1979 Executions Were Politically Motivated

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

At a 35th anniversary commemoration of the brutal and summary execution of some eight senior military officers, at least two of them retired, and most of them of Akan descent, by the Rawlings-led Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a son of one of the slain men, Mr. Francis Felli, was reported to have said that the memorial service, which took place at the Christ The King Catholic Church, in Accra, was "apolitical and non-partisan" and, therefore, nobody should read politics into the event (See "3 Heads of State, Others Killed in '79 Remembered" Graphic Online.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/17/14).

Clearly, the 1979 AFRC mutiny was non-partisan but it was also undeniably political, because it was primarily about the control and the direction of the destiny of Ghana by our proverbial men in uniform. But what is even more significant to note is that since the forcible and violent overthrow of the democratically elected Limann-led People's National Party (PNP) on Dec. 31, 1981, the leader of the AFRC rebellion, then-Flt.-Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, has not hesitated to self-righteously underscore annually, that "June 4th," as he fondly labels it, was about "House-cleaning," or the radical eradication and thorough extirpation of the most corrupt human elements of Ghanaian society.

Recently, however, for reasons best known to him alone, the former Chairman Rawlings has been widely reported to have publicly admitted in some circles that some forensically innocent military officers were executed. The latter rhetorical turnaround clearly appears to be Mr. Rawlings' remorseful response to the fact that the very "revolutionary cadres" that he personally groomed to assume the mantle of national leadership and governance, are today far more corrupt and flagrantly criminal than the revolutionary scapegoats that Mr. Rawlings and his henchmen summarily executed between June 16 and June 26, 1979.

For the most part, at least publicly, Mr. Rawlings has consistently maintained the uncompromising righteousness of his cause. And so it is rather curious for Mr. Felli, the son of Col. R. J. A. Felli, to presume to forgive the man who continues to strongly believe that his slain father was a malignant cancerous tumor that needed to be "surgically removed" from Ghanaian society, in the clinical words of the recently slain Prof. Kofi Awoonor (See Awoonor's The Ghana Revolution).

The other brutally slain military officers included three former heads-of-state, namely, Gens. Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa, Ignatius Kutu (Kwasi) Acheampong and Frederick William Kwasi Akuffo. And while it is historically accurate that Gen. Afrifa had played a key role in the auspicious overthrow of President Kwame Nkrumah, nevertheless, it is absolutely inaccurate to state that it was the then-Brigade-Major Afrifa who led the National Liberation Council (NLC) putsch against the Nkrumah-led Convention People's Party regime, as the Graphic Online would have Ghanaians believe. That epic credit goes to Gen. Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka, though the mastermind was Inspector-General of Police J. W. K. Harlley, who flatly refused to assume chairmanship of the NLC.

It was Harlley who first sought the assistance of the British intelligence agencies, and later from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Afrifa was one of the triumvirate, but he came into the picture when plans were far in advance. The original coup against the CPP was to have taken place in 1963, and not 1966; and it was to have been led by Brig.-Gen. Joseph E. Michel (my fellow Peki citizen and the first Ghanaian to rise to that senior military rank at the time), after whom Michel Camp, Tema, is named. Unfortunately, Gen. Michel perished in a plane crash at Kintampo in 1961, two years before the scheduled putsch against President Nkrumah could have been deftly and auspiciously executed.

Anyway, the other slain scapegoats of the AFRC were Maj.-Gen. Robert E. A. Kotei, Air-Vice Marshall George Yaw Boakye, Rear-Admiral Joy Amedume and Maj.-Gen. E. K. Utuka. (Maj-Gen. Odartey-Wellington had earlier on been killed in a fierce and protracted gun-battle with the mutineers. He would be afforded military honors by his slayers). What is often not stressed well enough, is the fact that on the eve of Mr. Rawlings' overthrow of the Akuffo-led Supreme Military Council II, the Acheampong-led SMC I had been bloodlessly overthrown in a palace coup the year before, the senior "military politicians" were preparing to hand over power to a democratically elected civilian government. The ban on partisan political activities had been lifted, and electioneering campaigns were at full blast, or full-throttle, throughout the country.

The resounding success of the AFRC mutiny had more to do with this lax political atmosphere than the sheer bravado of the putschists. The relative level of corruption was also palpable but definitely nowhere near the abject and prevalent decadence of our current political climate, cross-partisanly speaking. But what makes these cataclysmic, and catastrophic, events seem even more poignant and traumatic to me, personally, is the fact that I schooled with some of the children and relatives of some of the victims - for example, I attended St. Peter's Secondary School (PERSCO) with Daniel Acheampong, the publicly recognized favorite son of Gen. Acheampong. Danny was two years my senior. He was widely known to be a hotheaded and haughty dormitory bully, but he never extended his obnoxiousness to me. Whenever we would meet on the verandah stretching across the front of our block-sectional houses - I was in Augustine and he was in either Porres or Luanga (I forget exactly which) - he would nod ever so slightly, albeit politely, in my direction.

I also visited the home of Mrs. Faustina Acheampong, widow of Gen. I. K. Acheampong, with my elder cousin, Chenard Kwame Sintim-Aboagye, in South-Suntreso, several times a year. Mostly it would on such recognized national holidays as Easter and Christmas, and we would drink a generous supply of beer and hard liquor and talk about Akwasi Kutu, whose blown-up portrait hung up the wall over Auntie Faustie's recliner in the livingroom, facing the south. And at Prempeh College, I also schooled with two of the slain Justice Agyepong's sons. And at the City College of New York, I was once introduced to a son of Col. Felli; I believe the Fellis are from Navrongo, or some such municipality up-north. I would also travel to Atwima-Trabuom to meet with Opanyin Kutu, Gen. Acheampong's father.

And so for me, June 4th is a running sore that refuses to heal. It is not a purely academic and/or philosophical question of forgiveness. Rather, it is an emotional and psychical trauma that refuses to go away. Make no mistake, I am well aware of the fact that we are not talking about angels here. But I am also quite certain that unlike Mr. Rawlings, Mr. Acheampong would have been the first to let it be publicly and sternly known that he was no "House-Cleaning Demigod." Uncle Akwasi Kutu was no God (as he once frankly and soberly admitted) to command a torrential rainfall amidst the driest of droughts.

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Department of English

Nassau Community College of SUNY

Garden City, New York

Board Member, The Nassau Review

June 17, 2014

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

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