Were executions meant to improve Rawlings' image?
Elizabeth Ohene
If The Ghanaian Times is to be believed, Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings kept vigil with Joachim Amartey Kwei up until the moment of his execution by firing squad. The bonds of friendship, The Ghanaian Times affirmed, demanded it and Flt- Lt. Rawlings was too decent and loyal a friend not to have stayed with his friend even while he was being tied to the stake.
Amartey Kwei, it will be recalled, was the ruling Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) member who was executed for the murder of the three High Court judges and retired army officer.
One can only assume that the Chairman of the PNDC had a particularly sleepless night this past weekend because of the ten death warrants he signed and which ten were executed on Saturday. Two held closer bonds to him than Joachim Amartey Kwei ever did.
It is being suggested that by ordering the execution of Flt-Lt. Robert Kojo Lee, a life-long friend and that of Richard Nii Amo Addy, his nephew, Flt-Lt. Rawlings has demonstrated that he is even-handed and in full control of the country. What is more, it is supposed to be taken as evidence that in the new order of things in Ghana, when it comes to justice, all are equal, friends and relations of the chairman are at risk or at liberty as much as your average Kofi Mensah.
It is useful to examine the cases of Flt-Lt. Lee and Nii Amo Addy in some detail to show the tortuous workings of 'justice' in the new Ghana.
On December 31, 1981 when the PNDC came to power, Kojo Lee had been discharged from the Ghana Air Force for many years and was proprietor of an entertainment establishment near the Trade Fair site in Accra which consisted of a Golf course, a drinks bar and restaurant. During his time in the forces, he was known as a good pilot but had been such an unsatisfactory officer in all ways and got into so many scrapes that it was a relief all round when he was discharged.
But Flt-Lt. Lee had been a good friend of Llt-Lt. Rawlings since childhood and Achimota school days through to the Air Force and they had been in many scrapes together. When Flt-Lt. Rawlings seized power therefore, he called back his friend into uniform without any regard to the rules of the Forces. As one of those with ready access to Chairman Rawlings, Flt-Lt. Lee became very powerful indeed and a virtual law unto himself.
Flt-Lt. Rawlings would hope that by ordering the execution of his cousin he would have proved many points - "all better beware and behave properly, I'm no respecter of persons, relations or otherwise..."
It is well known that Peter Atsu Bleboo was not the first person to have been killed by Flt-Lt. Lee. Even when he was out of the Air Force, he was known to be prone and quick to violence and the story was told of the poor man whom he caught trying to catch fish from the lake in his entertainment complex when he was through with him, he was a very dead fisherman. Since December 31, 1981, when he became a member of the inner circle of the ruling group, the last victim was said to be his seventh. Flt- Lt. Lee had a definite tendency to administer instant and very final justice to any and all whom he considered to have infringed any rules of the revolution.
Many cynics have said that it was the identity of the person Flt-Lt. Lee killed this last time which led to the fact that his friend Chairman Rawlings was left with no choice but to finally take action against him. The man, the cynics say, was a member of the other ranks of the Armed Forces, the one group that Flt-Lt. Rawlings cannot afford to ignore because he relies on their support to stay in power. Even more uncharitable people have stated that the victim was an Ewe, a member of Flt-Lt. Rawlings' tribe and tremendous pressure was thus on the chairman.
The people of Labadi where the victim lived with his twin brother had been particularly outraged by the murder and were said to be threatening dire reprisals should Flt-Lt. Lee not be made to pay the ultimate penalty.
It is possibly relevant to point out that if Flt-Lt. Rawlings had not decided that membership of the Ghana Armed Forces depended on his personal say-so, it is most unlikely that Flt-Lt. Lee would have had the opportunity to put how many sub-machine guns in his car and be driving around Accra, let alone feel entitled to conduct a house to house search for people who had dared to ask him for a ride and to shoot dead such a person without any provocation.
The case of Richard Nii Amo Addy is even more bizarre. He, it was, who shot and killed an unarmed Akwasi Awudzie who was on his knees pleading with a security officer to be forgiven for selling petrol above the control price.
He was said to be the son of Chairman Rawlings' half-brother. In the Ghanaian context of things, Nii Amo Addy was the Flight-Lieutenant's son. Thus right from the beginning, Flt-Lt. Rawlings must have felt under tremendous pressure not just from his family, but more especially from the public who would want to see what he would do.
To start with, Addy was arraigned before a Tema magistrates court but then contrary to what Flt-Lt. Rawlings himself had asserted that people preferred to be tried at his Tribunals to appearing before the traditional courts, the public reaction was that Addy was being given preferential treatment because he had relations in high places In other words had he been your average Kofi Mensah, he would have been arraigned before the Tribunals. So to the Tribunal, Addy was transferred to stop the raised eyebrows.
