General News of Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Source: mynewsgh.com
2018-03-21
Kwesi Pratt Jnr, Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper and Dominic Nitiwul, Defence Minister
Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr, Managing Editor of the Insight Newspaper and Convenor of the Socialists Forum Ghana is one person who has been extremely angered by the news of the agreement between the Government of Ghana and the United States on the stationing of US troops on Ghana soil.
The blame for the entire agreement, Mr Pratt holds, lays on the head of government’s representative in the Defence department, Mr Dominic Nitiwul, who Kwesi Pratt Jnr, after listening to him justify the agreement concludes is either “very ill-informed on the issue as a minister, or is being untruthful”.
Mr Nitiwul had said the agreement will only see the United States bring in some contractors to do some work in addition to the training it will give Ghana personnel. The minister spoke about ‘contractors’ as if he was talking about builders, civil engineers masons, carpenters, steel benders. But Mr Pratt said the Minister was either ill-informed or was being insincere for which reason he was deceiving the public”.
Mr Pratt pointed out that in US Military terms, contractors could even be mercenaries trained for operations, or bomb disposal squads among others.
Mr Pratt speaking on the Joy Super Morning Show Tuesday said the stationing of US troops on Ghana’ soil was most “most unfortunate”.
“I think it is most unfortunate. This is not the first time. The government denied it was working for the creation of a US military base in Ghana but this agreement is a confirmation that this discussion has been ongoing”, Mr Pratt said.
With MYNEWSGH.com following the conversation, Mr Pratt said the agreement will “serve as an attraction for terrorists incursion”, making reference to developments in Iraq, Mali, Somalia etc.
He questioned the sense in an agreement “that grants them unimpeded access to our facilities”.
Mr Pratt, who defined a US Military base as “an area where US can station equipment and personnel for the purpose of operations” said Ghana was on its way to becoming one of the many ‘Lily-pads of the United States government’, calling on listeners to go and google what Lily-Pads mean in United States Military terms.
He said Lily-pads are modern US military bases which are stationed at airports and other places within designated countries and have The capability and the capacity to launch some form of assault on behalf of the United States government.
He underscored the expanding face of the US Military’s New Lily-Pad Strategy where the Pentagon is quietly transforming its overseas base empire and creating a dangerous new way of war.
If you read the agreement, “Ghanaians laws do not apply to them and you offer them free pass with use of their ID cards… they can use their drivers licence here, and when they commit offences, our laws donot apply. Have we even done this thing for ECOWAS countries?” he asked.
“We don’t know what facilities they will allow them to use… Do you know what those facilities are? We all don’t know… Yes the Minister can say he knows the facilities but our MPs do not know the facilities”. He added.
“We have waived our rights to compensation when our people die in the course of the operations which insults our Sovereign immunity”, he lamented.
He said there were existing protocols that catered for all normal diplomatic engagements with the US government at all levels.
“What has changed which requires a new protocol because there are existing protocols”, he said.