How Much Power Have The Peoples Defence Committees?
Adwoba Yankey
Chairman of the PNDC, Flt-Lt. Rawlings has often said that the Peoples and Workers Defence Committees are the basic foundation of democratization in Ghana and that these organs of the revolution have been through a period of learning during which opportunists have been weeded out. Below, a PDC member, Adwoba Yankey of Axim, provides an inside view of the tug-of-war which has led to a massive purge.I have just come across the January 23rd issue of Talking Drums which has passed through a lot of hands.
I will like to comment on your report headed "Ex PNDC SECRETARY IN CUSTODY" in the person of Mr Kofi Ashiboe-Mensah, former PNDC Secretary for Trade. The report had left out the fact the Mr Anthony Kofie, former Deputy Secretary for Western Region, had also been placed in police custody and a police notice had been published declaring Mr Kwabena Addai Sebo a WANTED MAN.
The official release explained that Mr Ashiboe-Mensah had been dismissed as a result of an investigation into his conduct and Mr Anthony Kofie for diverting relief items. No explanation was given in the case of Mr Addai-Sebo.
Some of the members of the Western Region Defence Committees, who have been forced to go underground because of the brutality perpetrated against us by paid agents of the "betrayed revolution", have been conducting our own investigations into the detention without trial of Mr Ashiboe-Mensah and Mr Anthony Kofie and also to establish the whereabouts of Mr Addai-Sebo.
We have found out that Mr Ashiboe Mensah and Tony Kofie were framed up and detained as a result of numerous resolutions and protest notes that had been flooding the castle from PDCs all over the country asking for Ashiboe to be returned to his former post of Secretary of State for Trade or to be made a full member of the PNDC responsible for the urban and rural poor!
POLITICAL SIBERIA
You will recall that Ashiboe-Mensah was forcibly "retired" in March, 1983 which situation resulted in the PDCS forcing Chairman Rawlings to reinstate him as the announcement had come from the "Office of the Chairman". Chairman Rawlings, Capt. Kojo Tsikata, Tsatsu Tsikata, Kwesi Botchway, P V Obeng, Kwamina Ahwoi, Ato Austin, Dr Don Arthur, B B D Asamoah, Dr Ansah Asamoah and members of the New Democratic Movement never "forgave" Ashiboe then. The PDCs were fooled by a later Cabinet reshuffle which pushed Ashiboe to the Office of the Co-ordinating Secretary. We thought that Ashiboe had been promoted but later we learnt that, in fact, he was in "Siberia".In October, 1983, we in the Western Region made several representations to the Castle demanding Mr Ashiboe Mensah's reinstatement as Secretary for Trade because Kwesi Botchway, Ato Ahwoi and Joe Abbey did not know what to do with the distribution system. We had also learned that the IMF had allegedly demanded Ashiboe's removal as a condition for some loans to be released. The IMF also asked the PNDC to back Morocco against the POLISARO.
We had planned to march on Accra to "liberate" the revolution from those who Addai-Sebo had always described as "socialist opportunists and middle class leftists" parading the corridors of power. But we were betrayed by the then Western Regional Secretary, Dr Don-Arthur and Mr Kofi Smith, Western Region co-ordinator of Defence Committees who convinced PNDC member, Ebo Tawiah to use the powers of the castle to brutalize most of us in a strong-armed fashion. Words cannot describe the bloodiness of their assault on us at the Apramdo Barracks in Takoradi. Before this could happen our leaders, Samora Dadson and Taye had to be tricked to go to Accra only to be detained at the Gondar Barracks.
We could have resisted but we were picked up at night by a squad led by a comrade soldier we trusted.
With Mr Anthony Kofie, we had again been tricked into believing that his "transfer to the office of the NDC" as a Secretary of State was a prom- otion. We visited Accra several times to find out what he was doing and finally to our dismay, we discovered that Anthony Kofie was also in "Siberia". We felt betrayed and used because it was Anthony Kofie who had organised us, the PDCs, to check the wrath of Union Workers in Sekondi/Takoradi against the 1983 budget. Had it not been Anthony Kofie and the PDCs, the railway workers would have brought down the PNDC. Mr Anthony Kofie had been able to hold the Western Region together because of his respect for the needs of the poor. He did not divert any relief items and the Catholic Relief Service would testify to this.
OPPORTUNISM
Mr Anthony Kofie and Mr Kofi Ashiboe-Mensah have been framed-up because they were opening our eyes to the realities of the situation. In July, 1983, Mr Addai-Sebo exposed the hypocrisy and opportunism of the regime in an article in the People's Daily Graphic entitled "HALF-HEARTED APPROACHES TOO DANGEROUS FOR 31st DECEMBER". We will study this article which was reportedly censored by Joyce Aryee.We have been reliably informed that on 9th August, 1983, Kofi Ashiboe Mensah was brutally assaulted by "Chairman" Rawlings in the presence of Capt. Kojo Tsikata in P V Obeng's office at the Castle. Chairman Rawlings reportedly pulled a gun on Ashiboe and threatened to put a bullet through his head. As for Addai-Sebo, Chairman Rawlings had said on several occasions that he would "blow him up" if he laid his hands on him. What must be understood here is that Ashiboe was terrorized soon after a Cabinet meeting where Ashiboe Mensah had stood up singularly against attempts by Kwesi Botchway and P V Obeng to push a gold deal through. They were trying to sell Prestea Mine to a certain French firm. It is interesting also to note that our comrades in Obuasi informed us that Botchway spent the last christmas holidays at the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation's Obuasi Mine.
We are not concerned about "J.J." or "Victor" or "J.H." or "Gyiwah". We are concerned about the great resources and the great poverty in the country. It is this abyss which has scared most of our more able and skilled "but not steeled" brothers and sisters to leave the country. Who will deliver us but the people in their Defence Committees?
The revolution must continue but now it looks as if it has to be rescued by women from years of sell-out by our men who pride themselves to be everything but Africans. Chairman Rawlings bombed the Makola market and it is these same market women who will overthrow him.
G.A.E.C WORKERS SAY THE HOLY WAR MUST CONTINUE
Placard-waving demonstrators displaying peoples' power after the December 31 take-over. Do they in fact have the power?
