and the United States developed their economic superiority, were said to be positive for Africans, whose innate inferiority meant they had no capacity to run their own lives.

Colonialism, in turn, was the West’s ostensibly philanthropic attempt to gift Africa with “Christianity, Civilization and Commerce,” in return for making possible Europe’s assorted empires.

Neocolonialism, which has operated for the past 65 years since the West first “gave” their African colonies freedom, is the stage we have all lived through. During this period, according to Western mythology, Africa has been the problem to which the generosity of the rich world is the solution. You know – a goat at Christmas, the “adoption” of an unknown child, meager foreign aid and neoliberal economic policies.

In reality, Africa is far more generous to the West than we are to it. That was evident from the first. But beginning in 1973, with the publication of the ground-breaking book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, by Guyanese academic-activist Walter Rodney, the European fairy tale was definitively exploded. The title said it all: Africa’s multiple woes were a function of deliberate policies of exploitation by Europe’s colonial regimes.

Since then, despite mounting evidence, mass ignorance in the West, cultivated by both elites and aid agencies, remained dominant. Yet excellent research by sophisticated NGOs have made indisputably clear the manifold ways in which foreign interests consistently ripped off African countries, not least through tax evasion and the investment privileges gained by Western corporate interests.

I myself jumped into this attempt to demystify Africa-West relations with a book called The Betrayal of Africa. The betrayers were Western governments and corporate interests, often in collusion with African elites. The betrayed were innocents in the West and of course the African people.

More exposés pour forth, the latest, probably most comprehensive one, just this December. The U.S.-based Global Financial Integrity examined all of the financial resources that get transferred between rich countries and poor ones each year, including aid, foreign investment and trade flows, as well as debt cancellation, workers’ remittances and unrecorded capital flight.

The conclusion was categorical: The flow of money from rich countries to poor countries, including most of Africa, pales in comparison to the flow that runs in the other direction.

In 2012, the last year of recorded data, poor countries received a total of $1.3-trillion (U.S.), including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3-trillion flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2-trillion more to the rest of the world than they received. Since 1980, these net outflows add up to a staggering total of $16.3 trillion. That’s how much money has been bled out of the global south, including Africa, over the past few decades.

And yes, it’s trillions.

Add in the massive corruption, enabled by Western interests, plus the violent coups and conflicts that Western interests facilitated, and there’s only one conclusion: Rich countries aren’t developing poor countries; poor countries are developing rich ones.

Canada is a pretty good example. On the one hand, our governments sends them paltry amounts of foreign aid. On the other, to take only one example, Canadian investment in African mining ventures, many of them deeply destructive to locals, are often actively promoted by Canadian politicians and bureaucrats.

The Trudeau government is looking for a new Africa strategy. Surely telling the truth about who is ripping off whom would be a very constructive way to begin. Then the appropriate policies could, at long last, follow. Or is the truth now too much for Canada, too?

“We must unite now or perish” – President Kwame Nkrumah

Kwame Nkrumah speaks at founding of OAU, 24th May, 1963

May 1963, Nkrumah appealed, cajoled, and did everything in perhaps his greatest speech ever to convince his colleagues to go the whole hog and create a strong continental union. Sadly, they decided otherwise. Below is an extract from that speech.

I am happy to be here in Addis Ababa on this most historic occasion. I bring with me the hopes and fraternal greetings of the government and people of Ghana. Our objective is African union now. There is no time to waste. We must unite now or perish. I am confident that by our concerted effort and determination, we shall lay here the foundations for a continental Union of African States.

A whole continent has imposed a mandate upon us to lay the foundation of our union at this conference. It is our responsibility to execute this mandate by creating here and now, the formula upon which the requisite superstructure may be created. On this continent, it has not taken us long to discover that the struggle against colonialism does not end with the attainment of national independence. Independence is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs; to construct our society according to our aspirations, unhampered by crushing and humiliating neo-colonialist control and interference. From the start we have been threatened with frustration, where rapid change is imperative, and with instability, where sustained effort and ordered rule are indispensable. No sporadic act nor pious resolution can resolve our present problems. Nothing will be of avail, except the united act of a united Africa.

We have already reached the stage where we must unite or sink into that condition which has made Latin America the unwilling and distressed prey of imperialism after one-and-a-half centuries of political independence. As a continent, we have emerged into independence in a different age, with imperialism grown stronger, more ruthless and experienced, and more dangerous in its international associations. Our economic advancement demands the end of colonialist and neo-colonialist domination of Africa.

