From Gondar with shaven heads
On Friday February 1 and Saturday February 2, the Ghanaian security forces were involved in an operation in the Ashanti regional capital of Kumasi. Even though no official announcement has ever been made about the incident, it has been variously described as an assassination attempt on Flight-Lieutenant J. J. Rawlings or an attempt to topple his regime of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).We had wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, in the matter in which I, Baffour Ankomah, editor and Mr Osei Tutu Agyeman, news editor - both of the 'Pioneer' were given some beating which common murderers wouldn't have got, at the PNDC Headquarters Operations Room, Gondar Barracks, on Friday, February 15.
"The Pioneer' the privately-owned newspaper in Kumasi carried an account of the incident in its February 6 issue which led to the editor and news editor being beaten up by soldiers in the Gondar barracks in Accra.
The Chief of Staff of the PNDC later issued a public apology to the managing director of Abura printing works, the owner of 'The Pioneer' "for an attack carried out on the editor Baffour Ankomah and the news editor, Osei Tutu Agyeman by some members of the armed forces."
The statement said that 'The Pioneer' in its report of February 6 had incorrectly reported the names of persons injured during the operations to arrest some people plotting to destabilise the country. The name of a member of the security forces was reported as being one of the plotters.
The statement quoted the Chief of Staff as saying that while it was understandable that this error angered loyal troops, their action was uncalled for. The statement said the soldiers' action did not have official approval.
The editor of 'The Pioneer', has after the government statement written a vivid account of the ordeal he and his news editor went through and it was dramatised even more by an empty editorial space. We publish below 'The Pioneer' editor's story. It tells more clearly than most, life in Flt-Lt Rawlings Ghana.
It is perhaps useful to recount that the Peoples Daily Graphic has written that it sided with the government not to give details of whatever had happened in Kumasi because it "would serve no other purpose than satisfying idle curiosity".
Flt-Lt Rawlings himself told a delegation from Ashanti that what happened in Kumasi should not be taken seriously without stating whatever it is that happened.
Mr Baffour Ankomah, the editor of The Pioneer told his story in the February 22 issue of the paper:-
A government statement on the issue, apologising for the assault, carried extensively by the national t media which showed the government had no hand in the brutality meted to the us, created the impression that SOME soldiers from some place, peeved with a genuine error we made in a news story published on February 6 in which we described one Tamakloe as a plotter instead of a loyal soldier, were responsible for the brutal mistreatment handed to us at Gondar.
To set the records straight I have set my hand this Sunday evening, February 17, on my sick bed with a badly aching swollen right thigh, to recount before our countrymen the events leading to the brutish assault on us at the PNDC headquarters.
It was Thursday evening, February 14, when the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ashanti invited me to his office, (earlier in the day he had sent some of his plainclothes men to ask me to see him immediately). When I arrived at his office he was away but had left a message that I see his second- in-command (21C).
At the 2IC's office, he showed me a "signal (wireless message) from the PNDC headquarters requesting him to escort me and my news editor to the PNDC Headquarters Operations Room, Gondar Barracks, Accra on Friday February 15, without FAIL.
That meant I was to be confined in police cells for the night of Thursday, but because the police knew I wouldn't run away I was granted a C100,000 bail (without any charge of course) to report the next morning which I did.
My news editor, Mr Osei Tutu, had travelled out of Kumasi on Thursday but hurriedly reported at the police station on Friday morning when he was told.
We left Kumasi on Friday 10am in care of two police escorts (plainclothes men) in a police V8 jeep with registration number GP 1742. We were at Gondar at 3.00pm.
At the PNDC Headquarters Operations Room, we were handed over to the men there since the Chief Operations Officer was out on duty.
A Second-Lieutenant a slim handsome young man who proved to be very kind and reasonable (God bless him) asked me (in the absence of the Chief Operations Officer) who told us that Tamakloe was a plotter.
I explained that one of our reporters filed the story from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital Kumasi and he would be in a good position to show who told him so.
Then a Staff-Sergeant of Ewe extraction attached to the Ops Room, asked whether I didn't cross-check what my reporter brought.
I was going to say that since I am most of the time glued to my office, I believe my reporters will faithfully and professionally send in stories whose accuracy can't be doubted. I didn't finish my sentence. Immediately I said I believe my reporters... the Staff- Sergeant jumped in asking: "So you believe your reporters, eh? Because of what you've said I will shave you just now".
