Legon Centre holds roundtable on Guantanamo Bay detainees
The Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), University of Ghana, has held a roundtable on the transfer of two former Guantanamo Bay detainees to Ghana.
Khalid al-Dhuby and Mahmoud Omar Bin Atef were detained by the United States(US) at its Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba for over a decade without being charged.
They are in the country at the request of the US government; however, their presence has attracted fierce criticism of government from the opposition, civil society organisations and churches.
The roundtable was to address concerns of LECIAD, the foremost institution in Ghana for the study of international affairs, on the decision by the Government of Ghana to accept ex-detainees of the US detention Facility at Guantanamo Bay.
Professor Henrietta Joy Abena Nyarko Mensa-Bonsu, the Director of LECIAD, in her keynote address, said “I cannot recall any occasion on which the generality of Ghanaians have been engaged in discussions on Ghana’s foreign policy, as has been occasioned by the decision”.
“Indeed, the extensive public discourse, thereby, engendered, has brought a sharp focus on the foreign policy/national security nexus and its impact on the security of the individual, in a manner hardly ever experienced in this country,” she said.
She said although situated within the context of a sub-region now challenged by the impulse of terrorism, and within a global scene witnessing much the same, the average Ghanaian has been strangely cocooned in a casing of a false sense of security which has been shattered by the arrival of the ex-detainees.
“Coupled with our security policy space having always been occupied by, and seemingly reserved for “experts”, Ghanaians have had a rude awakening that terrorism, or actors linked with terrorist activities in other parts of the world are not as far away from Ghana as they had always believed,” the Director said.
She said the outcome of the roundtable would be channeled into a policy paper for the consideration of government and it would, perhaps be the first in a series of Policy Papers under the title: “Security Watch”, that LECIAD intends to put in the public domain.
Prof John Gyapong, the Pro-Vice Chancellor in-charge of Research, Innovation and Development, University of Ghana, who chaired the programme, said the subject matter is of immense importance not only for Ghana but the West Africa sub-region.
He said within the last decade terrorism has fast become one of the defining characteristics of the sub-region and discussions on the transfer of the ex-detainees to Ghana, must generate light rather than create heat.
Source: GNA