65 national security galamseyers arrested in Atewa forest

Some 19 persons claiming to be national security operatives have been arrested in the Atewa forest in the Eastern Region mining gold.

The camouflaged suspects invaded the reserve in Akyem-Akateng with a Toyota Land Cruiser under the guise of embarking on an operation to clamp down on illegal small-scale miners (galamseyers) on the dawn of Tuesday, 4 May 2021.

Despite being armed, locals in the area and forest guards resisted their entry by deflating the tyres of their V8.

The 19 brings to 65, the number of alleged security operatives arrested for being involved in galamsey in the past two weeks.

The suspects have been moved from the Asamankese District Police Command to the police headquarters in the Eastern Region.

Meanwhile, civil society group OccupyGghana has said the fight against galamsey by the Akufo-Addo government died the day Chinese ‘galamsey queen’ Aisha Huang was let to go scot-free by the state after her arrest.

In a statement insisting the government enforce anti-galamsey laws to the letter, OccupyGhana said the government’s “epileptic and faltering fight [against] galamsey gives the impression that it is unwilling to follow and apply the law”.

“When Aisha Huang was first arrested, she was charged with some ludicrous, risible and insignificant administrative breaches of immigration regulations”, OG decried, adding: “It took a protest and a petition by OccupyGhana® on 16th May 2017 for her to be charged with the proper offences under the Minerals and Mining Act, which, as we will show, provides for serious punishment for illegal mining”.

The group said it believes that Aisha Huang’s “quiet and hurried deportation by the government was to avoid subjecting her to the full rigours of the law”.

“We insist that that unfortunate truncation of the judicial process sounded the death knell to the galamsey fight”, it noted.

---classfm