Accra, Oct. 8, GNA - A Witness on Wednesday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) how soldiers followed up to the hospital where she was admitted, beat her up and dragged her to the Nsawam Prisons in 1979.
Madam Rose Dompreh, then a baker at Adoagyiri, near Nsawam but now unemployed, told members of the NRC that in the wake of the June 4 Revolution, a soldier beat her up that resulted in her admission at the hospital for selling a piece of bread for 100 cedis to a boy. "As if the beating I received was not enough, about 10 soldiers followed up to the hospital where they beat me up with the butt of their guns on my hospital bed, on mere allegation that I was selling smuggled goods and had resisted arrest."
The witness, now 58, said the ordeal she went through in the hands of the soldiers had made her a sick person and unable to continue with the baking.
Narrating her story, Madam Dompreh said during the revolution, due to the scarcity of flour, bakers were forced to buy at higher prices those imported from Togo that made loaves of bread on the market very small and costly.
She said before her encounter with the soldier, she was hawking from Adoagyiri to Tuansi in Nsawam after the customers who sold for her had refused to sell because they were afraid of soldiers who persistently harassed them.
Witness said a boy came to buy 100 cedis worth of bread but since she had then sold all the smaller pieces, she was forced to cut a piece from the 500 cedis worth of bread for him and this resulted in her arrest.
She said her husband, who was very helpful during her ordeal also received his share of the beatings when he tried to get onto the Military Jeep that took her to the Nsawam Prisons.
Madam Dompreh said luckily for her, an Army Warrant Officer in the Prisons yard was sympathetic to her and asked her to go home and seek medical treatment after listening to her ordeal.
In spite of the treatment she later received at the Orthopaedic Training Centre at Nsawam, she said she occasionally suffered from nose bleeding, headache, dizziness and general body weakness resulting in her inability to continue with her trade.
Madam Dompreh thanked the NRC for the opportunity to hear her story and appealed to the Commission to help cater for her five children to further their education.
Professor Florence Dolphyne, Member of the Commission, on an inspection of the witness's body showed a horrible scar on the left leg, about four inches wide scar on the right shin as a result of the lashes.
The Reverend Father Palmer Buckle, a Member of the Commission wondered why the same soldiers who provided peacekeeping services to other nations return to show so much brutality and hostility to their own countrymen.
He appealed to psychologists to help unravel this mystery and give recommendation on what to look out for when people were being recruited into the military.
Mr. Joseph Mensah Asante, a Businessman at Okaishie in Accra told the NRC that in 1979, soldiers seized about 50 cases of tricycle parts, 21 cartons of assorted toffees, 15 cases of louvre blades and some Saloon car spare parts from his shop at the Kimberly Avenue.
He also told the NRC how a soldier used the ear of his friend as an ashtray to extinguish the cigarette he (soldier) was smoking. Mr. Asante said his friend, Mr Kofi Nyarko, Managing Director of Obo Trading Company received treatment after the incident but died later.
Witness said after the soldiers had seized the goods at Okaishie, they asked whether he had another shop, he replied in the affirmative, therefore, they followed him up to his shop at Kantamanto market and seized all the goods there.
He said before they left Okaishie for Kantamanto, one of the soldiers slapped his driver because, the driver failed to respond to a call from him (witness) that resulted in the loss of the driver's tooth. Mr Asante said the soldiers sent the goods, including those of about 21 other shop owners to the Burma Camp.
He said on arrival at the Burma Camp, they were asked to remove their sandals, whilst they marched and sang, "We brought kalabule to Ghana; We are sabotaging the economy."
Witness said his friends spent about five days at the camp, but luckily for him, one of his in-laws pleaded with one of the soldiers called "Israel" for his release but the soldier slapped him before asking him to pass through a barbed wire to escape.
Mr. Asante said he incurred a huge debt because he could not pay for the goods he had bought with a loan he took from the bank and had to sell his house at Dzorwulu for 12 million cedis to pay the debt. He noted that the soldiers during the Uprising were greedy and took possession of what did not belong to them and that due to the pain and agony traders went through most of them decided not to trade again.
Mr. Asante said his second wife helped to take care of his six children.