But just as we understood that the shaping of our national destinies required of each of us our political independence and bent all our strength to this attainment, so we must recognise that our economic independence resides in our African union and requires the same concentration upon the political achievement. The unity of our continent, no less than our separate independence, will be delayed, if indeed we do not lose it, by hobnobbing with colonialism.

African unity is, above all, a political kingdom which can only be gained by political means. The social and economic development of Africa will come only within the political kingdom, not the other way round. Is it not unity alone that can weld us into an effective force, capable of creating our own progress and making our valuable contribution to world peace? Which independent African state, which of you here, will claim that its financial structure and banking institutions are fully harnessed to its national development?

Which will claim that its material resources and human energies are available for its own national aspirations? Which will disclaim a substantial measure of disappointment and disillusionment in its agricultural and urban development?

Instability and frustration

In independent Africa, we are already reexperiencing the instability and frustration which existed under colonial rule. We are fast learning that political independence is not enough to rid us of the consequences of colonial rule.

The movement of the masses of the people of Africa for freedom from that kind of rule was not only a revolt against the conditions which it imposed. Our people supported us in our fight for independence because they believed that African governments could cure the ills of the past in a way which could never be accomplished under colonial rule. If, therefore, now that we are independent we allow the same conditions to exist that existed in colonial days, all the resentment which overthrew colonialism will be mobilised against us.

The resources are there. It is for us to marshal them in the active service of our people. Unless we do this by our concerted efforts, within the framework of our combined planning, we shall not progress at the tempo demanded by today’s events and the mood of our people. The symptoms of our troubles will grow, and the troubles themselves become chronic. It will then be too late for pan-African unity to secure for us stability and tranquillity in our labours for a continent of social justice and material well-being.

Our continent certainly exceeds all the others in potential hydro-electric power, which some experts assess as 42% of the world’s total. What need is there for us to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water for the industrialised areas of the world? It is said, of course, that we have no capital, no industrial skill, no communications, and no internal markets, and that we cannot even agree among ourselves how best to utilise our resources for our own social needs. Yet all stock exchanges in the world are preoccupied with Africa’s gold, diamonds, uranium, platinum, copper and iron ore. Our capital flows out in streams to irrigate the whole system of Western economy. Fifty-two per cent of the gold in Fort Knox at this moment, where the USA stores its bullion, is believed to have originated from our shores.

Africa provides more than 60% of the world’s gold. A great deal of the uranium for nuclear power, of copper for electronics, of titanium for supersonic projectiles, of iron and steel for heavy industries, of other minerals and raw materials for lighter industries – the basic economic might of the foreign powers – comes from our continent.

Experts have estimated that the Congo Basin alone can produce enough food crops to satisfy the requirements of nearly half the population of the whole world, and here we sit talking about gradualism, talking about step by step. Are you afraid to take the bull by the horns?

For centuries, Africa has been the mulch cow of the Western world. Was it not our continent that helped the Western world to build up its accumulated wealth? We have the resources. It was colonialism in the first place that prevented us from accumulating the effective capital; but we ourselves have failed to make full use of our power in independence to mobilise our resources for the most effective take-off into thorough-going economic and social development.

We have been too busy nursing our separate states to understand fully the basic need of our union, rooted in common purpose, common planning and common endeavour. A union that ignores these fundamental necessities will be but a sham. It is only by uniting our productive capacity and the resultant production that we can amass capital. And once we start, the momentum will increase. With capital controlled by our own banks, harnessed to our own true industrial and agricultural development, we shall make our advance.

We shall accumulate machinery and establish steel works, iron foundries and factories; we shall link the various states of our continent with communications by land, sea, and air. We shall cable from one place to another, phone from one place to the other and astound the world with our hydro-electric power; we shall drain marshes and swamps, clear infested areas, feed the under-nourished, and rid our people of parasites and disease.

Camels and donkeys no more

It is within the possibility of science and technology to make even the Sahara bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation for agricultural and industrial development. We shall harness the radio, television, giant printing presses to lift our people from the dark recesses of illiteracy. A decade ago, these would have been visionary words, the fantasies of an idle dreamer. But this is the age in which science has transcended the limits of the material world, and technology has invaded the silences of nature. Time and space have been reduced to unimportant abstractions. Giant machines make roads, clear forests, dig dams, lay out aerodromes; monster trucks and planes distribute goods; huge laboratories manufacture drugs; complicated geological surveys are made; mighty power stations are built; colossal factories erected – all at an incredible speed. The world is no longer moving through bush paths or on camels and donkeys.

