Ghana to send battalion to South Sudan for peacekeeping
Ghana is to contribute a full battalion of 850 troops to the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.
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Disclosing this at the Flagstaff House in Accra Tuesday, President John Dramani Mahama said the decision followed a request made to him by the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki Moon.
Speaking during a courtesy call on him at the seat of government by the Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the President said mobilisation of the troops had already started and pointed out that “We (Ghana) would want peace to prevail and normalcy return to South Sudan as soon as possible.”
The battalion would comprise 350 Ghanaian soldiers stationed in Cote d’Ivoire and an additional 500 in the country.
UN under pressure to protect lives
With the death toll in troubled South Sudan increasing as a result of the political and ethnic conflict, the UN is coming under pressure to enforce its peacekeeping mandate.
Already, the UN says more than 1000 people have been killed in the conflict in addition to other human rights abuses.
The Ethiopian minister has already had discussions with his host counterpart, Ms Hannah Tetteh on bilateral relations between the two countries.
He briefed President Mahama on the road to peace in South Sudan, in which Ethiopia is a key player.
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President Mahama commended the Ethiopian government for the good work it was doing in the South Sudan situation and said Ghana equally had a sentimental attachment to the quest for a lasting peace in that country.
Ghana-Ethiopia relations
Tracing Ghana-Ethiopia relations to the days of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah and the late Ethiopian leader, Emperor Haile Selassie, Mr Mahama said the two were the trail blazers for African unity and stronger future relations.
The President believed that more could be done if the two nations integrated their economies.
But in surging forward in the integration process, he said there was the need to prioritise areas in the bilateral discussions in order to quicken the results rather than opening themselves to everything and achieving little.
In that connection, President Mahama called for wider intra-Africa trade which currently stood at an unacceptable 11 per cent.
“We need to bridge the trade gap in order to take advantage of the inherent benefits,” President Mahama stressed and expressed delight at the discussions between the two foreign ministers in Accra.
President Mahama also said Ghana wanted to see commodity exchange between the two nations in a win-win situation.
Ghana, the President assured, was ready to put her engineers at the disposal of Ethiopia, and added that the nation would also count on Ethiopia for assistance in other areas when the need arose.
Dr Ghebreyesus praises Ghana
Earlier, Dr Ghebreyesus had informed the President that he was impressed with the strides Ghana was making in its development process.
He mentioned for instance the energy and environment sectors as areas where Ghana had proved itself beyond all reasonable doubt and lauded President Mahama for his able leadership that had helped to catapult Ghana to greater heights.
The minister indicated that the discussions he had with his Ghanaian counterpart touched on how the two nations could take advantage of existing opportunities to advance their economies, and expressed the hope that the discussions would bear fruits in the not too distant future.
Ghana’s traditional medicine appeared to have received the attention of the visiting minister who said his country would love to learn from Ghana.
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Setting the stage for the meeting at the Flagstaff House, Ghana’s Foreign Minister said the meeting with her guest was important because there were avenues in various sectors of national development to exploit to their advantage.
Accompanying the Ethiopian Foreign Minister were Ambassador Solomon Abebe, the Africa Affairs Director-General; Ambassador Bereded Anumeni, North and West Africa Directorate Director; Mr Abiy Berhane, Promotions and Culture Exchange Directorate Director; Dr Mchari Berchane, the Protocol Director of the Ethiopia Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Madam Gifti Abasiya, the Ethiopian Ambassador to Ghana.