Mining assuming dangerous proportions

Mining for minerals has been going on in Ghana for decades. In fact, the record shows that the then Ashanti Goldfields Corporation (AGC) started operating its Obuasi Mine, which is believed to have some of the world’s largest gold deposits, in 1897. The Obuasi Mine is also among the 10 largest in the world. In 2004, the AGC merged with AngloGold to become AngloGold Ashanti, the world’s second largest gold producer. Other minerals that have been mined extensively in the country are diamond, bauxite and manganese. Under normal circumstances, judging from the volume of minerals taken out of this country since colonial times, Ghana should have been brimming with mineral wealth just like South Africa. But, alas, this is not the case and the search for wealth from the bowels of the earth continues. If in the past only a few well-established mining companies operated in the country under appropriately defined rules and regulations, today the sector has become a free range where mining activities are going on in a lawless and careless manner. There are many factors that have contributed to this state of affairs. First, mining has not brought any visible improvement to the lives of the local people nor the physical development of the communities. Rather, mineral wealth has largely remained the monopoly of the shareholders in Europe, the United States and a few chiefs and local politicians who feast on the crumbs that fall from the table of the millionaires cocooned in the comfort of the major cities of the world. Obuasi, for example, has nothing to show for its accolade as one of the richest gold mines in the world. Meanwhile, Obuasi has made millionaires out of many Europeans, while the local people only enjoy the luxury of being identified with the precious metal while not benefiting from its wealth. Having waited impatiently in vain for decades for the gold wealth to spread and cover them, the local people, mostly the unemployed youth, have decided to go to the depths themselves to take what they could get, damn the risk and legal consequences. In the past, galamsey, as illegal mining is known among the populace, was restricted to a few concessions in the Obuasi area and was carried out discreetly, not with the flagrant impunity we see today. Unfortunately, galamsey is now the norm, not the illegal and clandestine vocation it was years ago. It may still remain illegal, but the spread, the numbers involved and the sophisticated equipment deployed in the business have clothed it with a garb of normality. Those colonialists who were quick to name our coastline the Gold Coast will be astonished to hear that the whole land mass of Ghana is pregnant with gold, from the beaches to the Savanna grassland of the north. First, our governments thought they could flash the galamsey operators from business. When that failed, they introduced a scheme to register and license the small-scale miners, so that their operations could be regulated and supervised, which was a good idea. Strangely, the small-scale miners have refused to operate within the rules and are now operating everywhere, anyhow. Mining generally has its environmental challenges, whether operating legally or otherwise. The obvious ones are forest degradation, water and noise pollution and the destruction of farmlands and crops. At least, while the major mining companies put in efforts to minimise the side effects of their operations, the illegal operators have no such plans and the result is the environmental degradation being experienced all over the country. The local people are beginning to take the law into their own hands to protect their heritage and the country will head for a major civil strife if care is not taken to deal decisively with the menace. A few examples will suffice. About a month ago, the people of Akyem Saaman in the Eastern Region rose up against the operations of the Kibi Goldfield Limited/Solar Mining Group. The residents blamed the mining firm for polluting their source of drinking water — the River Birim, the River Akusu and the River Anoma. They also complained of the removal of the vegetation cover along the banks of the said rivers, resulting in siltation and sedimentation during rainfall, and also the destruction of their cocoa farms through mining activities. Not even a visit by Mr Victor Smith, the Eastern Regional Minister, to calm nerves could satisfy the residents. What it means is that there is potential threat to peace, and this has dangerous consequences. Things were more violent at Gbane in the Talensi-Nabdam District in the Upper West Region where there was a violent confrontation between the youth of the community and workers of Shaanxi Mining Company Limited, a subsidiary of the China Gold Resources Group Company Limited. Four of the Chinese were said to be seriously injured in that confrontation, while mining equipment belonging to the firm was vandalised. The case of the people was that 527 of their compatriots who are farmers had been displaced, while 3,000 economic trees, mostly shea nut trees, had been destroyed. Illegal mining operations are no longer just a threat to the environment but also a breeding ground for hooligans who are prepared to confront lawful authority or even fight among themselves over territory. A case in point was the clash at Tutuka, an Obuasi suburb, among rival galamsey operators which left many of them seriously wounded. A new phenomenon which has muddied the already polluted waters is the arrival of Chinese experts in illegal mining. They do not operate with shovels, pickaxes and pans but deploy bulldozers and other heavy machinery. It appears they operate at the fringes of the law and it seems the police have been compromised and, therefore, cannot do anything. They are not only on the spree, leaving destruction in their path, but also invading the concessions of the mining companies. The latest reports have it that some of these illegal Chinese miners have invaded the concessions of AngloGold Ashanti at Kwanwireso, near Obuasi. Some of them are said to be heavily armed and could cause havoc to anyone trying to destabilise them. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com