We cannot afford to pace our needs, our development, our security, to the gait of camels and donkeys. We cannot afford not to cut down the overgrown bush of outmoded attitudes that obstruct our path to the modern open road of the widest and earliest achievement of economic independence and the raising up of the lives of our people to the highest level.

Even for other continents lacking the resources of Africa, this is the age that sees the end of human want. For us it is a simple matter of grasping with certainty our heritage by using the political might of unity. All we need to do is to develop with our united strength the enormous resources of our continent.

What use to the farmer is education and mechanisation, what use is even capital for development, unless we can ensure for him a fair price and a ready market? What has the peasant, worker and farmer gained from political independence, unless we can ensure for him a fair return for his labour and a higher standard of living? Unless we can establish great industrial complexes in Africa, what have the urban worker, and those peasants on overcrowded land gained from political independence? If they are to remain unemployed or in unskilled occupation, what will avail them the better facilities for education, technical training, energy, and ambition which independence enables us to provide?

There is hardly any African state without a frontier problem with its adjacent neighbours. It would be futile for me to enumerate them because they are already so familiar to us all.

But let me suggest that this fatal relic of colonialism will drive us to war against one another as our unplanned and uncoordinated industrial development expands, just as happened in Europe. Unless we succeed in arresting the danger through mutual understanding on fundamental issues and through African unity, which will render existing boundaries obsolete and superfluous, we shall have fought in vain for independence. Only African unity can heal this festering sore of boundary disputes between our various states. The remedy for these ills is ready in our hands. It stares us in the face at every customs barrier, it shouts to us from every African heart.

By creating a true political union of all the independent states of Africa, with executive powers for political direction, we can tackle hopefully every emergency and every complexity. This is because we have emerged in the age of science and technology in which poverty, ignorance, and disease are no longer the masters, but the retreating foes of mankind. Above all, we have emerged at a time when a continental land mass like Africa with its population approaching 300 million is necessary to the economic capitalisation and profitability of modern productive methods and techniques. Not one of us working singly and individually can successfully attain the fullest development. Certainly, it will not be possible to give adequate assistance to sister states trying, against the most difficult conditions, to improve their economic and social structures. Only a united Africa functioning under a union government can forcefully mobilise the material and moral resources of our separate countries and apply them efficiently and energetically to bring a rapid change in the conditions of our people.

Political union

Unite we must. Without necessarily sacrificing our sovereignties, big or small, we can here and now forge a political union based on defence, foreign affairs and diplomacy, and a common citizenship, an African currency, an African monetary zone, and an African central bank. We must unite in order to achieve the full liberation of our continent. We need a common defence system with African high command to ensure the stability and security of Africa. We have been charged with this sacred task by our own people, and we cannot betray their trust by failing them. We will be mocking the hopes of our people if we show the slightest hesitation or delay in tackling realistically this question of African unity. We need unified economic planning for Africa.

Until the economic power of Africa is in our hands, the masses can have no real concern and no real interest for safeguarding our security, for ensuring the stability of our regimes, and for bending their strength to the fulfilment of our ends. With our united resources, energies and talents we have the means, as soon as we show the will, to transform the economic structures of our individual states from poverty to that of wealth, from inequality to the satisfaction of popular needs. Only on a continental basis shall we be able to plan the proper utilisation of all our resources for the full development of our continent. How else will we retain our own capital for own development? How else will we establish an internal market for our own industries?

By belonging to different economic zones, how will we break down the currency and trading barriers between African states, and how will the economically stronger amongst us be able to assist the weaker and less developed states? It is important to remember that independent financing and independent development cannot take place without an independent currency. A currency system that is backed by the resources of a foreign state is ipso facto subject to the trade and financial arrangements of that foreign country.

Because we have so many customs and currency barriers as a result of being subject to the different currency systems of foreign powers, this has served to widen the gap between us in Africa. How, for example, can related communities and families trade with, and support one another successfully, if they find themselves divided by national boundaries and currency restrictions? The only alternative open to them in these circumstances is to use smuggled currency and enrich national and international racketeers and crooks who prey upon our financial and economic difficulties.

Common citizenship

No independent African state today by itself has a chance to follow an independent course of economic development, and many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers. This position will not change unless we have a unified policy working at the continental level. The first step towards our cohesive economy would be a unified monetary zone, with, initially, an agreed common parity for our currencies. To facilitate this arrangement, Ghana would change to a decimal system.

