The process of healing the wounds of the country's political past took another significant step forward when an ex-soldier whose weapon accidentally went off and hit a trader, on Wednesday, apologised through the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to his victim.
It was their first face-to-face meeting since the incident happened at a military barrier mounted near the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Junction in 1982.
Ex-Lance Corporal Hammond Moses Enyan told the Commission that he was working on his weapon as a safety precaution when a bullet flew out of it, hit Madam Hannah Abena Kyerewaah in the hand and grazed her breasts.
He said after the incident, he was detained in a military guardroom for three months before a directive came from Accra that he should be released.
The soldiers, according to him, were at the barrier to search for arms and ammunition in vehicles travelling to and from Kumasi. General Emmanuel Erskine (rtd), one of the Commissioners, said he was disappointed that for 21 years the ex-soldier never bothered to look for the victim to find out how she was getting on with life.
"Your apology had come a bit too late", he added. The Commissioner said the incident demonstrated the risk posed to the public by "bad gun management and bad gun maintenance".
Testifying earlier before the Commission, Madam Kyerewaah said she was a trader and had gone to Accra to buy some cartons of matches to Kumasi. She said when the bus on which she was travelling got to the military barrier, the passengers were ordered to come out.
She said she showed the receipt covering her goods but they insisted she climbed to the top of the bus to bring them down. Madam Kyerewaah said, "as I stood there with my hand on my chest, I was suddenly hit on the hand by a bullet. It also grazed my breast and blood started oozing".
She said two soldiers and two policemen rushed her first to the KNUST Hospital before being transferred to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH). "At the KATH, I was visited by the late Asantehene, Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, who after being told by the doctors that there was no infusion for my treatment, telephoned Flight-Lieutenant J.J. Rawlings".
She said a quantity of the infusion were later flown in a military helicopter to the hospital. Madam Kyerewaah said she was on admission at the same ward with the policewoman, Joana who was executed by soldiers at the hospital and gave a vivid account to the NRC of how she was killed.
She said the policewoman after identifying herself to the soldiers who had then invaded the ward looking for her was taken out. When she was brought back she had been shot in the hand and the doctors rushed her to the theatre to amputate the hand.
Witness said the doctors held consultations among themselves for sometime and agreed to put her back at the ward after the surgical operation with an infusion and blood transfusion bags on her.
"All of a sudden, we saw a soldier enter and on seeing her lying on the bed shot her first in one thigh." That awakened her from her sleep and the soldier went to the other side of the bed and shot her again in the other thigh".
Joseph Archibold Appau, a former employee of the Posts and Telecommunications, who mounted the witness box, said he lost consciousness for one and a half months after being hit by a bullet fired by a soldier in 1982.
He said he became paralysed in half of his body and that affected his manhood.
Appau told the Commission that he had been given a drugs prescription after attending hospital and had decided to take some rest at his brother's shop at the Kumasi Central Market before looking for the drugs to buy.
"Immediately I took my seat there was a gun shot and I fell prostrate on the floor". The witness said he was first taken to KATH and later flown in a military helicopter to Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital where he regained consciousness after one and a half months.
Robert Akuamoah-Boateng, an uncle of the late General Akwasi Amankwah Afrifa, one of the three former Heads of State executed in the heady days of the 1979 military uprising, when he took his turn narrated how soldiers brutally tortured him and his friend, one Kwaku Abunyewah.
He said he had gone to the drinking bar with his friend who had then just returned from Accra. Akuamoah-Boateng said his friend alluded to the bravely of his nephew when he recounted how the late General Afrifa survived several gun shots during his execution.
He said one soldier, Abu who was also at the bar and was eavesdropping called Abunyewah after his narration and ordered him to repeat what he "told me". The witness said at that point the bar operator intervened and asked Abunyewah to leave the place and he obliged.
He said the soldier later called him and asked that "I should go and call back my friend and I did as he told me". On his return with Abunyewah, soldier Abu had gone to bring a policemen and "we were taken to the Old Tafo police station where we spent the night in cells".
Akuamoah-Boateng said the next morning they were taken to the Four Battalion of Infantry (4BN) where they were severely beaten. He said the torture had left him with chronic pains in the ear, chest and waist.
"We were made to say the Lord's prayer whilst jumping and been lashed with canes". Witness said the opportunity to tell his story has soothed his pain and assuaged his anger.
He praised the Kufuor administration for setting up the Commission and advised the country's youth never to go along with any military adventurer. Kwaku Manu, a farmer, told the commission of how he was tortured by soldiers at the 4BN in 1982.
He said they used blade to inflict deep cuts on his back and chest, adding, "they kicked, slapped, punched and used their guns to hit me". His offence, he said, was that he was a member of the 'Lord Is My Shepherd Church' founded by the late Odifo Samuel Asare who was executed by soldiers at Kejetia. Sitting continues on Thursday.
