By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
The decision by the Government to establish an ultra-modern international airport on the land which for decades has habored the infamous Bundase Military Range is quite laudable and may well be smack-dab in order (See "Bundase Camp Seized from Military" Ghanaian Chronicle / Ghanaweb.com 10/5/13).
I choose to call it the Bundase Military Range, rather than the all-too-professionally-benign Bundase Military Camp, because it was the criminal appropriation of the Military Range in the brutal assassination of the three Akan-descended Accra High Court judges that brought global notoriety to the existence of the camp. And, of course, the aforesaid criminal liquidation of Justices Koranteng-Addow, Sarkodie and Agyepong occurred in the night of June 30, 1982.
What made this heinous crime remarkable in the annals of Ghana's political history, was the vehement denial by the leader of the so-called Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC), then-Flt.-Lt. (Rtd.) Jerry John Rawlings, that his half-junta government had neither any knowledge nor involvement in this patent act of criminality against global humanity. It would shortly turn out that, indeed, not only had the PNDC been up-to-its-neck deeply and actively involved, but that at least two prominent members of Mr. Rawlings' cabinet, including his widely feared and mistrusted National Security Advisor and tribesman, Capt. (Rtd.) Kojo Tsikata, may well have both orchestrated and ordered the summary execution of the three high court judges (See the Azu-Crabbe Commission's Special Investigations Board Report).
My primary objective for writing this article is to passionately appeal to the government-of-the-day, rather than the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, per se, to set aside land space for the construction of a Museum of Atrocities Against Global Humanity in memory of the slain judges. Of course, I am well aware of the erection of marble statuettes in memory of Justices Koranteng-Addow, Sarkodie and Agyepong by the J. A. Kufuor-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). The significance of the Museum of Atrocities Against Global Humanity, inheres in the fact that it would more appropriately consecrate the mnemonic humanity of the slain judges, being that it would have been established in the very location in which the victims met their cold-blooded executions, just as the aviation gateway into the country, the eponymous Kotoka International Airport (KIA) was established in the very location in which the leader of the landmark February 24, 1966 revolution was callously and unconscionably slain by some of his lackeys and associates.
Above all, the establishment of such a museum would serve as a hallowed perpetual reminder of some of the heinous activities that have been savagely undertaken in the name of the sovereign people of the postcolonial Republic of Ghana. It would also serve as a revenue-generating tourist attraction and a historic learning site for Ghanaian students, scholars, historians and political scientists and their foreign counterparts alike.
It is also hoped and strongly suggested that the most generous of compensations would be awarded the chiefs and people of the areas targeted for the proposed construction of the international airport, including reliable and perennial project-related employment for the natives and local residents, as well as the general upgrading of the sociocultural and economic standards of the people.
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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
Oct. 6, 2013
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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