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Liberia: Country, Ghana Must Resolve the Refugee Crisis
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The NEWS (Monrovia)
EDITORIAL
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 27 March 2008
Monrovia
A consortium of human rights organizations have filed a lawsuit against the Ghanaian government for gross violations of the rights of Liberian refugees in reaction to the simmering stand-off over repatriations.
The head of the Ghana Legal Resources Center said the Ghanaian government forced deportation and detention of refugees without recourse to the due process is a blatant violation of the rules of natural justice.
he coalition of human rights has filed the suit on behalf of one of the detained refugees, Chucider Lawrence, asking the Ghanaian government to release her and provide justification for her arrest and detention.
Edward Amuzu, head of the Ghana Legal Resources Center said they want to test the law with this case and depending on the outcome they would proceed with a general suit to compel the government to answer to the gross human rights abuses of the detained refugees.
Ghana's Deputy Information Minister, Frank Agyekum is reported to have welcomed the lawsuit, saying the refugees have violated laws by protesting to the police without notice.
According to the consortium of human rights, under Ghanaian law no one can be detained for more than 48 hours without being arraigned.
Some 630 refugees, mostly women and children, are being detained at a camp in the Eastern Region of Ghana and are under heavy police guard following their arrest by the Ministry of Interior on March 17. Already, 16 refugees have been stripped of their refugees' status and deported to Liberia.
Ghanaian authority say their action is in line with a 1951 Refugee Convention clause which states that when conditions have improved in a refugee's country of origin, the host government is no longer obliged to host them.
The Ghanaian government is enervated by the presence of Liberian refugees and no longer wants to accommodate them. By implication, it means, as long as our people remain in Ghana their security will not be guaranteed.
We know that the laws of any country must be respected by both citizens and foreigners, but that does not preclude foreign nationals, i.e. Liberian refugees from being protected by the very law in Ghana.
The protest staged by Liberian refugees was not directed at the Ghanaian government, instead, refugees were demanding that the UNHCR resettles them in a third country, preferably in Europe. They also demanded that they would return to Liberia only if they were provided with US$1,000 each.
The Ghanaian government claimed that Liberian refugees violated the law, which we cannot deny out rightly. But if the Ghanaian authority is relying on the 1951 Refugee Convention clause to repatriate Liberian refugees, then it should have taken them to court because the same Convention provides for due process.
We believe that the Ghanaian government exercised judicial weakness when it employed a harsh approach rather than pursuing the due process of law.
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We also think that the Liberian government acted improperly when it condemned the refugees without getting the crux of their protest.
Liberia and Ghana have come a mighty long way and it will not be in the interest of our two countries if Liberians decide to go after Ghanaians in Monrovia and other parts of the country.
It is our hope that current negotiations between Liberian and Ghanaian officials would help to resolve the crisis and rekindle the spirit of brotherhood between the two nations.
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