US Military Deal Neutral – Aning

Security Analyst, Dr. Emmanuel Kwesi Aning has said the controversial Ghana Military pact with the United States of America will benefit both parties.

“This is a neutral agreement,” he stated Tuesday on Morning Starr.

According to him, the tumult generated after the content of the agreement were leaked to the public was needless as “there’s nothing new in this agreement if you compare it to the 2015 and the 1998 agreements.”

That notwithstanding, “it could have been done better,” he told Morning Starr host Francis Abban.

The deal, which has been ratified by Ghana’s Parliament, gives the US military and its civilian personnel unimpeded access to certain installations in Ghana, including tax wavers.

The main opposition National Democratic Congress and other pressure groups including the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) have been part of a protest to withdraw the deal or revise it to safeguard the sovereignty of the West African nation.

Addressing Ghanaians on the deal, President Akufo-Addo slammed critics of the agreement and some front-line politicians in the country of hypocrisy, pledging never to be the president who will “compromise or sell the sovereignty of our country.”

In his first public comment, Dr. Aning who is also the Director of Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peace Keeping Center bemoaned the partisan politics that shrouded discussions on  the military pact.

According to him, the politics around the deal has, to some extent, exposed Ghana to terrorism.

“People in high office deliberately leaked sensitive information around these agreements and by doing so without placing the interest of Ghana and Ghanaians at the centre of these discussions, have exposed all of us to new threats because Islamic State (I.S.) in the West African Province now says: ‘Oh, so, Ghana, you created a platform for the U.S. to launch attacks against us.

“This agreement has exposed the dangerous bipartisanship in our politics; so dangerous that the stability of this country does not matter in the calculus of those who play these games insofar as they will hurt their political opponents. That is dangerous, that threatens you and [me], that exposes us as a nation to ridicule amongst our partners and I’m hoping that as things calm down, we will all be a little reflective and to say: ‘What can we put out into the public domain, under what condition, what time and for what purpose?” he wondered in an interview with Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Tuesday.

In his view, politicians in both the ruling and opposition parties must be made to sign an oath on the kind of information to release to the public.

Source: Starrfmonline