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General News of Sunday, 31 October 2010

Source: peacefmonline

Don’t Taint Mass Rape Incident With Politics – Ursula Owusu

The Vice President of FIDA International, Ursula Owusu, has express concern about the sudden negative twist to the stunning news that a group of armed robbers forced male passengers aboard a Tamale-bound bus from Accra to have sex with female passengers after robbing them of virtually everything.

What perhaps gripped the attention of the public was the alleged report that the heartless gang forced a man to break his own daughter’s virginity as they poked guns at his head to have sex with the about 14-year-old girl or pay with his life. The driver of the bus on his part was handed five women to have sex with for trying to escape when the robbers tried stopping the bus initially. He was later revived with water.

Speaking on CitiFm, Ursula Owusu said it was disappointing that people are ascribing political motives to Amina, the eyewitness who narrated the incident to PeaceFM and other media outlets.

“I am concerned about the twist this story has taken, I would have wished that people did not ascribe political motives to the lady who has come out to narrate her ordeal,” she said.

According to her, it was too early for anybody to think that it was the work of detractors who want to tarnish the image of the government.

“For me, it is a little too early in the day to claim that it may be detractors who are putting this story up to tarnish the image of the government. I think we need to take our time to dig deeper, find the lady, treat her with the respect she deserves so that we can get the story out of her; this may lead to other people coming forward but if we are too quick to ascribe negative motions to her she might just decide to keep quiet and not say anything about it again,” she said.

“People who have been so traumatized can take such a decision that they will not talk about it but would rather forget about it and bury it in their sub-conscience and hope that it will go away,” she added.

She commended the lady who came out to narrate the incident to serve as a warning to other people who travel in the night.

“We have no way of knowing when, where and how this incident occurred but from what we have heard in the media, she claims that everybody in the bus decided they were not going to talk about it because it was a dehumanizing experience but she came out to talk about is so that we know what is happening on our roads…I was thankful that someone had the guts to come out and expose this horrifying incident,” she added.