And Mubarak wept

On Saturday, June 2, 2012, Hosni Mubarak, former President of Egypt, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killing of demonstrators in last year’s uprising which toppled his government. It was a pity seeing Mubarak brought to court on a stretcher throughout his trial. Old age and poor health were manifestly evident and one could guess the mental turmoil Mubarak was going through as he listened to the charges made against him. Court officials were not moved a bit. They handed down a life sentence to the former strong man and even this did not satisfy many Egyptians who were calling for a death penalty. According to media reports, Mubarak cried when he was put on a helicopter destined for a prison hospital on the outskirts of Cairo. He was said to have cried in protest and resisted leaving the helicopter, insisting he should be sent to a facility where he spent most of his time in relative luxury during his trial. After about two hours or so, Mubarak caved in and finally left the helicopter to begin his life sentence, that is if there is any life left in him. There are many who would cry if they should find themselves in Mubarak’s position. From the monarch of all that he surveyed; a man who for 29 years ruled one of the most powerful and influential countries in the Arab world without opposition to be reduced to an ordinary convict, -- from GLORY to IGNOMINY – and you cannot blame Mubarak for shedding copious tears like a baby. But should Mubarak blame anybody for this shameful end to his life? Mubarak came to power on October 14, 1981 when he succeeded President Anwar Sadat who was shot and killed at a military parade on October 6, 1981, which was seen as the work of radicals who saw his peace agreement with Israel in 1979 as a betrayal. Mubarak who was Vice President at the time took over and quickly consolidated his hold on power. Throughout his rule, Egypt was under emergency law (Law No. 162 of 1958), which was briefly lifted in 1980/81, and re-imposed after the assassination of Sadat. The emergency law cleared the path for Mubarak against any opposition because police powers were extended, constitutional rights suspended, censorship legalised and the government had the right to arrest and detain individuals for any period of time and for no reason. By a restriction in the Egyptian Constitution, only the People’s Assembly nominates presidential candidates for endorsement in a referendum. Mubarak, therefore, had no challenger to his high office until in 2005, when the first multi-candidate presidential elections were held. Even that one came with a casualty when Ayman Nour, the man who contested Mubarak and challenged the election results was arrested, tried and convicted for forgery and jailed five years. It became obvious that Mubarak could not be removed from political office through any constitutional means so opposition became clandestine. He survived several assassination attempts including a deadly one in June 1995 when he was in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, for an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit. Before the Arab Spring which toppled him, it was widely rumoured that Mubarak was grooming Gamal, one of his sons to succeed him, copying from General Gnansigbe Eyadema of Togo and Omar Bongo of Gabon. When the protests began in January 2011, Mubarak was caught on the wrong foot and his reaction was slow. As the protests persisted and intensified, he started giving concessions which came too late. First, he declared he was no longer going to contest after September, 2011. Then he said he was not going beyond 2011 when the next election was due. He also promised constitutional reforms and gave the assurance that his son will not succeed him as was being speculated. Mubarak’s fate entered another phase when his Vice President, Omar Suleiman, announced that Mubarak had resigned from office and handed over to the military. Maybe he miscalculated the currents of the people’s power, otherwise he could have chosen the path of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian leader who was the first casualty of the Arab Spring, who quickly opted for exile and escaped the wrath of the protesters. If Mubarak thought the military would protect him, he was wrong. At 82, Mubarak should have been relaxing coolly at a beach resort with his grandchildren but here he is in jail with no sympathy from the people he had ruled for 29 years. He was not as lucky as other dictators like General Eyadema and Omar Bongo who died in office. Even Col Muamar Gaddafi and Gen Mobutu died nobler deaths, because they did not suffer the embarrassment of imprisonment. Those who are still hanging onto power through fair or foul means must learn from Mubarak’s experience and revise their notes. I hope good old Robert Mugabe and Gen Omar Al-Bashir and the rest are listening. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com

