...Urges Public to Condemn Insulting Press
Fresh from surgery President Jerry Rawlings crowned a busy week with an endorsement rally in Wa for his Veep Professor John Evans Atta Mills and an unprecedented condemnation of those who shit-bombed the offices of the Crusading Guide eight days ago.
The President's busy schedule for the week included hosting South African President Thabo Mbeki, presiding over a passing out ceremony of naval cadets in Sekondi and personally supervising the evacuation of Ghanaian returnees from Libya. In earlier days when the offices of private newspapers (The Ghanaian Chronicle and The Free Press) were smeared with human excreta, President Rawlings kept his silence.
This time round, he has added his voice to that of his Minister of Communications, the National Democratic Congress and other opposition parties in condemning an act that places Ghana's democracy in antiquity and primitively. Our sources in Wa, where the NDC launched its campaign for elections 2000, said President Rawlings after going through the usual rhetoric backing Professor Atta Mills and asking the people of Ghana to retain the NDC in The Castle turned to the shit-bombing at the Crusading Guide.
He did not stop with the condemnation of the primitive act, but went on to urge the public and all those who have been quick to condemn the shit bombing to equally condemn the insults and vitriolic language some newspapers heap on innocent people. The President who has been the butt of press criticisms here and abroad had on Friday night at a state banquet for President Mbeki criticised the press.
According to him biased and vindictive media corrupts facts and is destructive of Africa's democratic process. President Rawlings' speech at the banquet was marked by the usual accusation against the Western press of misrepresentation and distortion of facts about Africa.
Commenting on President Rawling's condemnation of the smearing of human excreta at his offices, the editor of Crusading Guide, Kweku Baako Jnr, welcomed it, but said that it was unfortunate that the President would condemn the attack and in the same breath seek to justify it by asking the public to condemn "so called insults from some newspapers".
According to Baako, there are more civilised ways of seeking redress and said that no impression should be given that shit-bombing is a necessary means to achieve that. With an all-round condemnation of the attack on the Crusading Guide from both the government and the opposition the mystery deepens as to who was behind the shit-bombing. A caller on Joy FM last week suggested that Mr. Baako could have been behind the attack, an allegation that drew a quick response from Mr. Baako.
Whilst he said it was beyond him to do that, he accepted that scenario and hoped Police investigation will consider that and get to the bottom of the matter although he expressed discomfort and mistrust about the Ghana Police and its impartiality in such matters.
Mr. Baako cited the unprofessional and unprecedented manner in which the Police allowed Dr. Tony Aidoo to use statements of his reporter, Sedi Bansah and a complainant, Adayuga on a radio talk show when the matter was still under investigation..
