“We warned President Mills about the folly of his strange diplomatic ways. But what did he do: he described us as warmongers and called us all sorts of names. He was described as the ‘King Solomon’ of our times. Now, is it not embarrassing, odd and dangerous that whilst efforts are being made today to return law and order to Cote d’Ivoire and get their refuges to go back home, Ghana is rather evacuating its embassy staff from there? This can only happen under a Mills Ghana and his Dzi wo fie asem policy,” said Nana Akomea, the Communications Director of the NPP.
Nana Akomea, further told the New Statesman, when reached was “a likely consequent of the President’s blunder which we warned was reckless, compromised our national and regional security and exposed the lives of Ghanaians to danger.”
At his January 7 press conference at the Castle, Accra, President Mills criticized the ECOWAS decision two weeks earlier, which sanctioned the use of military force as a last option, even though he agreed to it at the summit.
According to Nana Akomea, “Breaking ranks with ECOWAS, just as our President did, strengthened Gbagboto allow to be carried out this senseless and genocidal attempt to hold onto power at all cost.Our president was prepared to put his personal friendship with Gbagbo ahead of the interest of his country and continent. This represented the highest form of leadership betrayal and the consequences are, sadly, not surprising.”
President Mills said, “As a person I don’t think this military option is going to bring peace to the nation. I don’t want to be saddled with a problem we can’t settle.”
NPP National Chairman, Jake Obestebi-Lamptey, responded on January 21, with what has turned out to be prophetic:
“It is our contention that the isolationist position that is apparently adopted by President Mills is what rather endangers, not only Ghanaians soldiers, but the estimated 1.5 million Ghanaians who have made Cote d’Ivoire their home. Millions of people in la Cote d’Ivoire are looking up to us and the other ECOWAS states to act together to bring a peaceful end to the crisis,” he said.
Yesterday, Nana Akomea said he would consider it as strange if news that Ghana’s ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire, Col E K T Donkor, had indeed abandoned his Abidjan fort to return to Accra. The news is that the entire embassy workers from Ghana have been flown back home this week.
“If our ambassador there feared his life was under threat then did he leave with the assurance that whatever threat he feared was not extended to the over one million estimated Ghanaians he left behind in Cote d’Ivoire? He had a duty to make sure that they were also protected,” the NPP head of communications argued.
The NPP said President Mills should explain to Ghanaians why he did what he did.
“In the end, as predicted probable by ECOWAS, it came down to one solution to this crisis and this was the use of legitimate force to remove Mr Gbagbo. ”’Legitimate force’, as it transpired two Mondays ago, did not necessarily have to mean a war and did not have to include Ghanaian ground troops. Indeed, it ended a civil war. The least that we were being asked to do was not to break the agreed common position,” Nana Akomea said.
Indeed, it was a military intervention that took out Gbagbo on April 11.
“Those who thought their ‘DziWo Fie Asem’policy was for peace were in fact those who effectively gave ammunition, figuratively speaking, to Gbagbo’s intransigent warriors, pushing Cote d’Ivoire into a needless civil war.
The NPP, at the time President Mills made that controversial statement, warned, “Ghana is fast-losing face as a major stumbling block against efforts to bring to an end Gbagbo’s quasi-military coup, which has been massively condemned by a concerted combination of regional, continental and international pressure.”
Mr Obestebi-Lamptey went on to say, “It has been a sorry exhibition of international diplomacy and statesmanship, particularly on a matter that is so critical to regional security and democracy in Africa.”
So damaging was Mills’ diplomatic faux pas seen that shortly afterwards ECOWAS had to send high-powered delegations, including the President of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compoare and the President of the Ecowas Commission, Victor Gbeho, across the world, including London and Paris, to reassure the international community that Ecowas, indeed, remained resolute on its decision to see to it that the democratic will of the Ivorian people was observed and in the shortest possible time.
The NPP asked, “But, how did Ghana, a nation that has won international respect over the years for its decisive, competent and clear leadership role in resolving conflicts elsewhere get into this current situation of seeming leadership paralysis and confusion?”
The NPP said, “Our message has always been that former President J. A. Kufuor got involved in the resolution of the Ivorian crisis at its very beginning and helped broker the peace that prevented Cote d’Ivoire descending into full scale civil war. President Mills should get equally involved so that former President Gbagbo exits peacefully from power to spare Cote d’Ivoire another bout of conflict and confusion. The Ivorian people deserve better and Ghana can help in this viable venture to build a better Cote d’Ivoire rather than sending conflicting signals that only serve as oxygen to Gbagbo’s quasi-coup regime.”
Continued here: