STOP PRESS
The Special Military Tribunal set up to try those alleged to have been plotting to topple the Babangida administration last week sentenced 13 officers to death and even though the decree allowed seven days in which to file appeals, the president of the Tribunal in reading out the sentences said the condemned men had only 48 hours to make their appeals.
The names of the executed officers were not immediately available but the Tribunal had given a list of 10 officers among those condemned. The highest ranked being Major General Maman Vatsa, the poet-soldier and Minister of the Federal Territory, said to be a classmate and childhood friend of President Babangida.
Letters
Who is fooling who?
It has become axiomatic that the fundamental ingredient that strengthens the democratic process and promotes good government is public opinion. The very planning and execution of sound government policies depend by and large on a sensitive and responsive public opinion. However, the chequered history of Ghana is replete with examples of governments which erroneously adopted a self-conceited position disregarding public opinion and ending up on the scrap-heap of history.One cannot pretend to be unaware of the current sycophantic journalism of some of today's Ghanaian papers. The state-owned media have not been up to their expected goal and the few private press which tried to speak up have been thrown out of their noble work or have had their press houses confiscated at one time or the other, to the state to wit, the Free Press and Chris Asher's 'Palaver'. The latest to face a similar fate is the Catholic Standard whose editor has reportedly escaped from the murderous squad to Abidjan. Some Ghanaians in public office cannot comprehend the fact that in achieving the goals that PNDC has set itself, all Ghanaians would never think alike as to how these goals are to be achieved. Certainly, there are bound to be diverse options as to how the problems confronting the nation are to be solved even when we are all agreed on what the canker is. That is what democracy is all about and the earlier this is accepted the better it would be for us all.
K. Agyenim-Boateng, W. Germany
Lessons from your contemporaries
Now that his own people's militia, the rock on which his revolution is sitting have awoken from their apparent deep slumber and passed a resolution of no confidence in the PNDC (Talking Drums, February 24, issue) Flt-Lt. Jerry Rawlings should begin to worry (if he had indeed been contented with the situation before now) about what happened recently in Uganda, Haiti and the Philippines. He should begin seriously to think of ways of handing over power to a new civilian government in a free election and not be afraid of any retribution from Ghanaians, because we are really very sympathetic people and may let sleeping dogs lie.However, if he continues to delude himself that he is in full control now and would be for as long as he likes in the style of Marcos and others, he may wake up one morning to discover that our patience has run out. Guns did not work in the Philippines when real peoples' power took over. He should remember that.
Emmanuel Dapaah, London
