Rawlings - Stop The Killings
The following is a copy of the letter sent by the Ghana Democratic Movement to Jerry Rawlings on the bloody events in Ghana:12 June 1985
Flt-Lt. Jerry J. Rawlings
The Castle Accra
Dear Flt-Lt. Rawlings
In the name of God, stop these killings.
You must know by now that the political problems which you face cannot be solved by killing people. It was you who introduced into Ghana's politics and into the Armed Forces in 1979 the idea of seizing power through mutiny. Many idealistic civilian youths and army other-ranks answered your call to build a new Jerusalem: you were "J.J. Junior Jesus". Now they are bitterly disappointed, disillusioned - and angry. You have not delivered what you promised: you cannot deliver it. Ghana is a sad and battered country. You know that our people have suffered cruelly under your regime and are still suffering. The only way out is for you to admit that you have failed these young people, and Ghana as a whole. Once our people are given the chance to start anew to rebuild Ghana, free of your intimidation and the upheavals that your ideas of revolution and class war have inflicted on our country, you will not be discovering dissidents and enemies in every corner of Ghana as you have been doing since 1982, and especially in the Ghana Armed Forces. Security is not achieved by killing to intimidate people.
Malik, Gyiwah, Ajomgha, Bismarck, your AFRC colleague Sarkodie, and all those others whom you had tortured and summarily shot in 1984, had been your followers and admirers. You would have done better to find out what had turned them into 'dissidents' and to correct what you are doing wrong rather than spilling their blood. Their death has not solved your problem. Their friends and relations, many of them still around you and in the Ghana Armed Forces, believe that at least these young men saw the damage that they had followed you to inflict upon Ghana and were prepared to risk their lives to make some amends. Others will also try: these executions will not stop them, and you will continue to live in fear.
Majors Ocran and Twumasi Anto were your good friends and ardent political supporters in the Ghana Armed Forces. When did they turn into 'dissidents', and why? Passing them through kangaroo Tribunals cannot mask the fact that you wanted them put away as your political enemies. What did they have to say on their own behalf that they had to be arraigned in secret? Why can the great Ghanaian people not be told anything about their so-called trials except your own allegations against them?
Knowing what you do about how these Tribunals were set up, what kind of persons you have appointed to sit on them, and what happens during their proceedings, you must surely see that taking a man's life on the basis of their decisions is just blatant judicial murder. And did your colleagues on the PNDC sit with you to consider these matters soberly, to confirm these casual death sentences and to acquiesce in such thinly disguised murders? Since 1979 you have taken so much blood upon your head. Is Mr Justice Annan willing to share this burden of conscience with you? Or Idrissu Mahama, or Susanna Alhassan?
It is sad that you have not learnt the lesson of 1979. You tell the world that you have now allowed your AFRC victims to appeal against the shameful injustice of those so-called trials whose atrocious decisions you enshrined in the nation's constitution. But Afrifa, whom you had shot at the stake for no good reason, cannot appeal. Nor can Acheampong, or Akuffo, or Felli, or any of the others.
You will find many sycophants and renegade lawyers to construct all kinds of phoney rationalisations to cover these killings. But you know in your own heart that what you are really doing is to eliminate, physically and irretrievably, people whom you see as a threat to your stolen political power. The more people you kill the more people you will have to fear. And you will know no peace.
It is utterly naive and hypocritical to pretend that you are trying to eliminate theft, fraud or even armed robbery by shooting people. Mr Justice Annan ought to be able to advise you that there are no such short cuts towards a disciplined and honest society. You yourself have set the fashion, since AFRC days, of refusing to account for public monies that passed through your hands. Your friend Ato Ahwoi is walking free without having to explain to the nation about convoys of smuggled goods and $7 million worth of imported yellow maize that was unfit even to be fed to animals. It is through your own deliberate acts of policy that authority and discipline in Ghana's public service and state enterprises have been so thoroughly undermined. Is it any wonder that now after three years of 'revolution' a WDC/CDR chairman can wield the authority to push through a fifty-million cedi swindle in the Ghana Commercial Bank?
We are frightened by the long list of people whom you already have in detention, and who could any day be trotted out before a Tribunal to be 'tried' and shot. Please calm yourself and think over what you are doing. Shedding more blood will not solve your security problem or eradicate theft from Ghana. Nor will it give you invincible spiritual powers as some of you believe.
Set the people of Ghana free. Then you will know peace yourself.
Yours sincerely,
J.H. Mensah. Chairman
GHANA DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT
185 Walter Saville Tower Colchester Road London E17 8LLOTel: 01-509 0335
PLEASE ADD YOUR VOICE TO OURS - WRITE TO THE PRESS, YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, YOUR MINISTER OF RELIGION, ORGANISATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS CONCERNED WITH HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE WESTERN GOVERNMENTS THAT ARE FINANCING RAWLINGS.
