The President at the Commonwealth Institute

This week's newsreel is overshadowed by the President's visit to the UK. First we bring you bullet points of his speech to the Ghanaian gathering at the Commonwealth Institute on Tuesday 11 July 1995. In subsequent editions we bring you copies of the full text at the CBI conference.

The invitation cards for the Tuesday gathering were issued by the Ghana High Commission, firstly to a selection of Ghanaians resident in London and its environs, and then the Ghana Union of London was asked to invite about four members of each affiliated society. These were hand picked to mean those who are not "controversial" and indeed GR was later to discover the existence of a list of "persons non- grata".

Security to the centre was tight, and although the soldiers flown in from Ghana to man the gates had no arms, you dare not challenge them. You either had a card to enter or you find your way back to your abode.

Some 1,500 people, mostly but not all Ghanaians packed the two balconies of the "great" hall. The invitation card had given a commencement time of 6.30 pm. But in line with Ghanaian tradition for time keeping, the President and his wife arrived around 7.35 flanked by ladies wrapped in NDC colours. We were later to learn that they belonged to the 31st December Women's Movement, the body which was set up after the coup which deposed the Limann govt.

The joint MCs for the occasion were Mr George Asiedu Ntow, Counsellor of Information at the Ghana Mission and Assa Jones, the Ghanaian DJ who attends functions with his own set of drums. Assa Jones heaped a few praises on the President, Mr Asiedu Ntow called the gathering to order and a chief was asked to pour libation. This was beautifully carried out in Ga by a Ga chief. Yours sincerely was monitoring events outside the centre and since yours truly can hardly understand any Ga, he could only keep nodding whenever President Rawlings' name was mentioned, and indeed it was called a few many times.

The Ghana High Commissioner to UK, His Excellency Ken Dadzie, welcomed the President, his wife and the members of his suite to Her Majesty's land!

The President was formally introduced and he took to the microphone. He greeted the audience in Ewe and Twi and said humourously that next time " I'll endeavour to learn some of the languages spoken in Northern Ghana".

The public address system was either not powerful enough or the audience could not subside their talking when silence was prayed for the President, more likely both. After a few lines into his speech, which was made without notes, some members of the audience complained that they could not hear, to which His Excellency the President replied " When I speak softly, people complain that they cannot hear, when I shout they complain that I shout".

Yours truly positioned himself by one of the loud speakers in order to have something to report to GR readers.

1 The President introduced some of the members of his suite; firstly "my lovely wife", then Mr P V Obeng, whom he referred to as "the best gift my wife could give me was to introduce me to her classmate, P V". There ensured a mixture of applause and laughter!

Next to be introduced was Mrs Emma Mitchell, the Minister for Trade and Industry, whom His Excellency described as "one of the school prefects in our school". Then came Mr Salomey who the President introduced as "Fat Domino". All these intro were repeated at the CBI conference which was fully tape recorded by GR. Other members of the team included Dr Tony Aidoo, Mr Tsatu Tsikata of GNPC, Mr Sam Jonah of AGC, Mr Ishmael Yamson of Unilever, Mr Bosomtwi-Sam and many more.

2 The President then moved to enumerate the many improvements in Ghana that he has been able to head since 1979. Indeed he referred to 1979 so many times that you will be forgiven to think that the P/NDC has been in power uninterrupted since 1979!

Referring to the improvements in the infrastructure of the country, he said that indeed for those who have not been home for a while, and truly there are many who fit the bill in London, some 70-80 per cent will not be able to find their way to their houses because of the changes, especially in Accra.

3 He continued to affirm that very soon every district in Ghana will have electricity. And in a tonation more bothering on hysteria, he said that people should recognise his achievements and stop trying to bring him down with falsehoods and accusation at which juncture some ladies clad in NDC flags started singing "Dee wobeye biara yebeka wo ho asem", literally translated as they'll always talk about you irrespective of your achievements or failures.

4 And when a Ghanaian President is talking in London, he cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that there are more TRUE political refugees in Britain than any where in the world, especially former politicians. His Excellency therefore, perhaps appropriately, turned to the question of coups and said that to those who are accusing him of toppling democratically elected govts, his reply is that there comes a time when someone has to defend the sovereignty of a nation. He extended the claim to allude to instances in the history of most developed countries where actions have been taken in the past to protect sovereignty, including Britain, America, Germany and Japan.

Indeed he disproportionately dwelled on this issue and took on those who were demonstrating about his coup record outside the centre.

