Last week Friday, we proposed to the military to shoot on sight any illegal miner (galamsey) that will be caught doing alluvial mining on any of our water bodies. We, however, suggested that instead of shoot to kill as espoused by the Member of Parliament for Bekwai, Joseph Osei Owusu, the military should rather target the legs of these social miscreants to immobilise them.
Our harsh suggestion, which we still stand by, stems from the continuous pollution of our major rivers and creeks by the illegal miners, despite all the public criticisms against their conducts. In fact, in a video we have sighted on social media, an apparent illegal miner was seen chastising “those sitting in Accra and demonstrating against illegal mining”.
He suggested to the protesters to come to the mining areas and even Kumasi to organise similar protests to see if they would get any support.
The arrogant manner this illegal miner spoke, to us at The Chronicle, is a clear indication that they are not ready to stop the pollution of the water bodies.
Indeed, this has been manifested in the Eastern Region, where the illegal miners after being cleared from the banks and on Birim River, have gone back to do brisk business.
In our opinion, the stage that we have reached, if we should keep on talking about human rights – these illegal miners will ‘execute’ all Ghanaians. The human rights groups should not gloss over the fact that water is life – without it human beings cannot survive on planet Earth.
As MP Osei Owusu noted, polluting the rivers and denying fellow human beings the right to survive amounts to murder, and the latter, per our laws, must also be killed.
But as we stated earlier, we are not calling for them to be killed, but maiming them will send strong signal to others that they would suffer the same fate and live with it in perpetuity if they do not stop polluting the rivers.
This is the only way we, as a country, can deal with the situation and we are very happy that a former Deputy Attorney General, Dr Dominic Ayine, has also joined the calls for drastic actions against the miners.
According to a story carried by myjoyonline.com, the MP for Bolgatanga East constituency has suggested that a “shoot on sight” policy would be more beneficial to the government’s efforts in combating the menace.
“I have been discussing with a brother of mine… he has been proposing radically that we should actually send drones with either bullets or bombs with heat detection technology, so that if we detect human activity in that area, they should just fire. If that is what will save us from this environmental genocide, I will support it,” he reportedly said during a radio discussion on Joy News TV.
As a lawyer and former Deputy Attorney General, Dr Ayine certainly values the rights of others, but if despite this knowledge, he is still proposing a radical approach to the fight against the pollution of our water bodies and destruction of forests, it sends strong signal that we are at a breaking point.
Those raising the issue of lack of employment for the youth, though is a major concern to all Ghanaians, it still cannot and should not justify the destruction of the water bodies.
We must be honest to ourselves, the illegal miners have tasted money and know how to splurge cash.
In view of this, no alternative employment offered either by the government or the private sector will satisfy them to stop what they are doing. This is the more reason why the radical approach must be adopted to stop them in their tracks.
Can we deploy the army and the police to patrol Rivers Birim, Densu, Volta, Prah, Ankobrah, Offin, and Tano for twenty four hours? The answer is certainly no.
The best thing they can do is to patrol part of these rivers for a period of time, but not 24 hours all year round. Even if they can do, what about those in the forests who work mainly in the night to outwit security?
The problem at hand is a very complex one, which must be solved with radical ideas. This is not the time, as we earlier stated, to be talking about human rights when the entire citizens of this nation are on the verge of being exterminated.
