FIND THE KILLERS

The Alliance for Change (AFC) unhesitatingly condemns the terror and unrestrained violence unleashed by the police on defenceless demonstrators, protesting against the deplorable sanitary conditions at Nima on Friday, October 31, 1997.

As a direct result of the police assault, involving the use of armoured vehicle and the firing of live bullets into crowds of protestors, at least two people are known to have died with several others sustaining various degrees of injuries.

The fact that juveniles such as 16 - year old Sulley Iddrisu was killed by a gunshot in the chest, and Yusuf Abdallah, 16, and Yayiba Sumaila, 14, received bullet wounds is the clearest demonstratrion of the irresponsibility and unrestrained violence exhibited by the police in this incident. This fact alone condemns the police action as indefensible.

The AFC sees this episode as part of continuing trend of quick recourse to violence as a means of repressing the citizen's rights to free expression and protest against bad government policies and practices and solving deep-seated social and economic problems.

We recall that only last year, the police opened fire with live bullets on demonstrating artisans in KUMASI, KILLING ONE AND INJURING SEVERAL OTHERS. The police have also been unable to account for the Bilfinger and Berger shooting of last November.

On May 11, 1995, mobsters organised under the banner of the Association of Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (ACDRS) opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, protesting against the imposition of the Value Added Tax (VAT) . In the process, four persons including a teenage student died and scores of others were injured.

The violence of May 11, 1995 had been proceeded by similar incidents on the campuses of the University of Ghana and the Institute of Professional Studies, leading to the shooting of Miss Vida Ofori.

It is interesting that to date none of those responsible for these killings has been identified and punished, as a deterrent. Rather high ranking State and Government functionaries have made public statements justifying the use of brute and unwarranted force against unarmed civilians legitimately protesting against deplorable, social and economic conditions.

From all indications, the use of excessive force in quelling demonstrations is designed to frighten the population into abandoning its rights and to allow the Rawlings regime to do as it pleases with the future of Ghana and her people.

Far from cowing the people, these senseless shootings rather expose the NDC government for what it is and provide the groundswell for the inevitable mass struggles against a bankrupt and corrupt government, whose economic policies and management have reduced vast sections of our population to destitution.

This shooting of defenceless civilians is too many. The culprits and those of other killings must be brought to book.

We call for the immediate establishment of a full scale committee of enquiry into the shootings at Nima and all such incidents with a view to identifying the killers and their masters and dealing with them according to the laws of Ghana.

We also call on the political parties and all independent mass organisations such as the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) to join in the effort to find justice for the victims of these acts of violence.

End.