US Bullied Ghana Gov't

... Through international carrot and stick politics

The Associate Executive Director of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Dr. Baffuor Agyeman-Duah, has said that the US government bullied the Ghana government into ratifying the non-surrender bilateral agreement.

According to him the US pushed economically, militarily and politically weak nations like Ghana into submission through international politics of ‘carrots and sticks’ in order to pre-empt any possibility of its soldiers committing atrocities against humanity.

“I think that it is repugnant for the US government to be bullying small and weak countries into ratifying the non-surrender treaty or bilateral agreement. To bully another country into submission, I find the Americans approach to the issue of the agreement as unacceptable.”

Dr. Agyeman-Duah, who spoke to The Chronicle in an interview on Tuesday, explained the carrots politics as attempt to cow weak countries into submission in exchange for US monetary, logistical and military support while ‘sticks’ signifies a threat to withdraw such assistance.

He said faced with poverty, the president must have taken into consideration the effects that Ghana would experience in rejecting the agreement. “It is for this reason, therefore, that government ratified the agreement in the best interest of the nation”.

But, he said, he was dismayed at the way the US pushed Ghana into the agreement after the US had fully supported the International Criminal Courts, which could try people, who commit atrocious crimes, adding that the US had now realized that the same court could hurt them due to their history of fighting wars around the world.

Assigning reasons for the motive behind the US pestering move to go into non- surrender bilateral agreements, Dr. Agyeman-Duah, said: “I think that America wants to pre-empt any possibility of American soldiers who might be sent by their president to fight and may have committed some atrocities that they may be tried by ICC which the US has vehemently supported.

“The Americans at least under President George Bush, may have some long term designs to intervene militarily in several countries which are considered to be weak or full of evil as described by Mr. Bush. All that means is that under Mr. Bush, there is a real possibility of increasing American militarism and by so doing some American soldiers may engage in some criminal acts of conducts in such wars. This tells us that US has a long term perspective on what to do to protect itself for its national interest.”

Ghana on the other hand may have certain perspective with regards to short and medium terms in African politics, but “we do not have imperialist or militaristic plans like the Americans so we do not anticipate any

Ghanaian soldiers going somewhere to commit any atrocity.” Ghanaians, he said, go to fight for peacekeeping purposes whereas American soldiers go out to fight wars like they are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. That is why the issue of non-surrender agreement has become an issue for the Americans.

Dr Agyeman Duah said getting into the agreement with the US implied that Ghana erred considering the fact that she as a sovereign nation should not be pushed around and more importantly that she is a signatory to the Rome convention that created the International Criminal Court.

But having analyzed the trend of the debates, he had recognized the reality in international politics, which is realism as opposed to idealism. “Realism means that the big nations by virtue of their economic, political and military power, might do things in the international system that may be contrary to the norms and conventions and eventually get away with it.”

He said it should be recognized that every nation determines and pursues its national interest. The US, despite its so-called commitment to human rights, equality and justice, has come out with a bilateral agreement with Ghana because, the government of the US believes that it is in her best interest to protect American citizens who may have committed crimes in the course of wars anywhere in the world.

“In the case of Ghana, we also must determine our national interest and I think the government, legitimately elected by the people, has the constitutional responsibility to determine and pursue our national interest. In this particular case, it seems to me that Mr. Kufuor’s administration has determined that when all things are considered it is in the best interest of Ghana to enter into this arrangement,” he stated.