Former AFRC strongman, Major Boakye Djan is in town. Last Friday he grated the following exclusive interview to ADM Managing Editor, A Harruna Attah on a wide range of issues.
The interview began with the Major's claim to fame, that is, the June 4 1979 junior officers and other ranks uprising. Other issues discussed included Afrifa's execution, Rawlings, Kufuor, NRC and Ghana's democracy.
June 4 uprising
June 4, as I have always maintained was necessary but unavoidable. And after I have been involved in creating it or initiating it as you put it we made a firm commitment to the people of Ghana to clean our house.
In order words to initiate a justice system that would account for all the misdeeds that we set out to correct: organise fair and open elections, hand over within a time schedule that we thought was appropriate at the time and on a manner that we thought would maintain democracy, as we knew it now.
We did all that and my position has always been that the correct way to criticize anybody's performance is to relate his conduct and declared intentions.
Within that frame I thought we did what we set out to do. As to the question of how people feel about it, how I feel about it is a matter of history to judge us.
Your question raises two issues that I would like to address: the manner and circumstances under which history is judging us and in particular the case of an individual which is linked up with the manner in which we have been judged.
Because of the nature of June 4 and because of the special circumstances under which we operated. Remember I said elsewhere that the June 4 uprising is the only counter coup against an incumbent military defacto government that succeeded in Ghana's history.
So when we started sitting down to do what we had to do there was no precedence to guide us in terms of procedure, approach and administration. Now because of that, people have been flexible in assessing our conduct and this started a long time ago.
And you would recall that as far back as February 22nd, a Thursday, I can recall in 1980, at the Ambassador Hotel I called for a Commission of Inquiry of some sort to codify our conduct, so that we could get a systematic body of evidence that would become a common ground for all of us to assess June 4.
Unfortunately, until recently we haven't had a political regime with the will or the need to do it. So within a matter of twenty years AFRC unfortunately has become a political football. So you had all kinds of interpretations, innuendoes, omissions built into.
It is unfortunate that this has happened. Having said that I must admit that with the NRC, hopefully that situation is about to be laid to rest.
But in the mean time as they say, so much water has passed under the bridge and I would like to take the opportunity to unplug the tank so that some of the water would drift away.
Lt. Gen. Afrifa
Now on the question of Afrifa let me go on record. I normally don't like personalizing issues of this nature. First of all the death of any human being is a matter for regret.
As a matter of fact I didn't enjoy discussing that particular subject not because I hate him but because a human being has been lost.
You can't reverse that but having said that sometimes I ask myself why is it that of the eight generals whose sanctioned executions by the Council of AFRC, his has excited so much irrational, I would like to say, interest.
I can understand, but then let me put the records straight as much as I can. It is linked up with the issue of sanctioned executions of the generals under AFRC.
That particular subject is so complex and vast to attempt to discuss it here but I would do what I can.
The law on the executions
When we took over the issue was to hold all those generals who had taken power in destroying existing constitutionally elected governments. Secondly, creating a defacto if you like illegal regimes thereafter.
Thirdly, and taking part in managing that particular defacto government. But above all to profit illegally from that and indeed this is a litmus test of our regime and when we did that, we then had to go for the substantive law that would help us to cover this area [execution].
Because we had no precedence we had to consult widely and I can mention names: Col. Agbeko of Legal Services Directorate was asked to come in and assist us. He did well.
I consulted the Advocate General of the Armed Forces the late Justice Mills Odoi, late Justice A.N Amissah and a number of them were consulted and we were advised that the way to go about it was to use the then existing line of authorities or legislature to cover our actions.
The initial line of action our attention was drawn to was the 1960 criminal code in which it was absolutely and clearly stated that if you ever took part in overthrowing a constitutionally elected government you have committed high treason, a criminal offence.
We had no difficulty in accepting that as our parameter for defining capital punishment which could affect anybody else.
Let the blood flow
Now once we were confronted with that, technically, apart from the irrational exuberance cry "let the blood flow", people throwing papers around with names, (in one particular case two hundred and forty seven names that were thrown as us including civilians, policemen, politician, and soldiers) I said no, that is not the way to go about it, but technically after our attention had been drawn to that definition then you find out that anybody who had actually taken part in an illegal regime in the process that I have defined could technically have been executed.
Again our attention was drawn to an existing Armed Forces Regulation which is called the Superior Order Rule which incidentally was used to convert NRC into SMC in 1975.
In a military situation there is a superior authority with subordinate hierarchy under it.
If something happens and it comes from the superior authority, that superior authority takes responsibility for it. It doesn't matter who is down the line and who took part in implementing it. So we used that to draw a line that in that case only members of NLC 1966-1969, NRC1972-1975, SMC 1975-1978 and SMCII 1978-1979 who occupied both legislative and executive authority in these councils had the ultimate responsibilities and authority for the four processes that I have described.
