The British High Commissioner in
Accra, Jon Benjamin, has cautioned that even though Ghana’s resolve in
sheltering the two former detainees from
Guantanamo Bay is purely based
on bilateral relations with the United States of America, the Ghanaian
government should not be complacent on the security threats its decision
poses.
“It takes few people to create carnage and no one should
be complacent. We should be very vigilant because it is a real threat
to us all,” he said in an interview on Thursday.
He said lessons
should be drawn from the incident in Burkina Faso that led to the
killing of some 29 people, insisting that austere measures should be
taken by the Ghanaian government to forestall any untoward event in
relation to the two Yemeni guests.
Mr. Benjamin said the British
government would remain completely neutral on the issue, saying he would
not be allowed to be tricked into making arguments that could have dire
consequences on the volatile issue on the ground.
“This is
essentially a bilateral issue between USA and Ghana. Here we are in
January, the election here is November 7, and we are already in election
season in some sense.
What I would not be doing is allowing anyone to drag us to make party political points on either side,” he added.
Some
civil society groups and faith-based organisations including the
Christian Council and the Catholic Bishops Conference have waded into
the issue, demanding that government return the ex-Gitmo detainees to
their home country, claiming the stay here could threaten the security
of the country.
The flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party, Nana
Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo has also accused President John Mahama breaching
Section 35 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2008, (Act 762).
Earlier,
the President, at a press conference, explained that apart from its
bilateral relations with the United States of America, his
administration took compassionate considerations to account in hosting
the two ex-detainees.
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