5 He called on the demonstrators to come and talk with him because he was ready for a dialogue to explain to them that, contrary to popular believe, soldiers have not been the beneficiaries of coups. In fact, they have suffered more than other members of the population since he came to power. He illustrated the assertion with the soldiers who serve at UN peace missions. "Part of the payment made to these soldiers are taken by the govt and used for national development", he said.

6 The President then turned to VAT or was it BAT? By gosh the GR team was more attentive given that many pages of GR and okyeame have been filled with discussions on VAT, its cousins BAT and BT. His Excellency explained the need for the tax to help in national development.

He said "The recent withdrawal of the VAT has been interpreted by some as showing a weakening of our resolve on our economic policies. I must tell you that we have conducted our own soul-searching about this and other matters and there is no doubt that whatever our good intensions were on the VAT we made mistakes in its implementation. Taxes are never very popular: In Britain it is well known, especially since the Boston Tea Party! America rebelled against Britain because of Taxes". (Something for the histories, we dare say!).

7 His Excellency then moved to the Kume Preko Demonstrations in Ghana in which people died. He said, when we introduced VAT, the opposition organised demos in which two people died. "Indeed I should be the one to be mourning and not they since one of the two children who died was named after me and the father of the other one helped me when I was young" he said. GR notes that this assertion contradicts the official account given by the People's Daily Graphic in which it was claimed that 5 people died.

8 The President called on Ghanaians to return home to help in National Development.

9 He ended his speech by calling on anyone who had a question to come to the microphone to pose it. No one dared! And the mic was handed over to P V Obeng whose speech was so much buried by the background talking that we hardly heard anything other than that "we have achieved a lot in economic development".

In the meantime, yours sincerely had been monitoring events outside the centre and here is his report:

Demonstrations and politics

As expected, the visit of the President, Jerry Rawlings to London met with its fair share of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. Ghana Review now presents a report on these demonstrations as captured by our London Reporters.

Tuesday 11th July, 1995 - Commonwealth Institute, High Street Kensington.

Although we were originally made to believe that the demo was led by the London branch of the Alliance for Change, we soon learnt that it was indeed organised by political asylum seekers and those who have lost relations, fathers and uncles, and property during President Rawlings previous two coups d'etats. The demonstrators could easily have included the sons and daughters of people like Gen Acheampong and Afrifa now living in London. None of the placards complained about economic hardships in Ghana, rather more about the President's record on human rights!

The demo was organised on the forecourt of the Commonwealth Institute. Carrying banners one of which read "Rawlings is a murderer", the 100 or so demonstrators sang, drummed and danced. What they lacked in numbers, they certainly made up for in voices as they made enough noise to attract attention to themselves.

The reception organised in honour of the President went well with a turnout of some 1,500 people. Officers from the Metropolitan Police were on hand to ensure that everything was done in a peaceful manner. The paradox of the night was that there was one arrest: a male Caucasian aged about 20 years! Apparently, he was enjoying the hot summer afternoon when the music of the demonstrators got to him. He walked over there, asked them a few questions and decided it would be fun to join the fray. But he went a step further.

As the guests from the reception came out of the Hall, the demonstrators increased the tone of their voices. A Rolls Royce with Ghana/NDC flags draped round the side mirrors and bonnet came out of the building and drove onto the High Street. The demonstrators (perhaps thinking Rawlings was in it) started pelting it with eggs. The car got stuck in traffic whereupon the new found friend of the demonstrators (the young white male) went and stood in front of it. In a twinkle of an eye, the police were upon him. He was arrested and driven away in a police car. The tone was now set for more events to happen.

Good policing by officers from the Metropolitan police ensured that the guests to the reception and the demonstrators were kept at opposite sides of the street to prevent trouble. The police formed a cordon between them.

Two red London Transport double-decker buses packed in the middle of the road cutting effectively cutting off the demonstrators from the guests. Traffic was stopped at one side of the road leaving the road clear on the other side. Ten or so seconds later, the Presidents' convoy whisked pass. The demonstrators only saw the back of the vehicles: they had indeed been swerved by the police. The good nature of Ghanaians however prevailed. Both guests and demonstrators laughed at the incident for they were all deceived by the police! We hope the lessons of these demonstrators will help Ghanaians appreciate the importance of demonstrators in the constitutional process and also show the government that protesters are handled with wit and excellent tactics and not with counter- demonstrators and bullets!