When we find that the arrangement of a fixed common parity is working successfully, there would seem to be no reason for not instituting one common currency and a single bank of issue. With a common currency from one common bank of issue, we should be able to stand erect on our own feet because such an arrangement would be fully backed by the combined national products of the states composing the union. After all, the purchasing power of money depends on productivity and the productive exploitation of the natural, human and physical resources of the nation.

While we are assuring our stability by a common defence system, and our economy is being orientated beyond foreign control by a common currency, monetary zone, and central bank of issue, we can investigate the resources of our continent. We can begin to ascertain whether in reality we are the richest, and not, as we have been taught to believe, the poorest among the continents. We can determine whether we possess the largest potential in hydro-electric power, and whether we can harness it and other sources of energy to our industries. We can proceed to plan our industrialisation on a continental scale, and to build up a common market for nearly 300 million people. Common continental planning for the industrial and agricultural development of Africa is a vital necessity!

So many blessings flow from our unity; so many disasters must follow on our continued disunity. The hour of history which has brought us to this assembly is a revolutionary hour. It is the hour of decision. The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity. The people of Africa call for the breaking down of the boundaries that keep them apart. They demand an end to the border disputes between sister African states – disputes that arise out of the artificial barriers raised by colonialism. It was colonialism’s purpose that divided us.

It was colonialism’s purpose that left us with our border irredentism, that rejected our ethnic and cultural fusion. Our people call for unity so that they may not lose their patrimony in the perpetual service of neo-colonialism. In their fervent push for unity, they understand that only its realisation will give full meaning to their freedom and our African independence. It is this popular determination that must move us on to a union of independent African states. In delay lies danger to our well-being, to our very existence as free states.

It has been suggested that our approach to unity should be gradual, that it should go piecemeal. This point of view conceives of Africa as a static entity with “frozen” problems which can be eliminated one by one and when all have been cleared then we can come together and say: “Now all is well, let us now unite.”

This view takes no account of the impact of external pressures. Nor does it take cognisance of the danger that delay can deepen our isolations and exclusiveness; that it can enlarge our differences and set us drifting further and further apart into the net of neo-colonialism, so that our union will become nothing but a fading hope, and the great design of Africa’s full redemption will be lost, perhaps, forever.

The dangers of regionalism

The view is also expressed that our difficulties can be resolved simply by a greater collaboration through cooperative association in our inter-territorial relationships. This way of looking at our problems denies a proper conception of their inter-relationship and mutuality. It denies faith in a future for African advancement in African independence. It betrays a sense of solution only in continued reliance upon external sources through bilateral agreements for economic and other forms of aid.

The fact is that although we have been cooperating and associating with one another in various fields of common endeavour even before colonial times, this has not given us the continental identity and the political and economic force which would help us to deal effectively with the complicated problems confronting us in Africa today.

As far as foreign aid is concerned, a United Africa should be in a more favourable position to attract assistance from foreign sources. There is the far more compelling advantage which this arrangement offers, in that aid will come from anywhere to a United Africa because our bargaining power would become infinitely greater. We shall no longer be dependent upon aid from restricted sources. We shall have the world to choose from.

What are we looking for in Africa? Are we looking for Charters, conceived in the light of the United Nations’ example? A type of United Nations Organisation whose decisions are framed on the basis of resolutions that in our experience have sometimes been ignored by member states? Where groupings are formed and pressures develop in accordance with the interest of the groups concerned?

Or is it intended that Africa should be turned into a loose organisation of states on the model of the Organisation of American States, in which the weaker states within it can be at the mercy of the stronger or more powerful ones politically or economically and all at the mercy of some powerful outside nation or group of nations? Is this the kind of association we want for ourselves in the United Africa we all speak of with such feeling and emotion?

We all want a united Africa, united not only in our concept of what unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward together in dealing with all the problems that can best be solved only on a continental basis.

We are African!

We meet here today not as Ghanaians, Guineans, Egyptians, Algerians, Moroccans, Malians, Liberians, Congolese or Nigerians, but as Africans. Africans united in our resolve to remain here until we have agreed on the basic principles of a new compact of unity among ourselves which guarantees for us and our future a new arrangement of continental government. If we succeed in establishing a new set of principles as the basis of a new charter or statute for the establishment of a continental unity of Africa, and the creation of social and political progress for our people, then in my view, this conference should mark the end of our various groupings and regional blocs. But if we fail and let this grand and historic opportunity slip by, then we shall give way to greater dissension and division among us for which the people of Africa will never forgive us. And the popular and progressive forces and movements within Africa will condemn us. I am sure therefore that we shall not fail them.