NRC continues work
Accra, Oct.8. GNA - A former Military Intelligence Officer, Ex-Corporal Wilson Opare-Agyei on Wednesday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), that soldiers arrested him, along with four others, in May 1982, at the Kotoka International Airport just on their arrival from a peace-keeping mission in Lebanon, and tortured them severely. The ex-Corporal, said why still in their peace-keeping uniforms, the soldiers ordered them into a stand-by Mowac, drove at top speed to a spot near a pool of dirty water in the bush, and tortured them, during which one of his colleagues, a Major, collapsed and was rushed to the 37 Military Hospital.The tearful ex-corporal said after being denied the welcome of his wife and driven into the bush, "a soldier put his foot on my throat, and kept punching me down as if I were a piece of wood," while the three others were being doubled up.
The witness said when the soldier that took the Major to the Hospital returned; he called him and asked him to undress. He obliged leaving only his pants on. The other soldiers came near him and stole his Lebanon savings of 1,300 dollars.
The ex-corporal said the soldiers pulled out his genitals. One soldier held it, as another lighted a matchstick and used it to scorch it.
Soon, another group of soldiers came. They booted and used the butts of their rifles to beat him. One of them tied his neck with a flexible wire and pulled him back. It has left permanent scars on him, he said.
"We were asked to dive into that shallow pool, and swim across a bridge for more than 10 times, and one of them took a branch off a thorny tree and hit me on the face, and another gave me a complete scratch on my left eye; it has made me almost blind."
The ex-corporal, who said he was a member of the anti hijack squad said they were later sent to the Usher Fort Prison, and detained for six months without any warrant covering the arrest, nor was he charged.
Ex-corporal Opare-Agyei said he met Lt Col Oteng, Mr Akwasi Akoto former MP for Akuapem North, Mr Alex Adjei, former MP Asamankese, and the late Nana Bantamahene, to whom he expressed appreciation for sharing his drugs with him.
The Witness said he warned his wife not to get near the Burma Camp, because of any possible atrocities that soldiers would mete out to her. He said after he was released, he realised, to his shock that his room at the Burma Camp had been broken into and all removable items taken away.
He could also not find any of the sheep and goats he left behind. The ex-corporal said he was also discharged prematurely from the Armed Forces, in 1983, when he was left with seven more years to serve, adding had he served his full term, he would have left the Service, with the rank of a Warrant Officer.
His pension was paid; his gratuity, which was also paid, was only 27,000 cedis.
Ex-Corporal Opare-Agyei prayed the Commission to help him retrieve his 1,300 for possible use by his grandchildren.
Mr Cosmo Peter Addae, who testified on behalf of his father, told the Commission that soldiers used grenade to pull down part of their foam products store, Pennywise Enterprise at Takoradi in 1979.
He said his father, George Kojo Addae, who sat behind as he narrated the atrocities soldiers meted out to him was taken ill and had to leave the country for cover in Nigeria for sometime.
He said soldiers picked his father to the Apremdo Barracks in Takoradi and charged him for hoarding, and also for being rich. Cosmo alleged that his father's arrest was engineered by a number of companies who were indebted to their company, including the Railways, and the CFC.
He said people in the community looted their store when the soldiers had pulled down part the four storey-building, and his father was also made to appear before a vetting committee, headed by one Ampofo, accused his father of hoarding and confiscated his building, but was later cleared.
The building was later released, but they did not allow the Military, who offered to rehabilitate it to do so, for fear of their coming back to destroy it again.
Cosmo said soldiers picked his father again after the December 1981 military revolution and was detained for some time at the Usher and James Fort Prisons.
He said the soldiers fired all over the place and stole the contents of the store and some gold he was having in the store. When his father was given a little breather they managed to send him to Nigeria.
He said the atrocities had made his father almost unable to express himself, and his father lost trust in almost everybody. The store, he said, was rehabilitated, but business was not good as it used to.
Cosmo said at one time his mother was flogged in public just for being the wife of a prosperous businessman, and this had a toll on her and she later died.
He said civilians should equally be blamed for coups in Ghana, and allotted 30 per cent complicity to civilians for the success of coups.
Another Witness, Mr Kyei Baafour, a resident of Tesano, said the then People's Defence Committee (PDC), backed by one Mr Ashiboye Mensah of the PDC Headquarters, teamed up with the land owner and drove him away from a plot of land on which he developed a commercial foodstuff farm at Domeabra, near Adeiso in 1982.
He said although the Committee set up to look into the matter restored his farm to him, his life was in constant danger from the PDC and the towns elders.
He said the banks would not offer him any credit alone because of the problems he had at first and prayed the Commission for assistance to go back into farming.
Mr Baffour also called for a review of the land tenure system. 08 OCT.03
