Gitmo 2 Underbelly Is Really Ugly And Repugnant

He said that he had not cut any deal involving money with the Obama Administration, and that the high-risk Guantanamo Bay-detained terror suspects were allowed to be resettled in Ghana on purely humanitarian grounds. Now, it turns out that former President John Dramani Mahama had lied to Ghanaians through his teeth, because his regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had actually cut a deal for $300,000 (Three-Hundred-Thousand USD) for the upkeep of Messrs. Mahmud Umar Muhammed Bin-Atef and Khalid Muhammed Salih Al-Dhuby for two years, after which the two judicially untried terror suspects could be transferred to a third country of their own choosing (See “Ghana Government Received $300,000 for GITMO 2 – Reports” DailyGuideAfrica.com 1/27/18).

To hear an understandably testy Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu tell it, the Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress could not have exhibited more abject disrespect for the value and worth of the lives and the safety of Ghanaian citizens at large. We are informed by Mr. Mensah-Bonsu, the Parliamentary Majority Leader, who also doubles as the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, that long before the two-year resettlement compact with the U.S. Government had expired, the Saudi-born Yemeni terror suspects had been issued Ghanaian passports and been declared to be political refugees. This is very serious if it is the easiest process by which any foreign settler could transition into Ghanaian citizenship. Now, I don’t know how long a foreign resident in the country has to live in Ghana to qualify for Ghanaian citizenship and a Ghanaian passport. Here in the United States, that process takes a minimum of five years.

It is highly unlikely, if not outright impossible, for high-risk terror suspects, especially suspects who had spent at least a decade at the Guantanamo Bay’s Maximum-Security Prison, to be granted citizenship and issued American passports while still classified as political refugees. That the National Democratic Congress is not led by wise and patriotic men and women is exemplified by the patently noetic, or bock-headed, defense put up for Messrs. Bin-Atef and Al-Dhuby, gratis, by such political knuckleheads as Messrs. Abraham Amaliba and Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa. For these two NDC political machine operatives, the fact that these two terror suspects were never tried by the U.S. Government clearly indicated that they were innocent men who had committed absolutely no crimes and had, somehow, been arbitrarily arrested and detained by the Obama Administration.

This is rather scandalously bizarre, in view of the fact that there is incontrovertible evidence that Messrs. Bin-Atef and Al-Dhuby were picked up from the Afghan killing fields by U.S. forces. Which high-risk and unwanted terror suspect would loathe to live among “gracious and peaceful idiots” like the key operatives of the Mahama government? We are also informed, for instance, that then-Foreign Minister Hanna Tetteh had given Parliament the impression that Messrs. Bin-Atef and Al-Dhuby’s status had not been decided and would be so determined in another two years. Now, it turns out that then-President Mahama had almost immediately granted the two men refugee status, perhaps even well before they touched down at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).

As well, we are informed by Mr. John Boadu, the Acting General-Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), that President Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo had successfully negotiated to have the two men repatriated to the Arab Kingdom of Morocco, until Ghana’s former Foreign Minister discovered to his horror that his predecessor had granted refugee status to these high-risk terror suspects without even informing Parliament. This is the man who would have Ghanaian voters return him to power in January 2021. But wait till you hear Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa, the NDC’s Minority Spokesman on Foreign Affairs, wax eloquent and rapturous about how exceptionally well-behaved are Messrs. Bin-Atef and Al-Dhuby, and how these high-risk terror suspects ought to be speedily integrated into Ghanaian society and offered jobs. I hope this wet-eared airhead has the rate of unemployment statistics in the country up his fingertips.

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