Turning tragic history to advantage

THE Jews have a tragic past. They call it the Holocaust. It was the time when the murderous persecution of the Jews by the Nazis got to its peak. From 1933 onwards, there were isolated cases of violence, sometimes resulting in death among the Jews in Germany and other places with German influence. A German doctor, Josef Mengale, was notorious for using Jews, including children, for his medical research. On November 7, 1938, a German diplomat, Ernst von Roth, was assassinated in Paris by Herschel Grunspan, a Jew. That unfortunate incident was used as a pretext to launch full-scale physical onslaught against Jews in Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and Lithuania. In December 1939, during the Second World War, mass extermination of Jews by gas was introduced. Mass killing centres in concentration camps were built in parts of occupied Poland, including, Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Jasenovac, Majdanek, Maly Trostenets, Sobibor and Treblinka. By the time the mass murder, euphemistically described as the Final Solution, came to a halt after the end of the Second World War, an estimated six million European Jews had been killed. Before the Holocaust which was visited on Jews, another monstrosity had taken place between the 16th and 19th centuries. That involved the purchase and transportation of Africans to North and South America to work as slaves on cotton, sugar, tobacco and cocoa plantations and rice fields for their masters. Some worked in the mines, while others cut timber for the construction of ships. The lucky ones worked as house servants. Since these slaves became the properties of their owners, they were treated like other goods and sold as such on open markets. Conservative estimates indicate that Africa lost over 12 million strong and energetic members of its population in what became known as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Slavery, which some scholars prefer to describe as the African Holocaust or the Holocaust of Enslavement, did not only deprive the continent of its human resource also but stripped Africans of their identity and self-esteem and reduced them to mere objects who are still trying hard, with very little success, to rediscover their true selves. While the two holocausts remain two of history’s most human tragedies, the victims have reacted differently and that is the subject of this article. The Jews came out of the Holocaust of 1939-45 with one resolve — to never again succumb to the enemy, suffer such humiliation or put their fate in the hands of other people. It is this resolve, call it a vow, which is serving as the heartbeat pumping blood into the Jewish system. From a small population of about 300,000 when the Jewish State was created in 1948, the population of Israel, which became the home of Jews after the war, has gone up to over seven million. This is because more Jews in the Diaspora are encouraged to return home, while those in foreign lands continue to support the Homeland with anything, including cash, political support and military accoutrements, which has made that small country one of the most powerful nations in the world. Israel has remained defiant against strong world opinion by maintaining occupation of Palestinian lands and building new settlements by the day. You may condemn the Israelis for swimming against the tide of international opinion, but you cannot blame them because they know their history. They know they may not have a third chance if they should slip back into subservience and are, therefore, prepared to challenge and disregard UN resolutions if that will keep them together as one. So while the Jews came out of the Holocaust tightly united and determined not to suffer any form of annihilation again, Africans emerged from the Holocaust of Enlargement and landed in the Holocaust of Colonialisation. For over 200 years, the African continent was cut into pieces and shared among European powers, including France, Great Britain, Germany and Belgium. Any hope that Africa would come out of slavery with a strong resolve to avoid the humiliation of the past crumbled under colonialism. Africa lost its human resource and dignity under slavery, lost its land and natural resources under colonialism but, worst of all, lost its mental independence. In spite of slavery and colonialism, Africa could still have restored itself to its natural glory. It remains one of the most endowed continents on earth. It still has the human resource, both on the continent and in the Diaspora, to harness for development. Africa emerged from colonialism not united solidly to rebuild itself and restore respectability as others had done. In spite of the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which spearheaded the liberation struggle, and the African Union (AU), which succeeded it, Africa has largely remained fragmented along colonial lines. Africa can only rebuild itself if it can learn one valuable lesson from Israel — together we stand, divided we perish. Like the Jews, Africans should realise by now that their destiny lies in their own hands and, therefore, they have to chart an independent path, even if that should run parallel to that of the rest of the world to achieve this. It is easy to know who is encroaching on your land or who is trying to dispossess you of your physical property. Political independence is only an attempt to regain physical possession of colonial occupation. Unfortunately, the continent is yet to recover from mental slavery which the two holocausts — slavery and colonialism — have inflicted on the continent. China shocked the world when, on the blind side of the rest, set its development agenda and stormed out of backwardness and poverty to the amazement of those who had declared that country a back-water case. Today, the West can whimper about human rights but the Chinese know their own survival and economic progress lie in the hands of China. Africa must begin to think in similar way. Even the slave outposts, which yesterday were centres of humiliation, could be developed as tourist attractions to recoup from the same Europeans who yesterday gained from our human labour. The excitement with which some of our leaders announce the signing of loan agreements gives some of us the feeling that they are now imbued with nationalistic fervor and are not in a hurry to cut themselves free from the apron strings of the slave and colonial masters. There is nothing exciting about a country such as Ghana chasing foreign loans everywhere when everything is here for the taking. It is time we said enough is enough. Slavery bled the continent of its rich human resource which went to build the industrial empires in America and Europe, while colonialism provided the cheap raw materials for industrial Europe. These two evils did not come by accident. Under the guise of foreign aid and international trade, a third calamity is going to befall Africa unless we learn from the first and second and resolve not to be an appendage of a foreign power again, no matter the form it takes. fokofi@yahoo.co.uk kofiakordor.blogspot.com