Ghana Not Conduit For Weapons To Cote d'Ivoire

Mr Jones Borteye Applerh

The Ghana National Commission on Small Arms (GNACSA) has described as utterly false claims that some elements connected to the Ivorian conflict are using Ghana to smuggle arms to that country.

Reacting to a publication carried by a Burkinabe newspaper, the acting Executive Secretary of GNACSA, , told the Daily Graphic in Accra that since the election-related trouble broke out in Cote d’Iviore, the security level in Ghana had been raised to avoid any such inflow of undesirable elements and goods.

He said security at the country’s various points of entry was put on high alert in anticipation of inflow of refugees, and the likelihood that some elements would like to use the opportunity to smuggle in arms and illicit drugs or engage in human trafficking to disturb the peace and stability of the country.

Ghana’s security and intelligence agencies have also raised their vigilance levels to ensure that the country is not used as a transit point for the export of illegal arms to inflame the situation in Cote d’Iviore and attack innocent civilians and property.

Mr Applerh said: “Ghana, over the years, has invested heavily in human, time and huge sums of other resources in the stabilisation of peace, democracy and the economy of the sub-region and will never make any move that will jeopardise such investments. We are also signatories to various protocols, agreements and conventions from the ECOWAS, United Nations and Geneva.”

He said statistics indicated that there were about six million small arms in West Africa, belonging to authorised entities like states and unauthorised persons, who had been using theirs to cause instability and mayhem to the people in the sub-region.

He quoted Article 6 (2) of the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons which stated that “A transfer shall not be authorised if its authorisation violates obligations of the requesting states, as well as those of member states, under international law including (i) Binding resolutions of the UN Security Council such as those imposing arms embargoes; (ii) the prohibition on the use of threat or use of force and (iii) the prohibition on intervention in the internal affairs of another state.”

Article 6 (3) states that “A transfer shall not be authorised if the arms are destined to be used: (c) to worsen the internal situation in the country of final destination, in terms of provoking or prolonging armed conflict, or aggravating existing tensions: and (d) to carry out terrorists acts or support or encourage terrorism”.

According to Mr Applerh, Ghana has over the years played a leading role in both ECOWAS and other international fora to ensure that criminal elements in possession of arms and ammunition hand them over and also blocked all avenues they used in acquiring these arms.

He said the danger of such arms getting into the hands of unauthorised people was that they could posses them for decades because a riffle such as an AK 47 could be buried in the sand for years and used afterwards after the person had lubricated it with some oil. Share Your Thoughts on this article Name Email Location Comments Graphic Ghana may edit your comments and not all comments will be published