Mills’ role in Ivorian crisis exaggerated – Baako

The Managing Editor of the Crusading Guide Newspaper, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr, has condemned what he says are attempts by the Presidency to overrate the UN Chief’s commendation of President Mills’ role in the Ivorian crisis.

His comments come in the wake of a Daily Graphic publication quoting the UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon, as saying President Mills is Africa’s best leader following his role in the Ivorian debacle.

Mr. Baako was also reacting to reports that President Mills played a critical role in Mr. Alassane Ouattara’s swearing in, simply because he had impressed upon that country’s Constitutional Council Chairman who was seeking refuge in Ghana, to return to Ivory Coast for the investiture.

According to Mr. Baako, there is no need to exaggerate or politicize the commendation showered on President Mills, since several Ghanaian leaders in the past have attracted similar recognition for their roles in certain situations.

“There was obviously a commendation by the UN chief so why the need for an exaggeration? When you exaggerate, then it creates the impression that you are seeking propaganda capital out of an otherwise positive event” he said.

He told Citi News that the Government’s claim that President Mills’ role was critical in Mr. Ouattara’s investiture because he is believed to have impressed upon the Chairman of the Ivory Coast Constitutional Council to return home for the swearing in, cannot necessarily be a vindication of Ghana’s stance in the heat of the crisis.

According to him, the said intervention by President Mills which came only after Laurent Gbagbo’s ousting, could not be considered critical since the country with the backing of the international community, could have used other legal means to swear in Mr. Ouattara even if the Chairman of the Constitutional Council, Mr. Paul Yao N’Dre, had refused to perform that mandate which resides with him.

“I wonder how many cards that gentleman (Mr. Paul Yao N’Dre) had to play any longer when he found himself in exile in Ghana and the entire international community had recognised Ouattara long before Gbagbo’s exit, and with the combination of diplomatic pressures, economic sanctions and a military force by the rebel group and the French troops which was virtually endorsed by the UN, I am wondering what strength or weight that gentlemen carried when he found himself in exile in Ghana and for that matter how much effort did we need to put into the process of getting him to return to do that. And assuming he refused to return, would that in the face of the international community result in the non-recognition of Mr. Ouattara as the legitimate President of La Cote D’Ivoire?” he asked.

“I am not prepared to undervalue this intervention. But if we put it up like the way we are doing and that is the only example to more or less establish the basis for the UN Secretary General’s commendation, then I think that people are running too fast too early. Everything I hear shows that there is a deliberate attempt to overrate it. And to use it as a basis for vindication of the Ghanaian Foreign policy stance towards Ivory Coast, I have a problem with that because I think that our position on Ivory Coast was ambivalent, contradictory and confusing, that’s what it was” Mr. Baako stated.

Mr. Vladimir Antwi Danso, a Senior Research Fellow at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy,says much noise need not be made about the President’s intervention which is often done by diplomats on the quiet.

He however thinks the President should not be criticized for taking further steps to restore peace in Ivory Coast, contrary to his earlier stance which was considered not to be in the best interest of Ivory Coast.

Source: Citifmonline.com/Ghana