Human Rights abuse: Locals Tortured At AGC

A report of alleged human rights abuses by Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) Obuasi mines, at Sansu in the Ashanti region highlights horrifying eyewitness accounts of how a team of security personnel comprising the police, military and AGC mine securities tortured locals to death.

The six-page fact finding mission (FFM) undertaken by the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM), an NGO, covers the period 1994 to 2002. It gives details of how the AGC, Obuasi mine security guards used guard dogs to feed on galamsey (small scale mining) suspects.

But the AGC has denied the report saying that the allegations are unsubstantiated and were intended to damage the company’s image.

Even though the company admits that some bodies were found in old pits in the mining concession, the police and medical reports on them did not establish that they died through manhandling, severe beating or dog bites as portrayed by the report.

However the report which was released at a press conference in Accra on Thursday by the National Coalition of Civil Society Groups against mining in the forest reserve, recalled an eyewitness account of one Isaac Ofori of how a team of security personnel comprising the police, military and AGC mine security, beat up one Kwame Opoku to death in February 1994.

The FFM’s report further quoted Ofori as saying that they were engaged in ‘galamsey’ when a team of security personnel gave them a hot chase.

“Kwame could not run fast and was arrested by the team because they heard him Kwame shouting for help as the security team kept beating him up. He was later found dead in the bush with blood oozing from his nostrils and a broken arm,” the report said.

Other victims the report mentioned were Justice Opong, alias Papa Yaw, alleged to have been beaten to death in December 1996, by a similar combined team. Kofi Sarpong died on the way to hospital after a severe beating by security men of about 70 people.

Kofi was arrested along with 16 other colleagues, including the narrator with the help of 13 guard dogs, the WACAM findings alleged.

Kofi Ampomah fell from the top of a pit and crashed on a rock after being chased by the Obuasi mine security with the help of guard dogs. The incident was said to have occurred in 1997.

The rest are Kwaku Bio, alias Kwaku Firi of Old Anyiman and Kwaku Addae who died in separate incidents on April 27, 2001 and April 1995 respectively.

The report alleged that the AGC Obuasi mine, used guard dogs to feed on the victims.

It also named one Mr. Amos Abu allegedly arrested on March 25, 2002 for picking stones that had fallen from trucks on the haulage road as one of the victims. But information obtained from the AGC’s corporate affairs office indicated that Amos was found loitering on the haulage road at about 1:00am when the incident occurred. Even though the report claimed that Amos was a resident of Sansu, his statement to the police indicated that he was rather visiting his uncle at Sansu but lived at Kyekyewere.

The rest of the victims of guard dog attacks include Kwabena Nti, Kwame Kankam, Kwame Sakoah, Kwabena Antwi and Yaw Oduro.

Debunking the report, the AGC maintained that police and medical reports on some of the deceased show that the causes of the death were neither through AGC’s securities, police/military brutality or security dog attacks.

The company said it is also true that the bodies were found in old pits where mining activities had ceased but security guards are not detailed to duty at those locations.

It also stated that in almost all the cases, records indicate that the people cited in the FFM’s report died whilst indulging in illegal mining activities on AGC mining concession, either through natural causes or self-inflicted injuries resulting from slips on rough terrains at the pits.

In a related development, Mr. David Renner, managing director of Ghana Australia Goldfields Limited, has described as one-sided a report purported to be a response to an inquiry by a team from Sweden, following the filming of alleged human rights abuses on Swedish television dated February 26, this year.

The document featured human rights abuses by AGC.

Mr. Renner’s reaction contained in a report copied to the chief executive of AGC, Sir Sam Jonah, and the managing director for Strategic Planning and New Business, Mr. Kweku Awotwi, said the journalists had all the opportunity to get all sides involved to comment but failed to do so.

Meanwhile the press conference was used by the NGO to register their protest and condemned the continued harassment and intimidation of some of their activists.

Addressing journalists in Accra, Mr. Daniel Owusu Koranteng, executive director of WACAM, lamented over the harassment of some of their colleagues by the mining industries, especially Ashanti Goldfields Company, allegedly backed by the district chief executive (DCE) for Adansi West, Mr. Kwadwo Boampong, and some traditional rulers in the Obuasi area.

He said among the victims of this harassment were the assemblyman for Sansu electoral area, Mr. Benjamin Annan, and Mr. Clement Kofi Scott, a community volunteer.

According to him, the both men who later narrated their ordeals at the press conference were victimized separately for their advocacy role in their communities.

Mr. Annan was alleged to have been victimized for writing a petition to President J. A. Kufuor, asking him to investigate the circumstances leading to the death of the named victims, while Mr. Scott was victimized for filing a petition to the company on behalf of his community.

Both men were said to have suffered these inhuman treatments only recently (July 2003.)