Hey, Akufo-Addo Government, We Are Destroying Ghana's Water- Bodies, But If You Don't Allow Us To Continue, We Shall Sue You!”

 (REVISED)

3DITOR

There are powerful people in Ghana, who, under pressure from some of their own party supporters, are flip-flopping over the issue of stopping galamsey. In public, they mouth support for the Government's Operation Vanguard programme. But in private party caucuses, argue forcefully to Ministers that the President and his Government should be “careful” , because the galamseyers can organise voters against the Government.

What these people do not seem to understand is the utterly degenerate nature of the galamseyers, as revealed by their own utterances. Past governments of Ghana have been bending over backwards to try and reach an accommodation with the galamseyers, because Governments do genuinely appreciate the job-creation aspects of galamsey. But Governments' humanitarian concerns have been exploited only to serve the greed of the gold diggers. They consider reasonable concessions to their position by the Government as a sign of “weakness”. They want it all because – galamseyers “command votes.”

It is this mentality that made one galamseyer go on Youtube to publicly threaten the elected President of the Republic of Ghana with unnamed consequences if he did not allow the beloved “gala” to continue. See:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQK5rDkzcbs

There are many other Youtube postings, cursing and damning the President just because he wants to preserve Ghana's water-bodies for future generations.

Last week, the galamseyers finally brandished their mailed fists: they said they would SUE the Ghana Government if it did not end the ban on galamsey!

Here is what they said:

QUOTE: Ban On Mining: Small-scale Miners To Sue Government

CitiNewsRoom

“A group calling itself Concerned Small Scale Miners Union of Ghana (CSSMUG) is threatening to sue the government, if it does not provide a concrete roadmap towards ... lifting the ban on small-scale mining, in two weeks...The [group's] president, Michael Kwadwo Peprah, said the government has had enough time to save the mining industry and had failed.

He said: “more than one year after the ban.... the government ... is yet to convince us that it has any meaningful approach to dealing with the ills of the sector.... [He revealed that] A government initiative codenamed 'Operation Dragnet', that was deployed in 1979-1984 by the then PNDC regime .... failed. Even after Small Scale Mining was made a legal sole preserve for Ghanaians in 1989 by the PNDC administration, led by former President Rawlings, Presidents J.A. Kufuor, and John Mahama, who both found a reason to use the military to go after illegal miners, also failed (sic).

“Kwadwo Peprah added: “One year is enough for any serious administrator to put pragmatic, concrete measures in place to salvage an industry that employs a teeming number of young people...” The group [he added] “would not hesitate to speak the only language government understands, and .... no amount of pressure, humiliation, and intimidation can cower us.....We have remained law-abiding citizens …. over the past one year, but government, by its actions and inactions, is taking us for a ride. ENDQUOTE

Kwadwo Peprah admitted, in the statement, that the Governments of Rawlings, Kufuor and Mahama had all tried, with patience and diplomacy, to persuade the galamsey operators to stop galamsey and failed.What he did not say was why they failed and what the consequences – including the reluctant resort to force – of that failure had been. I want Kwadwo Peprah and his group to know that the Governments he mentioned failed because they thought that the galamseyers were reasonable and patriotic citizens of Ghana whose consciences would touch them, enable them to see reason and stop their evil activities, once it was pointed out to them forcefully that their activities were ruining Ghana's water-bodies.

But the galamseyers were so deaf to the Governments' appeals that the Rivers Ankobra, Pra, Oti, Offin, Densu, Birem, the White, Black and Red Volta and other rivers and streams too numerous to mention, have all become mud-coloured and are either dead or in danger of totally dying.

The fish in these rivers have died and may become completely extinct in the water-bodies, as the long-term effects of the poisonous mercuryand cyanide discharged into the water during the “gold-washing” process, are manifested. Meanwhile, the surrounding farmlands on which cocoa and foodstuffs are grown, are also progressively going to waste, as the water-tables under the surface of the ground get irretrievably poisoned. Many of the areas where gold has been mined have been left with huge cratersand large pools of stagnant water, that constitute a constant danger to men, women and – in particular – school children.