To this end, I propose for your consideration the following: As a first step, a declaration of principles uniting and binding us together and to which we must all faithfully and loyally adhere, and laying the foundations of unity, should be set down.

As a second and urgent step for the realisation of the unification of Africa, an All-Africa Committee of Foreign Ministers should be set up now. The Committee should establish on behalf of the heads of our governments, a permanent body of officials and experts to work out a machinery for the union government of Africa. This body of officials and experts should be made up of two of the best brains from each independent African state. The various charters of existing groupings and other relevant documents could also be submitted to the officials and experts. We must also decide on a location where this body of officials and experts will work, to be the new headquarters or capital of our union government. Some central place in Africa might be the fairest suggestion, either in Bangui in the Central African Republic or Leopoldville [Kinshasa] in Congo. My colleagues may have other proposals.

The Committee of Foreign Ministers, officials and experts, should be empowered to establish: (1) A commission to frame a constitution for a Union Government of African States. (2) A commission to work out a continent-wide plan for a unified or common economic and industrial programme for Africa; this should include proposals for setting up: (a) A common market for Africa. (b) An African currency. (c) An African monetary zone. (d) An African central bank. (e) A continental communication system. (f) A commission to draw up details for a common foreign policy and diplomacy. (g) A commission to produce plans for a common system of defence. (h) A commission to make proposals for a common African citizenship. Africa must unite!

The day after Nkrumah’s speech, the 32 independent African nations assembled in Addis Ababa failed to go the whole hog for a strong United States of Africa. Instead they settled for a loose and weak Organisation of African Unity (OAU), whose Charter was signed the same day (25 May 1963) by the following countries: Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Dahomey, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Libya, Malagasy, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika. Tshad [later Chad], Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, UAR [Egypt], and Upper Volta [later Burkina Faso].

Ban sex robots, says leading ethicist

A leading robot ethicist has launched a campaign calling for a ban on the development of sex robots.

Dr Kathleen Richardson, a robotics expert at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, warns that sex robots could contribute to the systemic dehumanization of women and children.

“Sex robots seem to be a growing focus in the robotics industry and the models that they draw on – how they will look, what roles they would play – are very disturbing indeed,” she told the BBC.

Richardson explained that her Campaign Against Sex Robots is not anti-sex, but rather anti-exploitation.

“Technology is not neutral. It’s informed by class, race and gender. Political power informs the development of technology,” she told the Washington Post. “That’s why we can do something about it. These robots will contribute to more sexual exploitation.”

Though the sex-bots currently being manufactured are still relatively primitive, Richardson is worried they are the first step to something more sinister. 

“It’s a new and emerging technology, but let’s nip in the bud.”

The industry certainly appears to be picking up steam. The sex doll company True Companion launched Roxxxy, the “world’s first sex robot,” several years ago.

However, anxieties over AI’s potential dangers are not uncommon, even among industry bigwigs. Just this spring, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk wrote of the “the risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five-year timeframe. Ten years at most.”

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, warned “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” in an interview with the BBC last December.

ISRAEL IS GUILTY OF APARTHEID

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister

By Ali Abunimah

Rima Khalaf’s resignation, under pressure to suppress factual and legal findings unfavorable to Israel, will send a chilling message to other UN officials that they are better off serving those in power than in upholding any mandate to advance human rights and respect for international law.

A senior United Nations official has resigned, following pressure from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to withdraw the landmark report published last week finding Israel guilty of apartheid.

Rima Khalaf, the head of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) which published the report, announced her resignation at a press conference in Beirut on Friday.

Reuters reports that Khalaf took the step “after what she described as pressure from the secretary-general to withdraw a report accusing Israel of imposing an ‘apartheid regime’ on Palestinians.”

“I resigned because it is my duty not to conceal a clear crime, and I stand by all the conclusions of the report,” Khalaf stated.

As of Friday, a press release announcing the report remained visible on the ESCWA website, but the link to the report itself from the press release no longer works.

The report concludes that “Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.”

It finds “beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crimes of apartheid” as defined in international law.

It urges national governments to “support boycott, divestment and sanctions activities and respond positively to calls for such initiatives.”

Palestinians warmly welcomed the report, but Israel angrily denounced it as akin to Nazi propaganda. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN demanded that the report be withdrawn.

That demand came just as the Trump administration announced a budget plan that includes sweeping cuts in US contributions to the UN.

