{"id":274723,"date":"2011-01-23T19:26:05","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T19:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/?p=49109"},"modified":"2011-01-23T19:26:05","modified_gmt":"2011-01-23T19:26:05","slug":"kwesi-pratt-to-npp-troops-are-sent-for-war-not-to-dance-abele","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/01\/23\/kwesi-pratt-to-npp-troops-are-sent-for-war-not-to-dance-abele\/","title":{"rendered":"Kwesi Pratt to NPP: Troops are sent for war, not to dance \u201cAbele\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kwesi<\/a>
Kwesi Pratt Jnr<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe Insight managing editor, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. says he has a great difficulty reasoning with the opposition New Patriotic Party on exactly what the party and its leadership\u2019s position is on the Ivorian crisis.
\n\u201cFrankly, I don\u2019t know what the New Patriotic Party is about. It is extremely difficult for me to say what the point is in the numerous statements that the New Patriotic Party has been making over the last couple of weeks. Now listen, the New Patriotic Party and its flag bearer make the point that they are not for war in La Cote d\u2019Ivoire. That, war in La Cote d\u2019Ivoire will have dangerous consequences for the people of Ghana. And yet, the same people are opposed to the president declaring that he would not commit troops to a war that they disagree with. This is incredible! To make it worse, they say they don\u2019t want war, they are fighting the president for refusing to commit troops to a war that they don\u2019t want, and at the same time, they say that they support the ECOWAS position which includes the use of war. So it is not clear what the position of the New Patriotic Party is and I would like to know, in very clear terms what the position is.
\n\u201cDo they support war or they don\u2019t? And if they don\u2019t support war, why would the president commit troops to La Cote d\u2019Ivoire? Would those troops be sent to La Cote d\u2019Ivoire to go and dance Tango, to go and dance Abele<\/em>? Troops are sent to go and wage war and that is the only reason why the president would commit troops to La Cote d\u2019Ivoire and that point needs to be made very, very clear.\u201d
\nPratt, a panelist on Radio Gold\u2019s Alhaji and Alhaji<\/em> on Saturday, maintained that the entire debate over the Ivorian crisis has been dominated by \u201ccomplete ignorance\u201d rather than facts, and that the ignorance is misleading everybody.
\nProceeding to set the records straight, Kwesi Pratt said the impression has been created that President J.E.A. Mills is betraying the so-called international community, but facts on the ground increasingly suggest that the position of the president and Ghana are too mild, relative to the positions other heads of state and organizations have taken.
\nQuoting from what he said was a statement issued by Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos, \u201ca key member of the African Union\u201d when he met the diplomatic community in Angola, Kwesi Pratt said President Jose Eduardo dos Santos objected to the use of military intervention as a solution to crises such as the Ivorian situation, because, among other reasons, it ignores \u201cthe rules of international and domestic law and sometimes the very evidence presented by the facts.\u201d
\nPratt quoted President dos Santos exhaustively, as saying;
\n\u201cThe facts specifically tell us the following;
\n\u201c1.The president of the Electoral Commission released the results of the second round of the presidential election, when it was out of his competence to do so, since his time, for purposes defined by law, was expired and since the issue had been transferred to the Constitutional Council for due consideration and treatment.
\n\u201c2. The United Nations representative in C\u00f4te d’Ivoire in a hastened move, certified and announced those results when the relevant UN resolution states that certification should focus on election results validated by the Constitutional Council, which had not yet made a pronouncement.
\n\u201c3. The declaration by the United Nations representative misled the whole international community since the Constitutional Council had not validated the provisional results released by the president of the Electoral Commission as a result of having accepted objections and complaints of serious irregularities and fraud which undermined these results.
\n\u201c4. The Constitutional Council is in fact the only organ with the legal competence to validate and publish the final results of the elections.
\n\u201c5. Under the law, The Constitutional Council should recommend the holding of new elections within 45 days, but it did not proceed in this manner and instead reported results that attributed the victory to another candidate.
\n\u201cConsidering the above facts, it is difficult for Angola to accept that there is an elected president in La Cote d\u2019Ivoire.
\n\u201c”We believe however, that there is a constitutional president, the current president of the republic, who happens to be Laurent Gbagbo, who must remain in power until the new election as established by the electoral law of that country. The greatest difficulty now is that the 45 days are not enough to create a favorable climate for elections, and the current crisis complicates the matter further.
\n“We are therefore of the opinion that any military intervention in the particular case of C\u00f4te d’Ivoire would have an adverse effect, with serious consequences beyond its borders.\u201d
\nPratt said the Angolan president rather recommended dialogue, skillful negotiations and political will in addressing problems on the continent using the institutions of the AU for solutions that would benefit the people of Cote d\u2019Ivoire rather than solutions imposed from outside.
\n\u201cThis is the president of Angola!\u201d Pratt exclaimed.
\n\u201cCompare this position to the position of President Mills and it is clear that President Mills is endorsed by any standard.\u201d
\nHe emphasized that what the Angolans are saying is that law must attend the solution to the Ivorian impasse, and that you cannot have democracy outside the ambit of the constitution. \u201cWhat is democracy if you ignore what is provided for in the constitution? What is democracy if it is violation of the laws of the country\u2026?\u201d
\nKwesi Pratt also argued that the Angolan President\u2019s position was also buttressed by the Central African Republic, which denounced any military intervention, as well as Gambia, which has actually gone on to declare solidarity with Laurent Gbagbo.
\nHe said the electoral commission in the Ivory Coast declares provisional election results and not who a winner is, which duty is the responsibility of the Constitutional Council.
\n\u201cThen you have some apologists of Ouattara, they come out, and they say look, the legal position is that that provision of the La Cote d\u2019Ivoire constitution was suspended because an agreement was reached under UN auspices.
\n\u201cMy brother, this is a joke. Is anybody telling me that the UN, ECOWAS, AU or any international organization can amend the constitution of a country without reference to the people of that country? Does it make sense? And yet we are pushing this position. ..\u201d
\nKwesi Pratt stressed that any war to install Ouattara as president can only \u201creckless\u201d and \u201cirresponsible\u201d saying if he were a soldier in any of the countries contributing men and resources, he would rebel because the order to wage war in Cote d\u2019Ivoire would amount to signing one\u2019s death warrant, a \u201csuicide mission.\u201d
\nStory by Isaac Yeboah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Insight managing editor, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. says he has a great difficulty reasoning with the opposition New Patriotic Party on exactly what the party and its leadership\u2019s position is on the Ivorian crisis. \u201cFrankly, I don\u2019t know what the New Patriotic Party is about. It is extremely difficult for me to say what the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nKwesi Pratt to NPP: Troops are sent for war, not to dance \u201cAbele\u201d - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/01\/23\/kwesi-pratt-to-npp-troops-are-sent-for-war-not-to-dance-abele\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Kwesi Pratt to NPP: Troops are sent for war, not to dance \u201cAbele\u201d - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The Insight managing editor, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. says he has a great difficulty reasoning with the opposition New Patriotic Party on exactly what the party and its leadership\u2019s position is on the Ivorian crisis. \u201cFrankly, I don\u2019t know what the New Patriotic Party is about. 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