He was taking me away when a Police officer attached to the Ops Room stopped him, saying the Chief Operations Officer would like to see us first. The Staff-Sergeant was so much angry because of what he considered "I said I believe my reporters", and threatened to show me at the appropriate time what that meant.
Around 4.35pm the Chief Operations Officer arrived, a stoutly- built man in mufti. We were taken to his office. He asked us the same question of who told us Tamakloe was a plotter? After the same explanation from us, he ordered that it be announced on "TV, Radio, newspapers, everywhere that our reporter who filed the story reports at PNDC headquarters "immediately".
For us, he said he was going to "use us as an example to other journalists in the country who publish falsehoods. According to him, if soldiers had gone to the hospital where Tamakloe was on admission to kill him, it would have been because we misrepresented him as a plotter. He ordered that we be "soaked well and put in the guardroom".
The Staff-Sergeant, a burly dark- coloured man, and another soldier, slim, tall fair-coloured (was he a Lance Corporal) holding a 2 feet by 2 inches piece of wood started "soaking us well".
The beating was brutishly brutal, defying description. After what they considered as "half- time" they marched us out to be shaved. The man was still striking me violently with his 2 by 2 wood as if I was a tree, running away to be shaved.
After paying the customary blade fee, shaving fee and "hotel" fee, we were shaved with a blunt razor blade by a fellow "prisoner" and marched to the Operations Room again to face the Staff-Sergeant.
He gave us food - yam and kenkey - so cold and tasteless that you wouldn't eat it for anything. He ordered that when he said Go! We should eat with both hands "sharp! sharp!"
Go! and we were at it eating sharp, sharp with both hands. But for the Second Lieutenant, that kind man, who brought us drinking water for if the cold food choked us, it would have brought colossal punishment from the Staff-Sergeant.
Later, we overheard the Staff- Sergeant tell the 2-Lieutenant that he had reserved our faces for the night. The 2-Lieutenant pleaded with the Staff-Sergeant to leave us alone, to which the Staff-Sergeant said "OK, you are going home, I am here with them till tomorrow morning; we will see."
At about 5.30pm, we were ordered to be confined in the guardroom (sentenced without any charge). I was put in the RECCE Guardroom and Mr Osei Tutu Agyeman in the 5Bn Guardroom.
I met a number of young and old men there, some of whom told me they had been there for three weeks or more and nobody had asked them a word "We are taken out to do fatigue and that is all, three weeks".
After spending over an hour at the RECCE Guardroom at about 6.45pm a call came in that I was wanted at the PNDC headquarters again.
I knew that was the end of us, because the Staff-Sergeant had vowed to "show us in the night. Luckily, we met a Captain at the Operations Room who dialled a telephone number and asked me to speak to the voice on the line.
The voice identified itself as that of Lt Colonel J. Y. Asase.
He told us the Tamakloe aspect of our story had been a problem to them even though the whole story was accurate. He expressed his regret at the delay we have been subjected to at Gondar and added that he had talked to a Major to release us to go and continue our work.
In addition he asked that we publish correction. I thanked him and apologised for the error. He in turn apologised for the delay and the inconvenience caused us and wished that we did not stretch the issue to give them room also to stretch it.
He asked that a vehicle be given us to take us to town, and the Captain kindly arranged for a vehicle which took us to the Neoplan station. Before we boarded the vehicle, the Staff-Sergeant still wanted to "soak us again."
Even then he used a piece of wood in his hand to violently nudge me in the stomach.
We reached Kumasi at 3am Saturday, full of pains all over the body.
As I am writing, my right thigh is swollen, aching badly. My stomach muscles seem like on fire, the skin of my stomach is aching badly, my back can't lie on the bed - full of pains - the effect of the piece of wood which the fair-coloured soldier used to beat us. I have got bad chest pains and my ribs are giving me bad moments. I don't know what is happening to my news editor.
What sin, Oh what sin can produce such a beating from soldiers holding responsible positions at the PNDC headquarters Operations Room?
Even though the battering was not sanctioned by officialdom as the government said on Sunday, it stands that those who perpetrated that brutish assault on us are known to the government. They are not SOME soldiers from some insignificant place, they are soldiers working at the PNDC headquarters.
