Madam Jacquline Aquaye, alias Ama Akufo, on Thursday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), sitting in Accra that soldiers arrested her, seized a number of bags of flour, threatened her with death and douched her with a mixture of hot pepper and gun powder in July after the June 1979 military coup d'etat.
A glass of water and a tissue paper could not stop her tears as she told her grotesque story that drew sympathy from Dr Sylvia Boye, Professor Abena Dolphyne and Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, all the three female members of the Commission.
They abandoned their seats on the high table to the open floor to offer comfort, and restrain her from showing a scar on her tummy as evidence of an operation she underwent as a result of bleeding from the pepper douching.
The television and still cameramen would not budge to suggestions not to snap the scars; and the women later reported that a scar of about five inches was found below the naval of Madam Acquaye.
Madam Acquaye, a baker and a sister to the late General Frederick William Kwasi Akufo, former Head of State and Chairman of the Supreme Military Council II government, said the seizure and brutalities had made her develop hypertension and she has become unemployed, weak, and her children one of whom died last four years, could not get any good secular education to be gainfully employed.
She said the daughter died because she could not procure the drugs the 37 Military Hospital prescribed and sought financial assistance from Mr and Mrs John Agyekum Kufuor, currently the first couple to pay for the mortuary charges and organize a funeral for her late daughter.
Madam Acquaye said she was ready for any form of compensation, and the Most Rev Charles Palmer-Buckle, Catholic Bishop of Koforidua and a member of the Commission promised to visit her and her children to talk to them in a bid to come to terms with their horrifying experience.
Madam Aquaye told the Commission that one Major Kusi, alleged to have masterminded the seizure and the brutalities had apologised to her, with the explanation that it was their youthful exuberance and lack of wisdom that made them to behave in that manner.
Madam Acquaye told the Commission that on July 12, 1979 a group of soldiers, numbering more than 10 stormed her house after sounds of gunshots. She said the soldiers accused her of hoarding flour and her attempt to explain why she had about 260 bags of flour in her baking room could not convince the soldiers who ordered her into a jeep and left with her and another vehicle brought up the rear with the flour and the rest of soldiers.
She said she was taken to the Police Station and at about 1600, she was threatened with death and was later sent to the Peduase Lodge, where on arrival, a soldier asked his colleagues, "you bring some meat?"
Madam Acquaye said the soldiers brought her to the Akwapim Cells, which were filthy with human excreta and other dirty materials. She said at dawn they drove them to the Recce Department. Before he left he slapped me from behind and hit me with a gun. She said she fell and was later taken to a place called Acheampong House.
She said an officer ground pepper and mixed it with gunpowder and used it to douche her, which made her bled, but she was rather made to walk on her knees on a mixture of broken bottles and gravel.
Madam Acquaye said she was taken to cells at the Five BN and later fell unconscious, and gained consciousness at the 37 Military Hospital. "When I returned from the hospital, a Good Samaritan offered me a bed to lie on at the 5BN, but Awuah pushed me down."
She said she had to undergo an emergency operation on her stomach at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, which left a scar below her navel. She said this had left her hypersensitive and left her very weak.
After her release, Madam Acuaye said an officer named JC Fumi brought her letter informing her that the flour, which the soldiers seized, which she said she bought at 63 cedis a bag had been sold at 70 cedis to the small-scale bakers and the money would be given back to her.
She the money never came and she petitioned the 37 Military Hospital, the Federation of Women Lawyers, Confiscated Assets Committee, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, among other bodies but to no avail.
Madam Gladys Atta Owusua, from Akweteman also told the Commission of how a bullet hit her late husband, Sergeant C K Bosompem on the 4 June 1979 military uprising, and could not survive an operation that followed.
Her five children could not have a good education. The Commission said her husband's case would be examined and the appropriate recommendations of compensation made to government.
Madam Francisca Dartey, a nurse said her husband, who she said resigned from the Police Service because of harassment from operatives of the Provisional National Defence Council was killed by a stray bullet in a vehicle that gave him a lift on his return from the hospital.
The Police Administration had not given her any compensation and her children, she said, were threatening suicide if they could not have anyone to assist them further their education to appreciable levels.
