EDITORIAL: Suspected Coup Plot And Politicisation Of Security Issues

THE INDEPENDENT newspaper on August 12, 2003 published the story of an alleged foiled coup plot to overthrow the about 31-month-old NPP government led by President John Agyekum Kufuor.

The report said that some serving officers have been picked up and questioned over the issue and that an alleged coup had been earmarked for the following day.

Later reports also showed that the suspects had been given bail and allowed to return to their units.

Relevant government officials were vague and elusive on the issue of whether or not there had indeed been a coup attempt. Defence Minister Kwame Addo Kufuor, who coincidentally was visiting one of the military formations that day, was offered a golden opportunity to calm the palpitating hearts of Ghanaians by an emphatic denial or confirmation of the news.

But, apparently acting to a script, he would only say that the security agencies were able and ready to thwart any threats to the security of the state.

This avoidable ambiguity in high places allowed the destabilising news of a foiled coup to dominate public discussion, polarised into politically fenced boundaries, for another week at least, to the detriment of our newly-reinforced image of an oasis of stability in a hotbed of conflicts.

We believe the official vague elusiveness on this issue was the result of a deliberate politicisation of a routine national security investigation.

We hear that the investigation was carried out at the instant of a few issues, including events at a funeral of a late Army officer the day before the suspected coupists were picked up and questioned, information from an informant as well as information from the Togolese Government, which complained that some Ghanaian soldiers were consorting with some Togolese exiles to its detriment allegedly at the instigation of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), whose leaders believe that the continued stay of the old fox, General Gnassingbe Eyadema, in power was injurious to their political health vis-?-vis the contribution of votes for both the presidential and parliamentary elections.

May be, with the smell of an NDC plot on our eastern border, observation of events at the funeral and link of the former 64 Battalion Commander to the previous regime, politicisation of the investigation was inevitable and understandable.

The NPP, which is moving heaven and earth to overturn its 0-19 score sheet in the Volta Region, would clutch at every available straw to help its campaign.

However, the Gye Nyame Concord will appeal to the ‘ways and means’ department of the NPP to let go, especially with the retirement of the officer at the heart of the matter who, because of his antecedents, was accused, without any evidence though, to have been acting with the knowledge of former President Rawlings.

Any news of a coup attempt takes away from the shine of Ghana as an investment destination, which this government and the previous one before it assiduously campaigned for. It is becomes unnecessarily so when it is false, as this one appears to be.

President Kufuor as a sitting President is the leader of the NPP and the Gye Nyame Concord thinks it is time he puts his foot down and called the hawks within NPP to order over the alleged coup plot, which is adversely affecting our international image and rating.

And he must do so today.

Meantime, we say “ayekoo” to the national security apparatus for the professional manner they handled the situation. We are excited by the fact that it followed all the rules in the book in its investigation into this suspected coup plot, especially when one considers the fact that the mindset of respecting the rights of individuals once their names are associated with suspected coups have not been part of our tradition in recent times.

The norm has been to torture the suspects, as is evidenced at some proceedings of the National Reconciliation Commission, or where we are wrong, falsely implicate them and destroy their reputation to save the agencies. After all, the protection of the State is more important than the human rights of any individual has been the argument for this mindset, forgetting that little, little violations of personal rights tend to endanger the same security of the State.

The recognition of the latter argument by the present security apparatus is why we say ‘ayekoo’ to them. Of course, we also recognised that they did a good job in questioning the suspects, for it would be a serious dereliction of duty not to have done so and to have treated the information available to them with contempt. After all, the late Dr. Hilla Limann’s case of “jato entu me nye fee” after intelligence report suggested the possibility of a coup, is there to guide this nation. Beyond that, we should also learn lessons of the American failure to act on available information to them, which led to the 9/11 terrorists attack.

We must, however, learn that handling of security information this way engenders trust in the agencies and prevents a “we and them” situation, where just because a suspect is associated with opposition or does not belong to the prevailing school of thought, any and everything must be pinned on him or her. That kind of mindset is in itself destabilising and is what has easily led to the destruction of many of our neighbouring countries in the ECOWAS sub-region, the latest being Ivory Coast and Liberia . It does not also engender the trust of opponents who may be willing to collaborate to protect the security of the State, since they most often would refuse to see where the lines between opposition and destabilisation should be drawn.

This is why there must be such more sensitive approach to security as exhibited by national security and not much of the partisan, hawkish approach we saw from some members of government on this suspected coup issue.

The hawks within the NPP party, government and the security agencies, who would like a continuance of the “we against them” situation in the hope that it would garner supporters for the party and government and weaken opposing views must know that it would also harden opposition in those who consider such handling as problematic and could also leave independent minds in doubt as to the sincerity of information from the same source the next time around.

Let the hawks also remember that the collective guard of our democracy is the best guarantee of the Fourth Republican Constitution