Peace-time “Scorched-earth” policy?

Events in recent times remind me of one of the books we read in English Literature in our first year in secondary school, “Tragical-Comical-Historical-Pastoral.” Shakespeare stated that, actors demonstrated human life either in one of the four ways of the title, or in different permutations like “Tragi-Comedy” or “Historical-Pastoral.”

Events

Togo politely told us they were preserving their stadium for their own matches when we went requesting the use their stadium as our “home-away-from-home” venue following CAF’s banning of the use Baba Yara Stadium, Kumasi as unfit for purpose.

Mercifully, CAF granted a temporary license for the Accra Sports Stadium to host Kwasi Appiah-led Sudan on 10 October 2024. 

When the President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) made a passionate appeal for galamsey to be tackled head-on during the 75th Anniversary of the GJA Awards Night on 28 Sep 2024, he reasonably expected a positive/reassuring response. How wrong he was!

Asked if he was surprised by the deafening silence by leadership totally ignoring the appeal, Ing Dr Ken Ashigbey of the Media Coalition Against galamsey replied that, he was not only surprised, but shocked!

On his part UN Expert on Governance and Leadership Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah said that, leadership was simply “impervious” to reasoning. 

Ghanaians demonstrating against the poisoning of our rivers/water bodies were arrested and remanded in custody for two-weeks, for breaching the law.

Unsurprisingly, disturbingly bold statements were made by government officials during the week against the call for a declaration of a State-of-Emergency in light of galamsey threatening our very existence as Ghanaians.

This reminded me of my 2022 article titled “Scorched-earth Policy?” Part read:

“Scorched-earth”

As officer-cadets in the early 1970s, we were taught that, “Scorched-earth policy” is a military strategy where a withdrawing/retreating army destroys anything that might be useful to an advancing enemy. While it is generally carried out in enemy territory, it could in some cases be carried out in own territory. 

In addition to the destruction of communication equipment, electricity/water installations and general infrastructure, oil wells as happened to the Kuwaitis in their war with Iraq in 1991 could also be destroyed.

Indeed, in January 1991, while retreating under pressure from the American-led coalition in the Iraq-Kuwait War, the Iraqis set fire to over 600 Kuwaiti oil wells in a scorched-earth action. 

While “scorch-earth” may generally be a military action originated at the strategic level as in the Iraqi case, it could also happen in non-war situations as happened in Burkina Faso recently.

Burkina Faso

In mid-November 2022, in a reaction to the nationalization of mines by the government of Burkina Faso, Canadian mining firm Trevali at Perkoa, Burkina Faso destroyed vehicles and any equipment they could, in what could pass for a scorched-earth action, albeit in a non-military situation. 

Rather than leave intact any mine equipment which the Burkinabes could utilize, they destroyed anything/everything in sight.

Incidentally, this was the zinc mining company which in September 2022 was found guilty of manslaughter following a flooding disaster in April 2022 that killed eight miners.

Ghana

In recent times, the unbelievable impunity of destruction of lands, the pollution of our surface water bodies, the denuding of our forest vegetation, the cutting and export of millions of rosewood trees in Ghana makes me wonder if we have not embarked on a deliberate domestic scorched-earth policy against ourselves in support of foreigners! It is unconscionable the massive destruction Ghanaians are inflicting on Ghana.

Unfortunately, the question I am often asked during such conversations is, “do they have any conscience?”

In scorched-earth policy, the target is the enemy as in the Iraq-Kuwait scenario where the retreating Iraqis destroyed Kuwaiti oil wells. To a lesser extent, the foreign mine owners, out of frustration may see the government of Burkina Faso as the “enemy” for wising up to exploit their minerals themselves.

However, in the case of the destruction going on in Ghana where Forest Reserves are busily being converted into deserts, and rivers into sewage sludge heavily polluted with mercury and cyanide, it is difficult understanding what Ghanaians are doing to Ghana, aiding foreigners to destroy Ghana. Ghana Water Company spends heavily treating our almost untreatable water.

A popular radio analyst recently in frustration, “what kind of people are we?” Where is the patriotism Osagyefo taught us, as Ephraim Amu composed in our patriotic song “Y3n ara y’asaase ni?”

Thomas Hobbes

In all this, where are the people Ghanaians voted for to manage us the way the C17th political philosopher Thomas Hobbes proposed in his book The Leviathan? He said, if every individual had to fend for himself providing all his needs including security, humanity would be reduced to the jungle law of survival-of-the-fittest. Life would become “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short!” Hobbes’ idea was later improved upon by John Locke, JJ Rousseau and other C18th political philosophers.

It is on account of this that, in a civilized society, the majority cedes part of their rights and privileges in a social contract, to a government which must provide them with security, infrastructure, good-governance/leadership, in what a democracy is supposed to be.

In her message to the graduating class of Summer 1965 cadets of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK, Queen Elizabeth 2 advised “remember always that, the best and purest form of leadership is EXAMPLE!” Do we have selfless/committed leaders leading by example?

The scorched-earth canker of corruption/arrogance/impunity and disrespect/lies which underpin our environmental destruction, must stop if we are to survive as a nation. Reports this week say Ivory Coast has built a $100 million factory to process all her cocoa. Why can we not learn from Ivory Coast which is still recovering from the effects of a civil war?

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales states that, “radix malorum est cupiditas,” to wit, “greed, or the love of money is the root of all evil!” Our internally-generated “scorched-earth” policy must stop before we wipe ourselves off the globe!

Question

Deliberately polluting/poisoning water is a War Crime under the Geneva Conventions. Galamsey is an existential threat to Ghana. So, how come greed for gold for individual pockets has become more important than the lives of Ghanaians? Remember, despite his high position as a Colonel in the British Army, Oliver Cromwell’s legacy is that of a common criminal for regicide in the execution of King Charles I in 1649. 

I concluded a recent article saying, “we started as a great nation in 1957 under a selfless leadership. Ghanaians do not deserve this self-inflicted ‘monumental embarrassment’/disaster of drinking galamsey-water contaminated by mercury/cyanide/lead because of conscienceless/greedy/selfish oligarchs!”

Need I say more?

Leadership, lead by Example! Fellow Ghanaians, WAKE UP!

The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association, Nairobi, Kenya and Council Chairman, Family Health University College,  Teshie-Accra

Email: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com