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----- Original Message -----
From: Aggo Akyea <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 5:18 pm
Subject: Fireworks Over Bush¢s Delegation to Ghana
To: [log in to unmask]
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> Fireworks Over Bush’s Delegation to Ghana
> General News of Tuesday, 13 March 2007
> http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=120754
> ACCRA, Ghana (NNPA) – As part of its celebration to commemorate 50
> years of independence from Britain, the government of Ghana put on a
> huge fireworks show. But the sparks launched high into the sky were
> nothing compared to the ones generated on the ground by Jesse Jackson
> and HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Jesse L. Jackson.
>
> After a series of television interviews in which he strongly
> criticized President Bush for not attending the festivities Jesse
> Jackson played the role of an ant at a picnic when he decided to blast
> Bush at a reception hosted by U.S. Ambassador Pamela E. Bridgewater,
> also an African-American.
>
> “In 1957, when the Union Jack [British flag] did fall, Adam Clayton
> Powell was here, Charlie Diggs was here, Dr. King was here, A. Philip
> Randolph was here,” he said, referring to Black Congressmen and civil
> rights leaders. “The United States sent the vice president [Richard
> Nixon] to honor that occasion,” Jackson said. “Now, 50 years later,
> with quite a few members of the Black Caucus, a Secretary of State
> who’s an African-American, we send the Secretary of Housing without a
> diplomatic portfolio. That does not sit well with us.”
>
> Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus in attendance
> applauded Jackson’s comments. But members of the diplomatic corps
> cringed. Some were especially embarrassed because although Jackson led
> an unofficial delegation to Ghana, the U.S. ambassador had extended
> him many of the courtesies normally given to official delegations,
> such as the use of vehicles and staff guides throughout his stay.
>
> The official U.S. delegation led by Alphonso Jackson included
> Ambassador Bridgewater; Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO John J.
> Danilovich; Ronald A. Tschetter, director of the Peace Corps;
> Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer and
> retired Navy Rear Admiral R. Timothy Ziemer, coordinator of the
> President’s Malaria Initiative.
>
> Even though the CBC were part of officials events in Ghana, they did
> not travel on the military plane assigned to transport the Alphonso
> Jackson delegation to Ghana. Although Secretary Jackson’s group was en
> route to Ghana when Rev. Jackson made his remarks, he was quick to
> disagree with the criticism of his delegation.
>
> “As I said to Rev. Jackson, whom I have a great deal of respect for,
> a Secretary is a Secretary. Wherever we go, we have portfolio,” he
> said. Secretary Jackson said he had traveled to Ghana two months ago
> earlier and his presented its president with a $30 million housing
> planning grant.
>
> “President Kuflour was pleased that I was coming, representing the
> president,” Jackson said. “In fact, he had asked if I could come about
> a month ago, after I had been here. He had sent a note to the
> president and the president responded by asking me to come. So, if you
> don’t understand the facts, you can make some assumptions. I came here
> because the president (of Ghana) wanted me here.”
> The Jackson v. Jackson standoff notwithstanding, it was clear that
> Ghananains wanted Jesse Jackson in Ghana. Everywhere he went, he was
> widely recognized, with residents greeting him with calls as “Jess-see
> Jackson” or “Mr. Jesse” and seeking to be photographed with him.
>
> As a group of mostly young people going over their last-minute
> details as hosts for a fireworks show recognized Jackson, he was
> invited to join them. Jackson did his “I am Somebody”
> call-and-response routine and about 50 participants joined in, smiling
> broadly.
>
> Surprisingly, African heads of state reacted the same way. At
> receptions, dinners and parades, some of the best known names in
> Africa – Presidents John Kufuor of Ghana, Olusegun Obasanjo of
> Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Robert
> Mugabe of Zimbabwe, among others – joked and chatted freely with him.
>
> “These people know me and I know them,” Jackson said after one
> reception. “I’m no stranger to Africa.”
> Part of Jackson’s popularity stems from the respect the U.S. Civil
> Rights Movement enjoys around the world. Jackson talked about that
> parallel track, noting that the famous Brown v. Board of Education
> Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated schools was issued just
> three years before Ghana gained its independence.
>
> He said, “In 1954 in America, we broke the background of legal
> apartheid in America just as we broke the legal backbone of
> colonialism here in Africa.”
>
>
> Source:
> NNPA
>
>
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Aggo Akyea
> http://www.tribalpages.com/tribes/akyea
> http://www.attamills2008.com/
>
> "Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my
> baskets,
> I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them."
> WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau – 1854
>
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