Two Women Narrate Woes At NRC

A SENSATION of numbness and coldness seemed to run through the veins of Madam Angelina Adwoa Agyekumwaah petrifying her beyond description, as she narrated the circumstances leading to the death of her husband, Joseph Kwaku Addai, to the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) yesterday.

She told the commission that her husband, Addai, who was then a wholesale keeper at Ghana National Trading Cooperation (GNTC), left for work on October 14, 1983 and did not return home.

According to her, she was told the next day by friends of the husband that they saw him being taken by soldiers to the barracks where he was subjected to severe beatings.

She said they told her that, as a result of the severe beatings suffered by her husband, he felt weak She was asked by the friends to prepare a meal for the husband, which they would send to him at the Gondar Barracks.

Mad Agyekumwaah told the commission that the people returned from the barracks having learnt that her husband was dead, but failed to inform her lying to her that the husband had been rushed to the hospital for treatment.

She recalled that at that time she was 19 years old and became restless, contending that during that era she was told how people were being molested at the Gondar Barracks and said fear gripped her because her husband had never left her in such a manner before.

The victim told the commission that her landlady observed the situation but refused to reveal to her, adding that she knew how lovely the husband was to her and above all she was too young to bear the news. But one day four soldiers, two in uniform came to inform her." 'We came to pick your husband to the Gondar Barracks for an exercise and he became weak. We took him to the hospital for treatment but he could not survive', were the words from the soldiers to me," she said.

"I held the neck of the shirt of the soldier who told me that and I fell unconscious and collapsed as a result of which water was poured on me to regain consciousness."

According to her, the soldiers told her family that her husband died as a result of internal bleeding at the hospital. She said because her husband's hair was shaved and his ear was cut which gave her the impression that the internal bleeding cause given by the soldiers was wrong. She said her husband was released to the family for burial after two weeks.

Mad. Agyekumwaah added that after the usual 40 days customary rights, she returned to meet her belongings outside and the family of her husband having taken all the property from her.

Earlier, Yaa Anima, another petitioner, had told the commission how soldiers in the AFRC regime confiscated her goods after accusing her of selling them at exorbitant prices to the people.

According to her during the PNDC era she went to Tema and bought 60 bags of flour and deposited it with one woman called Auntie Adwoa. She said the woman told her the following day that PNDC people had come for the goods and sent it to Dunia Cinema, Nima.

"I cannot stay idle so I went to Industrial Area with the help of my mother to purchase another 48 bags of flour to start business again to make ends meet with my four children".

She said, on the way home the soldiers chased them and collected the flour from them again. She said she could not go to the soldiers because she feared for her life, adding that the soldiers said there was a ban on the selling of goods.

"I started trading in oil from Nzema to Togo where I buy cloth from Togo and sell at Tema and other places like Nima".

Yaa Animah told the commission that she lost her parents, and that on her return from the funeral, she heard that all the cloth, that she was selling should be sent to warehouse for a control price.

She said she refused to oblige. She said she has not taken any money from the government to transact her business and see no reason why she should send the cloth to the warehouse to be sold at control prices after confiscating the first and the second consignment from her. "I continued to sell the cloth in sacks to my customers".

She noted that one ex-corporal Kennedy Segbawu arrested her on one of her usual transactions and took her with the cloth to the Gonda barracks.

According her at the Gondar Barracks she was subjected to severe beatings and torture. She said at the barracks they were sent to Labadi beach to fill a sack with sand and carry it.

Yaa Anima said she could not meet the task because she was then in her menstrual period and was experiencing pains in her abdomen. As a result of not accomplishing the punishment she was hit on the head and her hair was pulled. She said at present she fells headache each and everyday. She pleaded with the commission to help her out from her predicament.

Ex-Corporal Segbawu regretted of reporting her to the soldiers at the Gondar barracks and pleaded with the victim to forgive him.