Kweku Baako Is Right on Target on US Human Rights Report

I have been meaning to read and comment on the news report titled “Kweku Baako Reacts to ‘Copy and Paste’ in US Human Rights Report” Peacefmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/29/22) for about a whole month now. And while, indeed, as the firebrand editor and publisher of the New Crusading Guide newspaper points out, several portions of the 2021 US Human Rights Report on Ghana essentially rehash previous reports, nevertheless, these annually produced reports still have relevance as guides to the need for the Government and our National Security Agencies to steadily improve upon their performance track-record for the general wellbeing of the country.

Now, where I disagree with Mr. Abdul-Malik Kweku Baako regards the idea that since many locally resident national security pundits routinely quote from the US Human Rights Reports on Ghana to comment and make value judgments about the security climate in the country, consequently it would be tantamount to the height of hypocrisy for any of these “lazy” pundits to suddenly turn round to impugn the credibility of these reports. Rather, what such recognition of the fact that significant portions of the aforesaid reports are apparently routinely reproduced from a template means is that these pundits must henceforth take the contents and details of these reports with a pinch of salt, as it were, or a remarkable dosage of thoughtful skepticism.

Indeed, any studious and observant Ghanaian-born critic who has been living right here in the United States of America for as long as this writer, which is approximately 40 years, could readily have informed Mr. Baako, upon request, that generally speaking, the Africa- and Third-World focused operatives of the US State Department do not attach much importance to human rights issues pertaining to the aforementioned areas of the world, for the simple reason that by and large, the human rights climate in Third-World countries does not change any significantly over the course of time, that is, for about a decade or two, barring an occasional radical change, often positively impacted by changes in government from juntas to relatively more enlightened civic and ideologically liberal establishments.

Even far more significant is the need for these local Third-World Area political commentators and pundits to research and scrutinize the general attitudes of governments of the United States of America towards its own ethnic minority populations by members of the dominant European-descended wielders of statal coercive powers and the official administration of the same. No doubt then that a sizeable majority of Ghanaian citizens and residents witnessed with indescribable the brutal neck-choking murder of Mr. George Floyd by a gang of white police officers in the State of Minnesota some two years ago. Now, if this most heinous and horrific incident does not point to the fact that the preservation of human rights here in the United States of America may not really be any more significantly different than it is and has been in Ghana for quite a considerable while now, then one does not know what else to make of the same.

What is also significant to point out here is the imperative and salutary need for many a mainstream Ghanaian political commentator or pundit to look more inwardly or introspectively for the requisite solutions to fundamental problems with the routine violation of the civil and human rights of Ghanaian citizens and residents by members of our National Security Establishment. Ghana has politically come of age vis-à-vis the need not to be necessarily looking up to the other more technologically advanced countries for guidelines on how to resolve our human and civil rights problems. This is where the imperative need for such government-sponsored civil society establishments as the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to be sufficiently funded must be made a topmost priority.

Which is not to necessarily imply here that what foreign experts on human rights issues have to say about the level of freedom and justice in our country is not really necessary or significant because, even as Mr. Baako wisely and instructively pointed out recently, what other more experienced governments abroad have to say about human rights in the less politically and technologically advanced countries has a lot of relevance and teachable and learnable lessons for the improvement upon the same in these Third-World countries and economies. In the matter of rank corruption in our judicial establishment, this is all to be expected because to tell you, the Dear Reader, the truth, the situation is, by and large, no fundamentally different right here in the United States of America, especially where race relations intersect with the administration of justice, where we routinely see the proverbial deck of cards being almost invariably stacked against justice for the African-descended and the abjectly poor American citizen and resident.

Perhaps Mr. Baako could also be humble enough to accept some of the blame, in view of the fact that the editor and publisher of the New Crusading Guide has, once awhile, looked on with euphoric self-satisfaction when private investigators like Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who Mr. Baako personally trained and mentored, have been used vindictively by thoroughgoing corrupt Ghanaian leaders like former President John “European Airbus Payola” Dramani Mahama to seriously undermine the credibility of the country’s judicial establishment, so that the kleptocratic double-salary drawing cabinet appointees of the former President could literally get away with murder.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

May 30, 2022

E-mail: okoampaahoofekwame@gmail.com

   Comments0