Attempt to Stop Awudua Conflict Fails

An attempt by the Waasa West district security council (DISEC) to find an amicable solution to the violent chieftaincy dispute going on at Awudua, a mining town near Tarkwa where people are being beaten and forced out of their homes has backfired.

Information gathered by Chronicle, which was later confirmed by the district chief executive (DCE), Mr. Emmanuel Ayensu, has revealed that the two factions in the dispute were called to a DISEC meeting last Monday and prevailed upon to sign an undertaking not to resort to violence anymore but one of the factions, led by the queen mother, Nana Afia Yaadwo, refused to sign it.

Mr. Ayensu told Chronicle, when he was contacted earlier this week, that initially Nana Yaadwo and her faction agreed to sign the undertaking to protect teachers who had been beaten and forced to leave the town, if only they would return. But they reneged on their promise.

Their reasons, according to the DCE, centered on a clause on maintaining general peace, which was contained in the undertaking they were to sign. Nana Yaadwo and her Krontihene, Nana Asante, who are fighting to destool the substantive chief, Nana Kobina Ango, were reported to have argued that, if they committed themselves by signing the agreement that contained the general peace clause, they could be held liable for any breach of peace or violent attack on people they might not know anything about.

He said though the meeting, which was also attended by the new Omanhene for Wassa Fiase, Nana Kwamena Enimil, prevailed upon the queen mother and her group to sign the undertaking, they still refused because they wielded no absolute control over all their supporters.

Mr. Ayensu also told Chronicle that while the meeting, which ended without the signing of the ceasefire, was going on the district director of education also walked in to inform them that all the teachers at Awudua had packed bag and baggage and left the town because of the constant threats on their lives.

The teachers were reported to have argued that, though they were not indigenes of the town, they had on several occasions been attacked by factions in the dispute suffering the looting of their belongings after their doors were forced opened.

Mr. Ayensu, who is himself a retired educationist trained at the Cape Coast University, said the decision by the teachers to withdraw their services means that innocent school children in the town cannot have access to education through no fault of theirs.

Mr. Isaac Ocansey, the medical assistant manning the local clinic in the town, told reporters at Tarkwa last Monday that he had no intention of returning to Awodua after he and his wife, Madam Sikayena a businesswoman, had been attacked in the night and several injuries inflicted on them.

Madam Sikayena showed reporters several cuts on her body including her breast and said the people who attacked her and her husband used sticks embedded with nails to hit them when they had done nothing to warrant that.

Several other victims also showed the reporters various degrees of injuries they sustained when they were attacked and forced out of their homes in the night. They vowed never to return to the town that has large gold deposits and are being mined by Goldfields Ghana Limited because they are not sure of their.

The medical assistant later told reporters that he had submitted his report about the situation at Awodua to his boss at Tarkwa who was consultating with the regional directorate of Health Services at Sekondi to possibly close down the clinic until such a time that peace would return to the town.

Mr. Ayensu also said as things stand now he has been left with no option than to report the situation and the effort he had so far to the regional minister for him to step in. Meanwhile Nana Kobina Angu, the Apintohene whose jurisdiction extends to Tarkwa and its environs with Awudua as its traditional capital, has accused the security agencies of failing to bring the situation under control.

He said though the 12 policemen sent to the town to maintain law and order were attacked and also taken hostage, they still could not use that as an excuse to leave Awudua to its fate, especially when people were being harassed and forced out of their homes.

Addressing a news conference at Tarkwa last Monday, Nana Angu, who was flanked by most of his sub-chiefs, said he had now been overwhelmed by the number of people who fled the town to seek refuge at Tarkwa and were being fed by him.

He told reporters that it was the same people who attempted to lynch him in December 2001 for failing to secure them jobs at Goldfields that were behind the recent disturbances, which the police are finding difficult to control. Nana said the people now appear to have confidence in whatever they were doing because the Attorney General's Department had still not prosecuted them for attempting to kill him, and burning his new four-wheel drive vehicle to ashes.

When contacted, the regional minister, Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, said so far he had not received any official report from the regional police command that the Tarkwa police could not handle the situation. He nevertheless added that the regional security council would be meeting any moment from last Monday to plan a strategy that would contain the volatile situation.