Accra, Sept.2, GNA - Two senior citizens, Madam Amma Manu and Mr Charles Edward Saigoe, both from Koforidua, on Tuesday held the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) sitting awestruck with grotesque abuses of their human rights in 1982.
Both Commissioners and the audience listened with rapt attention, some with their chins cupped in their palms, as bespectacled, Madam Amma Manu, christened Sarah Oppong, 89, who almost limped with a staff in hand narrated the horrendous events that happened to her in 1982.
The octogenarian, then 68, said she had displayed her utensils in front of the Koforidua Market, when four armed soldiers arrested, beat her, called her a witch and ordered her to carry her utensils into a standby vehicle.
"My Lord, they hit my waist with the butt of their guns, and threatened to kill me when I protested," she said, and added that two of the soldiers took the utensils she had displayed into the vehicle.
Together with eight other women arrested they were driven in the vehicle to the Club, a somewhat office for the soldiers in Koforidua. She said before being transported in the vehicle, the soldiers forced a huge tuna fish into the throat of a pregnant woman they had arrested, and the sight of the choking and the near death of the woman made her (Madam Manu) unconscious.
She came around at the Club, but one of the soldiers slapped her when she questioned why they were packing her wares into an adjoining room. They gave her more slaps, and later gave in to the demand from the soldiers to sing "Kalabule, Me Nnye Bio" because she was afraid that the soldiers would carry out their threat to kill her if she refused. They sang and marched to a station for commercial vehicles, but the soldiers continued to hit her waist with the butt of their guns any time she fell.
Madam Manu said she refused a demand from the soldiers to strip naked to be stretched on a table and be flogged. Her son-in-law was at the station and she removed everything on her save her panties. She was beaten at the neck as she tried to stretch on the table. They gave her additional seven strokes with iron whips and sold the rest of her wares, and told her that the money had been put into government chest.
She said she became unconscious and was admitted at the hospital for 40 days and later received medication on her swollen neck and waist, which has registered permanent scars and pain.
Madam Manu said she had since then been out of business and her husband, who paid her medical bill is ailing. Her children's education also suffered, she added.
She prayed the Commission for resettlement. Commissioners expressed sympathy to Madam Manu, and commended her for her bravery.
Mr Charles Edwin Saigoe, who used to operate a cinema at Koforidua, another Witness, also told Commission a team of soldiers and policeman, including a woman, known to be with the Rawlings regime seized his car, which he used to make errands for his business from him in January 1982, without assigning any reasons.
He said he was warned to stay away from the Burma Camp, where he went to make a report.
Mr Saigoe said he was arrested while in the church seven months later despite protests from his Minister the Reverend Foe Amoaning and was detained for four days without charge. He said the seizure of his car paralysed his business and prayed for restitution.
