Ghana: Are you crazy ?

The BBC reports

Argentina to seek international help over ship seizure

Argentina says it will ask the International Sea Tribunal, based in Germany, to intervene in the dispute over its navy ship impounded in Ghana.

       Port officials are reportedly in a stand-off with the ship's crew over plans to move it to another berth

Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said Ghana must free the Libertad by Tuesday if it wants to avoid such an action.

The ship was stopped from leaving Ghana last month following a local court order obtained by a US hedge fund.

The fund, NML Capital, argues it is owed $370m (£231m) as a result of Argentina's debt default a decade ago.

Ghana do you really want to be part of this ? Think of your history.

The Gold Coast achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, becoming the first sub-Saharan African nation to do so, from European colonialism. The name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient Empire of Ghana, which once extended throughout much of west Africa. 

It is seeking $20m in return for the release of the ship, a three-masted training vessel.

Argentina has vowed not to bow to what it calls "blackmail by vulture funds".

Vulture funds is an apt description. I blogged this when the issue first came to my attention.

" Singer "has boasted of having always won with his strategy of buying debt in default so that he can later multiply geometrically his investment. The immorality of this usurious practice" has been particularly harmful to African countries, the Argentine foreign ministry said in a statement Thursday.

Something Ghana might want to think about. "

Holding out

The Libertad has been detained in the main seaport town of Tema since 2 October. Only a skeleton crew remain after more than 300 sailors flew home about three weeks later.

Sailors on board the Libertad reportedly pulled guns on Ghanaian officials last week after they tried to board the vessel to move it to another berth.

The choice would seem to be between a sovereign nation and a US vulture fund I know who I would choose. 

Water and electricity had reportedly been shut off to the ship a few days earlier in response to Argentina's refusal to let officials move the ship to a less busy part of the port.

NML Capital is a subsidiary of US hedge fund Elliot Capital Management, one of Argentina's former creditors.

In 2001 and 2002, Argentina defaulted on more than $100bn of debt.

Most of these loans were subsequently restructured, giving creditors about 30% of their money back.

However, some creditors including Elliot chose to hold out, pursuing the Argentine government through the courts.

I will play the race card

The population of Argentina today does not have a "visible" black African component. However, censuses conducted during most of the 19th century registered up to 30% of individuals of African origin living in Buenos Aires city. What has happened to this African influence? Have all individuals of African origin died, as lay people believe? Or is it possible that admixture with the European immigrants made the African influence "invisible?" We investigated the African contribution to the genetic pool of the population of Buenos Aires, Argentina, typing 12 unlinked autosomal DNA markers in a sample of 90 individuals. The results of this analysis suggest that 2.2% (SEM=0.9%) of the genetic ancestry of the Buenos Aires population is derived from Africa. Our analysis of individual admixture shows that those alleles that have a high frequency in populations of African origin tend to concentrate among 8 individuals in our sample. Therefore, although the admixture estimate is relatively low, the actual proportion of individuals with at least some African influence is approximately 10%. The evidence we are presenting of African ancestry is consistent with the known historical events that led to the drastic reduction of the Afro-Argentine population during the second half of the 19th century. However, as our results suggest, this reduction did not mean a total disappearance of African genes from the genetic pool of the Buenos Aires population.

It would be interesting to know the racial links NML Capital has back to Africa. Ghana just tell them to fuck off. Tell them to litigate it in an Argentine court or an American court.