Don't send Ghanaian soldiers to Cote d'Ivoire -Socialist Forum

Accra, March 31, GNA - Socialist Forum of Ghana, has appealed to the Government not to allow Ghanaian soldiers to participate in any military intervention in Cote d'Ivoire.

Mr Kwesi Adu, Member of the Forum, described the incident in Cote d'Ivoire as travesty and deception of the world.

He said: 93It is the deception and orchestration, which some West African leaders would like Ghanaian soldiers to join to install a President with an inconclusive election results".

Addressing a press conference in Accra on Thursday, Mr Adu said if the UN Security Council had adopted the recent decision of the Economic Commission of West African State (ECOWAS) to turn the peacekeepers into partisan fighters, the rationale for which the government agreed to send troops would have been changed. The press conference was to express concern on the deteriorating situation in Cote d'Ivoire and attempts by some foreign governments and organisations to stimulate civil and military strife in the country.

Mr Adu said West African leaders were demanding an amendment to the role of peacekeeping force from that of peacekeepers, protection and monitoring role but rather seeking for belligerent and offensive war machine on the side of one of the contending parties. He said ECOWAS had no evidence to convince the world that the second round of the Ivorian Presidential election results were conclusive and credible because it had failed to send election observer team to monitor the elections.

"It is an established tradition of ECOWAS to send election observer team to monitor elections in West Africa. In the case of the November 2010 election in Cote d'Ivoire, ECOWAS observer has not been able to publish an interim report, four clear months after the election".

Mr Adu said a report made by Societe Civile Africaine pour la Democratie et l'Assistance Electoral (OSCADAE), a non-governmental organization (NGO) revealed that representatives of President Laurent Gbagbo were denied access to polling stations and ballot boxes were transported by men in military uniform without representatives from the Electoral Commission.

The NGO also indicated that curfew was not observed in the Northern, Western and Central parts of the country and opening of polling stations were delayed for about 30 minutes to an hour. Mr Adu therefore declared the second round of voting in Cote d'Ivoire as unfair and unclear.