Re: Human Rights Report on Ghana by the United States of America
The United States of America, as its annual rite released the 2022 Human Rights Report on the West African nation of Ghana early this year.
The country report included a gamut of infractions covering arbitrary and/or unlawful and extrajudicial killings through torture and cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by or on behalf of the government.
Also included were issues of violence and threats of violence; and unjustified arrests of media practitioners and so called substantial interference with freedom of peaceful assembly. Threats of violence targeting the LGBTQI community criminalization of consensual same sexual conduct between adults. A slew of human rights abuses including corruption among many sinful practices by government and its agencies.
The report is long and inclusive of many infractions that we believe appear strange and wonder how much of the information filtered through the self-touting very hawkeyed media, especially the opposition press that, incidentally ignored any mention of the report in the country.
It is also interesting that government ignored the report and basically did not say anything about it. We also find it rather paradoxical that Ghana, and for that matter, most African nations are able to rack up such human rights breaches, even though we hold no brief for them and do not and will not concur with the human rights records of any African nation.
Inasmuch as we admit our human rights foibles in Africa we are not surprised about America’s report, further to impressions and perceptions already created about the continent, its underdevelopment, lack of sophistication, corruption, tyranny and poverty, most of which happen to be products of the so-called developed world’s creation.
And we deign to say that most of it emanate from ignorance of African cultures and traditions often misinterpreted as barbaric and abusive in terms of human rights.
The United Nations defines Human Rights “as rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.”
Amnesty International Report 2021/22 bemoans that two years post Covid-19 pandemic, the Americas, (inclusive of the United States of America) still remains the region with the most deaths from the epidemic. And the human rights organization imputes this to “unequal access to healthcare, poorly health systems, and inadequate social protection policies and measures for marginalized communities.”
The United States is not only guilty of unequal access to healthcare and related services, it also overlooks the interests of minorities in such areas as education, employment, access to economic opportunities, decent housing, and lack of equal pay for the same work done.
The United States is a racist society and that provides the motivation for the country’s lack of equity in the justice system. Law enforcement is the enforcement of injustice and violence. The case of George Floyd where the young black man died in the hands of an arresting police officer who could not control his urge to kill his charge is not an isolated example.
American prisons are inundated with young Black men. China has this to say about human rights in the United States in 2022: “In the United States, country labeling itself a “human rights defender,” chronic diseases, such as money politics, racial discrimination, gun and police violence, as well as wealth polarization are rampant.”
We recall an investigative report by a Ghanaian journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas that caught in its dragnet a number of Ghanaian judges who were accepting bribes in the course of their duties. A similar occurrence in the United States has the potential of indenting the American judicial system where a Supreme Court justice has been found in a compromising situation accepting gifts from a politician that he refused to report as the law demands.
Others on the high court have also been found to be vulnerable. What the American media are quick to condemn as political corruption is commonplace in the American practice of lobbying where big money changes hands to influence politicians to make decisions in favor of the clientele of the lobbyists in industry or even at the international level among others.
Increase in mass killings in schools, malls and other places of mass assemblage of people has made the United States a dangerous country.
While the State Department continues to issue warnings to Americans citizens about visits to other countries it is indeed important for same to be done for potential visitors to the U.S. The number of such carnage is increasing on a daily basis and some are committed on racial, religious grounds among others.
America’s lack of an effective and efficient immigration policy is discriminatory and abusive as well. Families are torn apart. And the punitive withholding of social security benefits of illegal residents needs to be addressed. After all, most people go to the U.S. to seek greener pastures. To many an immigrant, legal or otherwise, what little they obtain after their sojourn becomes what sustains them and their families.
It is becoming increasingly impossible in some American jurisdictions to maintain the traditional controls parents have over their children. School authorities are now seeking to determine the choice of sexual orientation and lifestyle of students in schools.
And the LGBQTI movement is moving in to replace the influence and the impact of parents and family over growing children. In the same manner the United States is pushing the same sex and alternative lifestyle agenda globally in return for American largess. We find it a gross human rights abuse as nations, especially in Africa, are being subjected to threats of sanctions.
We wish the United States as a major power would, instead of condemning and or castigating others for their human rights excesses, do a self-examination of the conduct of its human rights in their country. “Charity”, it is said, “begins at home”.
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