Therefore, in our books the key words were automatic capital punishment. Then the question arose as to what do you do with subordinate officers, commissioners of states, those who went into parastatals as executives and all that?
The Armed Forces Act
The Armed Forces Act also makes it clear that there are two types of substantive punishments; a capital punishment and custodial punishment. So we said that any other officers in uniform who occupy any subordinate position in that hierarchy was caught in automatic custodial sentence.
We also then decided that even though in all these regimes we had subordinate authorities that didn't only remain in the Armed Forces they spilt over into the police and civilians.
So we decided that the civilians and the policemen were at the best accessories or invited guests.
It was those in the Armed Forces who actually took the machinery of the Armed Forces into politics and invited these people to assist them so they could not be caught in this [definition].So our punishment targeted only members of the Armed Forces .
We took the NLC - Ankrah, Kotoka, Ocran and Afrifa, were the only four officers who served in the NLC. So only these officers were caught in the ring of automatic capital punishment. We didn't need to prove their crime because they served in those positions.
The issue of Ankrah came up and the argument presented to the council was that he was one of the four members of the NLC but he was in retirement when the coup happened so he was called from his retirement to become the NLC Chairman.
But a couple of years later down the line the coupers decided that he wasn't conducting himself properly so he was actually taken away. So it would be unfair to treat him on the same level with the remaining members of the NLC which left us with Kotoka, Ocran and Afrifa.
Now Kotoka had died so obviously he wasn't available for the treatment that was available to the others. So we then had Afrifa and Ocran. We asked where Gen. Ocran was.
We searched and made all kinds of announcements. We couldn't get hold of him and so we were reliably informed that he had run to Britain. So we sentenced him in absentia to death.
Afrifa - nothing personal
Now Afrifa, for whatever reason, was the only one available to be tried and executed alongside the generals who had committed the same four offences.
So that is the fate of that particular individual. There was nothing personal about it.
I didn't even see him personally in my life. It was a law, so when people ask the question who ordered him to be executed is such an irrelevant question.
Why was he caught? My answer is that he had fallen foul of the law we used to hold all of them to account. No more, no less.
A law you would apply again?
Yes. Like I told somebody else, the people of this country particularly core supporters of this incumbent administration who I believe regard Afrifa as a hero.
They have the choice of either winning the past or winning the future because if they continue to worship and promote the cause of Afrifa, all what they are doing is to encourage people loitering with subversive intent where ever they are, to go in and overthrow the constitutionally elected administration of Kufuor.
The question I ask then is, if, and God forbid, I don't contemplate it, if that situation were to happen today and they continue to uphold the example of Afrifa what defence is available for them to reverse that situation?
And I appeal humbly to them that if we have to protect our baby democracy and the constitution under it, and deal with any outstanding case that has similar connotations, we would have to accept it however painful it is.
The example of the fate of Afrifa is to hold any body who has done that since and people who are lurking in to do it equally responsible. Otherwise we would have no defence against those who are loitering with intent to subvert our constitution.
It's not a matter of a personal feeling. Obviously it is regrettable to die as a person but as a judge who upholds the law against the criminal who is sentenced to death… no the law has no excuse for that.
So what I am saying is that I want people to consider AFRC as a interpreting the law in the context in which there was no precedence that you needed an armed uprising to resolve and therefore we should begin to depersonalised the issue of Afrifa and look at the legal implications for the course of democracy in this country.
No individual member of AFRC or any outsider as far as I know had a personal responsibility or even request for Afrifa to be included.
It was the law as I have explained.
It is the legal prescription which drew the line that anybody who had actually since 1966 taken part in destroying an existing constitution, creating a defacto illegal government, managing that government and profiting illegally from it automatically became a target for execution.
Collective decision
It didn't require Rawlings or me or anybody to do that. And as a matter of fact when we were appointed as a council, people who were appointed also to implement that decision took no responsibility for it. They were carrying out orders.
So if there is anything wrong with that decision and its implementation, it rests squarely with the collective body of AFRC.
The execution was a collective sanction of AFRC and not an individual sanction. Is an individual allowed to say that I wasn't part of it? Otherwise no institution can move in this world.
Admittedly there were differences but not on the selection of people, but on arriving at the legal basis for the treason.
It is unfair to reach behind us and look for who did what because that is immaterial, it was a collective body; it's a Council and took a decision as a Council. End of the matter, period.
Nobody is allowed to look beyond that and find out who did it because then the question is who was responsible for the execution of Amedome, Utuka and Acheampong etc?
Where do we end if we give in to that kind of speculation? It is unfair and there is no basis for it.
It's irrational and unnecessarily. Depersonalize it and I would urge you to urge your readers to lift themselves above that and look at the hard decision that we have applied.
There was no other reason as far as I am concerned which went into the sanctified execution of the eight generals other than being caught by the law that existed then and exists today.
Read Part II tomorrow
