A SARAFINA EDITORIAL ON GHANAIAN BRUTALITY

This News Commentary, “Don’t Abandon Liberians Abroad to Torture and Death At the Expense of Diplomatic Cooperation,” represents the views of the SARAFINA VENTURES & COMMUNICATION Incorporation on the current Buduburam shooting saga that led to the killing of several Liberians

Report from Accra that Ghanaian police have gunned down some Liberians at the Buduburam Camp near Accra is disturbing. The news is especially disturbing because of the low level of attention it has been given by Liberian authorities – meanly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the time some five Liberians, resident in Ghana, were killed in cold blood with some 60 more arrested and bundled at the Cape Coast Prison.
Liberians were on Sunday, February 13, stunned when a radio broadcast of phone call from the Buduburam Camp stating the invasion of Liberian community at the Camp by well-armed Ghanaian police in the wake of leadership dispute between two Liberian contending factions. The caller further stated that the Ghanaian police had already killed five Liberians before her and that the pandemonium created by the police brutality had forced several of them indoors at a time an installation of a new Liberian welfare leadership was scheduled on the Camp.
This news was verified by Deputy Information Minister for Public Affairs, Jerolinmek Piah, who put the number of deaths at only one. Piah further confirmed that the Ghanaian security entered the camp shooting at the unarmed civilians. Further confirmation unfolded when Ghanaian police spokesman, Kwesi Ofori, told the Cable News Network that the police were called in to quell what he referred to as “disturbances” between two rival factions on the camp, both of whom were claiming legitimacy to the camp’s leadership. Ofori noted that the Ghanaian police entered the camp while one of the factions was trying to install its leadership and added that 30 persons were arrested. Ofori’s account did not mention the number of deaths.
For us, we are strongly convinced that shooting of unarmed Liberian civilians by the host country’s police to quell a mere leadership dispute is not only undiplomatic; it is also unprofessional and deserves condemnation. Besides, it appears to be a calculated plan to terrify the unarmed Liberian community to the extent of killing some of them for some ulterior reasons.
As a matter of fact, there is no amount of “disturbances” between two unarmed Liberian rival factions on the camp in a leadership dispute that should deserve the use of deadly police force, neither is there any amount of mere pelting at the police that should merit such melancholic cruelty, especially where there is no indication of the presence of weapons at the contentious installation.
This police brutality against Liberians is just a tactful reminder of past Ghanaian attacks on peaceful Liberians in that country. It brings to memory the Ghanaian authorities’ attacks, dispossession of properties and subsequent deportation of Liberians from Ghana during the regime of President William V. S. Tubman in the 1940s for no justifiable reasons. Those Liberians fishermen deported, mostly of the Kru tribe, left back their real estates and other personal properties they amassed over the years in that country. Noticing reciprocation of the Ghanaian cruelty towards Liberians, Ghanaians in Liberia at the demonstrated against their government to avert reciprocal eventualities and the Liberian government under Tubman did nothing while most of the deportees died out of frustration.
The Ghanaian cruelty towards Liberians repeated itself during the Samuel Doe regime in the 1980s when Liberians were massively bundled and deported from Ghana for no justifiable reason with the Liberian Government remaining silent on the matter. Similar attacks were carried out during the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Administration, the latest been at the command of the Ghanaian Minister of Interior Kwamenah Barteh in 2007/2008, which only left the refugees at the mercy of the UNHCR as the government’s action was again passive. Today, we are talking about Liberians killed by Ghanaian police with some arrested and bundled into the Cape Coast Prison where Ghanaian security officials are using them to solicit bribe from relatives under the pretext that they would free them once the bribe of US$250 or its equivalent in Ghana cedis was proffered.
There is no way this time that the Ghanaians should go with impunity for this graved offense against the people of Liberia in that country, especially when the Ghanaian-based Radio, FM Vibe, located a Ghanaian national, Code named 919 who made it clear the Ghanaian police had indeed killed Liberians and that he has a video tape he was willing to release to the FM station’s management.
All we are saying is that these things happened because our governments have been passive on Ghanaian authorities’ offenses against peaceful Liberians in that country. It is against this backdrop that we implore the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf Government not to abandon Liberians abroad on the altar of good neighborliness, at the time that the neighbor cannot protect the Children of Mama Liberia under its jurisdictional territory.
This has been a news commentary titled: “Do Not Abandon Liberians Abroad To Torture and Death At The Expense Of Diplomatic Cooperation”, representing the views of the SARAFINA VENTURES & COMMUNICATIONS Incorporated produced and presented by Bill K. Jarkloh.