Rawlings Refused To Release My Brother's Body

A Kumasi-based trader, Madam Mary Afriyie, yesterday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) that the former PNDC Chairman, Flt. Lt. Rawlings, rejected her plea to hand over for burial the body of her brother, who was shot dead by soldiers without provocation in 1982.

She said Flt. Lt. Rawlings, who earlier agreed to release the body of 21-year-old Anthony Kwaku Boakye, changed his mind when he realised that the father of the deceased was a soldier.

Madam Afriyie, who was testifying before the NRC at its last day of sitting in Kumasi, said her brother was subsequently buried by soldiers at the Osu Military Cemetery alongside other soldiers who died during the 1982 coup.

Madam Afriyie said soldiers stopped her brother who was then driving his car and asked why he was driving such a posh car, after which they shot him and took the car away.

According to her, Mr Boakye who resided in Europe, had come to Ghana on a visit in 1982.

Witness said she heard about the incident from a friend who was with his brother at the time of the incident. She said she was told that her brother, who was returning from the airport in Accra after seeing off his girlfriend who was travelling to Europe, was beckoned by soldiers to stop at a spot where a group of them had gathered by the roadside.

She said when he stopped, the soldiers ordered him and a friend to get out of the car and to open the boot for inspection, which they did.

Witness said when the boot was searched and nothing was found, her brother was asked how he managed to get such a beautiful car.

Just then, one soldier suggested that they should kill him and just as he opened his mouth to talk, they shot him in the abdomen, took his car and fled. She said the friend who was with him managed to escape.

Counsel for commission: How then did you manage to hear about the circumstances that led to your brother's death.

Witness: The friend later told me.

Witness said a doctor friend of the deceased who happened to be at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital later identified the body among so many dead bodies that had been sent to the mortuary.

Madam Afriyie said she collapsed when she identified the brother’s body among so many dead bodies. She said later, she sought audience with the Chairman of the PNDC, Flt. Lt. Rawlings, at the Castle to inform him that his men (soldiers) had shot and killed her brother without any provocation.

Witness said when she got to the Castle, she met Major Quashigah, who called Flt Lt Rawlings for her. She said she presented her case to Rawlings and demanded that the body be released to her for a befitting burial.

"However, when Rawlings later got to know from me that our father was a soldier, he declined to hand the body over to me, and later got it buried with some 10 soldiers who had also died during the revolution, at the Osu Military Cemetery", she said.

She said the family never got any compensation from the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) and that only drinks were presented by Rawlings at the funeral, which the family members rejected.

She prayed the commission to either assist her financially or get her a car as compensation for the one her brother lost for her to run a transport business in order to take care of their aged mother.

Another witness, Mr Emmanuel Boadi, narrated to the commission how a bullet shot by soldiers strayed and hit his landlord on February 7, 1982, which eventually resulted in his death.

He explained that he had gone to the stadium together with his landlord, Mr Alfred Avorgah, and after watching a match between Kotoko and Hearts they were returning home when they met some soldiers, coming from the direction of the Odiyifo Asare's church.

He said the soldiers ordered everyone around to raise their hands, amidst indiscriminate firing of shots. Witness said the firing resulted in a pandemonium and as everyone was fleeing for safety, he saw that his landlord had been hit in the lower abdomen by a stray bullet and was screaming, but he fled the scene and left the landlord behind to escape from being hit by a stray bullet.

He said later watching from a house he went in to hide, he saw that the landlord was writhing in pains on the ground while the soldiers looked on unconcerned.

He said the landlord died on the spot and the body was later picked up by his family after someone had informed the wife of the incident.

Another witness, Mr Samuel Adu Ofosu, described how soldiers seized his goods which were valued at about ?35,000 in 1982.

He said the soldiers also assaulted him two months after the seizure of his goods when he went to town to buy a bulb.

He said two soldiers he saw on the way while holding the bulb assaulted him for allegedly hoarding bulbs. He was also arrested and together with some passengers he was detained for one day while on his way to visit his parents at Sefwi Asanwinso in the Western Region.

He said some soldiers at a spot near Sefwi Bekwai stopped the vehicle he was travelling on, for breaking the curfew and were escorted to the Sefwi Wiawso Police Station, detained and made to sleep near a toilet before they were released the next day.

Another witness, 80-year-old Nana Serwaa Akyempim II, a Twafohemaa, narrated to the commission how his brother, Nana Asoma II, was destooled as Twafohene in 1960 for not supporting the Nkrumah government and for being a member of the National Liberation Movement (NLM).

She said as a result, the stool was given to people who were not members of the royal family and that even though she has succeeded in winning back the stool, based on a High Court ruling, she is constantly being harassed with court cases with regards to the stool.

Witness said the government seized a car sent to her by her son in Belgium, for being a member of the NLM. She prayed the commission to impress on the government to take keen interest in solving chieftaincy issues since they do not augur well for the country’s development.

The Chairman of the commission, Mr Justice Amua-Sekyi, in summing up the two-week public hearings, expressed appreciation to all those who helped to make the commission's sitting in Kumasi a success.