But that was also to pose problems, for the Tribunal was chaired by Mr Addo Aikins, Secretary General of the June 4th Movement, friend of Chairman Rawlings who has tried in all ways to be even more revolutionary than the Chairman himself.
The danger of politicizing the judicial system was ably demonstrated by the Public Tribunal's handling of the Addy case. The Tribunal acquitted and discharged Addy because, according to the Tribunal, Addy did not know that the gun would kill, seeing he did not know its mechanism! The Chairman of the Tribunal added gratuitously that if the murdered person had not been selling petrol above the designated price, he would have been alive, giving the clear impression that in the Tribunal's view those who sell above the control price deserve to be shot dead on sight.
Uncharitable people felt the acquittal had to do with the Tribunal wanting to please Flt-Lt. Rawlings.
Again there was public uproar and Flt-Lt. Rawlings felt compelled to intervene. The verdict of the Tribunal, he said, was "absurd and an insult to the integrity of the public... some of the tribunals are beginning to take on the characteristics of the traditional courts" and then ordered the re-arrest of Addy.
In the circumstances, the National Appeals Tribunal really had no other option but to find Addy guilty - those on the Appeals Tribunal definitely would not want to give an equally "absurd" verdict nor want to be labelled with that ultimate of insults of behaving like the traditional courts.
Flt-Lt. Rawlings would hope that by ordering the execution of his nephew he would have proved many points "all better beware and behave properly, I'm no respecter of persons, relations or otherwise, if you disobey the law, you will die" - his friends and colleagues would therefore all behave most scrupulously in the future and then the rumours about favouritism will have to stop.
Unfortunately, he has not settled anything. As in the Kojo Lee case, Flt- Lt. Rawlings has got to take responsibility for creating the situation whereby all his friends and relations came to consider themselves as part of an elite who held all the important posts, were armed, had resorted to things other citizens could only dream about, roamed the night when others were under curfew and administered instant justice.
Such a state of affairs would never have been possible if there had been a constitution and if Flt-Lt. Rawlings had not actively destroyed law and order and is now trying to assert it by the crudest possible method.
It is difficult to imagine that justice has been done in this matter, for it must be a very dangerous thing now to be a relation or friend of Flt-Lt. Rawlings if his mode of showing he is in control is to intervene in the administration of justice.
If Nii Amo Addy had been your average Kofi Mensah, would he have been transferred from the magistrates court to the Tribunal and would the Chairman of the PNDC have intervened to order the re-arrest.
This case drew public comment because of the relationship between Chairman Rawlings and Addy. How many other Addys have appeared before the Tribunal who have been found guilty because they had no friends in high places or been acquitted because the Tribunal felt their crimes were political?
It is noteworthy that even though the National Appeals Tribunal found Addy guilty of murder at his retrial, the Chairman George Agyekum recommended "life imprisonment because of the political dimensions the case assumed during and after the first trial" even when the Tribunal had no authority to recommend life imprisonment. Obviously the more the various Tribunals tried to save Chairman Rawlings embarrassment, the greater the pressure on him.
A man thus was tried twice for the same offence contrary to all accepted norms and has been executed because he was a relation of the Chairman of the PNDC - the merits and demerits of his offence in law have long since disappeared.
The story is told of Flt-Lt. Rawlings in 1979 towards the end of the 3-month rule of his Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) which had executed eight top ranking military rulers, Flt-Lt. Rawlings with a friend in tow (for moral support?) drove to the home of one of the newly widowed wives, went and stood before a portrait of her executed husband, shook his head, muttered "what a pointless death, what a waste, oh such a pity..." sympathised with the widow and left her with clear impression that he personally had nothing to do with her husband's death. This was the same Flt-Lt. Rawlings who had told Ghanaians that the people had been executed because they were crooks, thieves, and nation wreckers.
Now that he has won his public image battle, it will be interesting to note not only if he kept vigil with Kojo Lee and Nii Amo Addy but more importantly if Flt-Lt. Rawlings has paid nicodemus visits to the homes of Kojo Lee and his aunt to disclaim all responsibility.
The saddest aspect of it all is the fact that so much violence has been wrecked on the psyche of Ghana that when ten people are executed, it hardly merits headlines any more.
Among the pressures known to have been brought to bear on Flt-Lt. Rawlings apart from the bonds of friendship and the threat of revolt from the other ranks was an appeal from the American Embassy in Accra.
The Embassy is known to have written to Flt-Lt. Rawlings pleading for clemency for Kojo Lee on the grounds that it was well known that Flt-Lt. Lee was an unstable character and had a history of mental instability and had in fact been receiving treatment from an American psychiatrist.
The parents of Flt-Lt. Lee are Black Americans who had lived in Ghana for many years and his father who practised as a dentist in Accra for many years had naturalised as a Ghanaian citizen. Both Dentist and Mrs Lee have now left Ghana for the United States of America for good.
