Ho, Jan. 22, GNA- Professor Henrietta Mensa Bonsu, a member of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) on Thursday urged the citizenry to extend the proverbial Ghanaian hospitality to their fellow countrymen and women wherever they live.
She observed that Ghanaians were more predisposed to extending the warmest reception to foreigners but less tolerant of their compatriots who live among them simply because of their ethnic and tribal backgrounds.
Professor Bonsu made the observation in reaction to Mr View Kwadzo, a fuel dealer at Kpando who testified at the Commission's sitting at Ho that he suspected that his fuel business was torpedoed in 1985 by the local people because he was a stranger.
Prof. Bonsu said evidence had shown that communities which accepted strangers as one of them experienced rapid development from the enterprising nature of those strangers.
Mr Kwadzo told the Commission that in April 1985, a group of soldiers led by one Captain Amedewu from Kpando-Gabi, stormed his fuel station, sold all his stocks of fuel and subjected him to severe beatings and drills.
Mr Kwadzo, who said he hailed from Peki, told the Commission that the soldiers drove him in their vehicle to the Palace of the late Togbe Dagadu where he overhead the Captain say "we have got the man," suggesting to him that his ordeal was planned.
He said he was taken to the Volta Barracks at Ho and kept in a guardroom where he met several people who introduced themselves to him as Special Branch personnel.
Mr Kwadzo said one day while in the guardroom, he thought aloud, wishing he had somebody to inform Major Anthony Ameyibor, then Commanding Officer of the Regiment of his detention.
He said the following day, Major Ameyibor heard of him and ordered that he should be released, but Captain Amedewu said he should not. Mr Kwadzo said for the one month that he was in the guardroom, a red light was kept constantly on him, thus blurring eyesight of the inmates and that on a daily basis, soldiers came to pick some of the inmates ostensibly for Accra but ended up killing them.
He said he was drilled and beaten on several occasions, resulting in severe waist pains, an X-ray of which he showed Commission members. Mr Kwadzo said he gained his freedom when Major Ameyibor chanced on him in the Operations room one day and expressed surprise that he was still there and ordered that he and one Mr Mawudoku, a colleague fuel dealer, should be released.
He said he had since lost his business and been subsisting on backyard gardening.
Mr Kwadzo said his ordeal and losses were painful and hard to forgive, but he would consider the Commission's advice to forgive those responsible.
Professor Florence Dolphyne, a member of the Commission observed that the failure of Captain Amedewu to take instructions from his Commanding Officer to release the petitioner showed the extent to which indiscipline took hold of the military during the period.
General Emmanuel Erskine, another member of the Commission, expressed sympathy with Mr Kwadzo, saying, though painful, it was a useful experience to share with other Ghanaians such experiences.