Khalaf’s resignation indicates that Guterres acted obediently and swiftly to carry out the orders from the United States. In a tweet, the Anti-Defamation League, a powerful Israel lobby group in the United States, thanked Guterres for urging ESCWA to withdraw the report.

The Israeli government has long targeted Khalaf for retaliation for doing her job. In 2014, its UN ambassador demanded she be removed from her post for criticizing Israel’s policies of occupation and Jewish colonization of Palestinian territory at the expense of Muslim and Christian communities.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the civil society coalition that leads the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, condemned Guterres’ intervention.

“The fact that a UN secretary general has bowed to threats and intimidation from the Trump administration to protect Israel from accountability, yet again, is hardly news,” the BNC said. “The real news is that this time round, Israel, with all its influence in Washington, cannot put the genie back into the bottle.”

“Palestinians are deeply grateful to ESCWA’s director, Dr. Rima Khalaf, who preferred to resign in dignity than to surrender her principles to US-Israeli bullying,” the BNC added.

Khalaf’s resignation, under pressure to suppress factual and legal findings unfavorable to Israel, will send a chilling message to other UN officials that they are better off serving those in power than in upholding any mandate to advance human rights and respect for international law.

Read the full report, Israeli Practices Towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, on the website of The Electronic Intifada.

* Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

How Nigeria Spent $61 Billion To Free South Africa from Apartheid

By Mathew Ogunsin

In a rare show of charitable love to South Africa, Nigerians made gigantic yield adding to the demolition of politically-sanctioned racial segregation in South Africa.

Students in Nigeria skirted their lunch to make donations, and just in 6 months, in June 1977, the commitment toward the Southern African Relief Fund (SARF) came up to $10.5 million.

The donations to the SARF were widely known in Nigeria as the “Mandela tax”.

As a result of the fund’s work, a first group of 86 South African students arrived in Nigeria in 1976, following the disruption of the education system in South Africa.

It happened after the massacre of 700 students by the white police while the former were protesting against the decision by the apartheid regime to change their education language to Afrikaans.Hundreds of South African students have benefited from the fund’s activity having come to study in Nigeria for free.

Beyond welcoming students and exiles, Nigeria had also welcomed many renowned South Africans like Thabo Mbeki (former South African president from 1999 to 2009.

He had spent 7 years in Nigeria, from 1977 to 1984, before he left to the ANC headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia.

Along with fellow African countries Nigeria lobbied for the creation of the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid and chaired it for 30 years, longer than any other country.

Between 1973 and 1978, Nigeria contributed huge financial sum to the United Nations Educational and Training Programme for Southern Africa, a voluntary trust fund promoting education of the black South African elite.

As for trade, Nigeria had refused to sell oil to South Africa for decades in protest against the white minority rule. Nigeria had lost approximately $41 billion during that period.

Above all, Nigeria was the only nation worldwide to set up the National Committee Against Apartheid (NACAP) as early as in 1960.

The committee’s mission was to disseminate the evils of the apartheid regime to all Nigerians from primary schools to universities, in public media and in markets, through posters and billboards messages.

The NACAP was also responsible for the coordination of Nigeria’s government and civil society joint anti-apartheid actions and advising of policy makers on anti-apartheid decisions.

For over three decades the NACAP had successfully built alliances with labor movement, student groups, progressive elements and other international grassroots organizations within Nigeria for effective anti-apartheid activities.

Nelson Mandela

In fact, until 1960s, the ANC fight against the apartheid regime in South Africa was yielding very small results. The whole world was quite indifferent to the suffering of the black South Africans.

Moreover, western countries strongly supported the apartheid regime providing it with technologies, intelligence and favorable trade agreements.

Things started changing dramatically only after African countries became independent in the 1960s. Nigeria unequivocally took over leadership of the anti-apartheid movement worldwide.

Despite the volatile nature of Nigeria’s politics and the passage of numerous military and civil leaders, Nigeria never abandoned its unwavering commitment to the freedom of our brothers and sisters in South Africa.

From 1960 to 1995, Nigeria has alone spent over $61 billion to support the end of apartheid, more than any other country in the world, according to the South African Institute of International Affairs.

The country has never let go of any opportunity to denounce apartheid, from the boycott of Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games to the nationalization of British Petroleum assets in 1979.

Unfortunately, our brothers and sisters in South Africa have not been grateful to Nigeria.

When Mandela passed away in 2013, Nigeria’s president was not even given the opportunity to speak.At the same time, the representatives of the United States. (U S) and the United Kingdom (U K) two countries supporting the apartheid regime, were in the spotlight.

Source: Reunion of the Black Families