The evidence is there for all to see, yes. But maybe it is time for those splendid politicians who are not afraid to lose votes in trying to save Ghana – the First Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, the Hon. [“Wise John”] Osei Owusu and his fellow sage in the House, the Majority Leader, the Hon. Osei Mensah-Bonsu – to make a dramatic joint appeal to the Hon. Speaker of the House, Prof Mike Ocquaye, to organise a trip to just two rivers – say Ankobra and Pra – for MPs so that they can brace themselves for the enormous psychological pressure that the galamseyers have resolved to exert upon politicians – with the connivance of some “party bigwigs” – in the days to come. The pressure is meant to ensure that 3chnical processes are used to getOperationVanguard to be wound up. That would be a major political and social disaster and it must not be contemplated at all.

I make this suggestion to mobilise Parliament because things have reached a stage where MPs should be made to see fiilifiili, what is being done to the water-bodies of Ghana. Otherwise, some would be seduced by the vacuous, theoretical argument that people “need to earn a living” and so have the right to destroy the water-bodies which our ancestors left to us and the generations that will succeed us. What were people doing to “earn a living” before galamsey appeared on the economic scene? If “earning a living means” using “all means necessary”, then why not give the all unemployed people guns to – resort to armed robbery? Armed robbers are also trying to “earn a living” – and a lucrative living at that – are they not?

Such visits to river sites by MPs should be in the company of a recharged group of civil society bodies – NGOs , Occupy Ghana and the Media Coalition Against Galamsey, for example – so that a blitz of condemnation can be brought upon the heads of the water-killers. The Chinese have a proverb which says, “A person with one thousand fingers pointing at him will die, even if he is not sick!”

So let it be with the galamseyers. Compromising with them has been demonstrated to be useless in the past – as they have themselves admitted in their statement. Maybe what they need now is a law that makes the destruction of water-bodies a treasonable offence.Certainly, threatening the progeny of a whole generation with water-starvation is tantamount to genocide,and genocide is definitely treasonable by any stretch of the imagination.

The Government should say, “Bring it on!” and use any suit the galamseyers dare to bring against it, to throw the entire statute book of Ghana at them. The Government's lawyers should comb through all our laws regarding the environment, mining, the preservation of forests and water-bodies, the illegal selling of gold, inciting a pubic menace, etc. and charge the leadership with “conspiracy” to violate or constitute a breach of these laws. Maybe Parliament can revive and toughen the law of sedition, with regard – SOLELY – to galamsey (if that law still exists, though I do not recall it being repealed (alongside the criminal libel law).

The Government of Ghana should not permit itself to fall into the danger of becoming a laughing stock. To the Chinese, (for instance) because they cannot understand why weallow Chinese nationals to bring “chan fan” machines here for galamsey. Again does the Ghana Government want China to come and man Ghana's ports for it? Are Ghana's immigration officials employees of Beijing?

The joke has gone too far. It's time to yell Oseeee yeeeei” at the galamseyers.

Let's see who will know “how to fight” and who will know “how to flee”. If only our Asafo and Kyirem groups had not been sacrificed to the self-interest of some of our greedy, modern chiefs, who couldn't give a toss about the survival of the societies they have inherited, and which have striven to serve them so well, in terms of according them personal dignity and the creature comforts of this life.

OUR FUTURE GENERATIONS ARE AT VERY SERIOUS RISK. IF THEY WERE HERE, THEY WOULD FIGHT TO SECURE THEIR WATER SUPPLIES. BUT THEY'RE NOT HERE YET! SO, IT'S UP TO US TO DO IT. IT'S OUR SACRED DUTY. WE MUST NOT FAIL THEM, FOR WE ALL CLAIM TO LOVE OUR CHILDREN AND OUR GRAND-CHILDREN.