© Reuters. U.S. Vice President, Kamala Harris, delivers a speech as she arrives on the Kotoka Worldwide Airport to start her journey to Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, in Accra, Ghana, March 26, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko
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By Francis Kokoroko
ACCRA (Reuters) -The USA will present $100 million to Ghana and 4 different West African international locations to assist them cope with violent extremism and instability, Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned on Monday throughout a go to to Ghana.
Harris was in Accra at the beginning of a week-long, three-nation African tour, the newest in a sequence of visits by senior U.S. officers as Washington seeks to counter rising Chinese language and Russian affect on the continent.
“President Biden and I’ve made clear america is strengthening our partnerships throughout the continent of Africa,” she mentioned throughout a joint information convention with Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo.
China has invested closely in Africa within the final 20 years, notably in infrastructure, mining, timber and fishing, whereas Russian non-public navy contractor Wagner Group is offering safety help in a number of international locations.
Akufo-Addo reiterated that he was involved about Wagner’s presence in West Africa.
“It raises the very actual chance … that when once more our continent goes to turn into the playground for nice energy battle,” he mentioned, standing alongside Harris.
A number of international locations throughout West Africa and the Sahel area have been struggling to quell Islamist insurgencies which have induced humanitarian disasters and fuelled discontent — contributing components to navy coups in Mali and Burkina Faso.
“We admire your management in response to latest democratic back-sliding in West Africa,” Harris instructed Akufo-Addo.
“To assist handle the threats of violent extremism and instability, in the present day I’m happy to announce $100 million in assist of Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo,” she mentioned.
That’s along with $139 million in bilateral help that america intends to supply to Ghana within the fiscal yr 2024, based on Harris’s workplace.
After Ghana, Harris will head to Tanzania and Zambia.
LGBT RIGHTS
Harris was requested in the course of the information convention whether or not she can be selling LGBT rights throughout her tour, together with in Ghana the place a invoice that may severely limit these rights goes by means of parliament.
“I’ve raised this difficulty,” Harris mentioned, including that she felt very strongly about supporting freedom and equality for all individuals, and that LGBT rights have been a human rights difficulty.
Ghana’s draft invoice would make it a criminal offense to be homosexual, bisexual or transgender. Homosexual intercourse is already punishable by as much as three years in jail underneath Ghanaian legislation, although nobody has been prosecuted in years.
The brand new invoice would lengthen jail phrases and power individuals to endure “conversion remedy”, practices supposed to vary their sexual orientation. Parliament held public hearings on the invoice beginning in 2021. It’s unclear when will probably be put to a vote.
Akufo-Addo responded to a query in regards to the invoice from a U.S. reporter by saying that it was not official authorities coverage however somewhat had been put ahead by legislators appearing in a non-public capability.
He additionally mentioned the nation’s attorney-general had submitted views to a parliamentary committee analyzing the invoice about “the constitutionality or in any other case of a number of of its provisions”.
“My understanding … is that substantial parts of the invoice have already been modified on account of the intervention of the attorney-general,” he mentioned, with out giving particulars.
“I’ve little doubt that the parliament of Ghana will present because it has carried out up to now … its sensitivity to human rights points in addition to to the emotions of our inhabitants, and can come out with a accountable response to the proposed laws.”
