Former Presidential cook appears before NRC

Accra, March 12, GNA- Madam Elizabeth Kwao, a former cook in late President Nkrumah's household, on Friday prayed the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to recommend compensation for the loss of her personal effects after the overthrow of the former President in 1966.

The Witness, who said she was a niece to late President Nkrumah said soldiers fired shots at where she was staying at the Accra Zoo Area, as they advanced towards the place, making Madam Elizabeth Nyaniba, Dr Nkrumah' mother collapse.

She said she (Mad Kwao) was then a young woman who stayed together with her mother Susanna Donkor and Madam Nyaniba.

She said Madam Nyaniba was sent to the 37 Military Hospital, while she and her mother were sent to the 37 Hospital Guardroom with an assurance for them to come for their properties later, but soldiers however, did not allow them to collect their properties later.

She said after the incident, she was moved to work in the State House but left when her salary was not paid for three months.

Another Witness, Mr Joseph Nnede Minlah, who said he was an uncle to Dr Nkrumah spoke of military raid of his drinking bar, Corner Bar at the Nyaniba Estate, on an account of being a relative of Nkrumah, and prayed the Commission to recommend an appropriate recommendation for him.

Soldiers beat me for selling kerosene above the normal fare

Accra, March 12, GNA- Madam Adwoa Sanoa, from Dunkwa Domenase who appeared before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) said in 1979, soldiers arrested her for selling kerosene above the control price and severely beat her up until she had miscarriage.

She said she was helping her uncle, Mr. Amoah to sell the kerosene adding that they bought the kerosene at three pesewas and sold it at four pesewas.

Madam Sanoa, who said the soldiers initially asked for her uncle but arrested her, instead since he was not in. Witness said the soldiers sold the kerosene, stripped her and severely beat her till she began to bleed. She said she became ill and was admitted at the hospital for six months.

She said they later arrested her uncle, and severely beat him up adding that he became bedridden. Justice Amua-Sekyi, Chairman of the Commission expressed regret about the soldiers having to beat a pregnant woman till she had miscarriage.

Madam Ama Asantewaa, a Rice Farmer also from Dunkwa Domenase also told the NRC that soldiers seized and auctioned her 10 bags of rice on June 4, 1979 and took the proceeds.

She said she bought the 10 bags of rice on credit which she was going to sell to pay the creditor later adding that the soldiers stopped the vehicle on her way to Agona Nkwanta and seized the rice.

Witness said the soldiers threatened to take her and another colleague whose goods were also sold to Apramdo to be beaten. She said the two of them were carrying their babies and managed to escape.

Madam Asantewaa said she later became a labourer in a cocoa farm at Sehwi Buako adding that she used her earnings to pay back the debt.

Soldiers molested my father- Witness

Accra, March 12, GNA- Madam Yaa Ntiwaa, a Witness, on Friday told the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), that soldiers molested her father, and two others after the June 4 1979 coup in Dunkwa on Offin. The Witness, who travelled from Mradan, near Dunkwa-on Offin, in the Central Region, where she said the incident took place, sobbed as she narrated the ordeal that her father, Opanin Kwabena Mensah, and the two others, Opanin Kofi Mensah and Kofi Frimpong, went through, at the hands of the soldiers.

She said the soldiers did not give the reason for picking his father, who died later.

Madam Ntiwaa said two armed soldiers forcibly opened her father's door at dawn, and just put his cloth around his neck when he got up, brutalised and marched him to the queen mother's palace where he met the two others who had already been arrested.

She said the soldiers paraded her father and Opanin Mensah, and continued brutalising them, adding that at one point a soldier slapped her father and sent him reeling on the ground, but restrained her father's colleague from lifting him off the ground. She said the soldier had asked them to take turns to slap each other, and her father gave a weak slap.

Madam Ntiwaa said the soldiers continued beating the two men for the three miles that they walked from the queenmother's house to Dunkwa on Offin, and continued brutalising them till 1500 hours before releasing them.

"My father had a swollen cheek a twisted neck when he returned home. He found it difficult shaking his head, and felt as if there was some water in his head", Madam Ntiwaa said, adding that the skin on his father's face peeled off on the towel, when she was massaging him. When her father died later, his body began decomposing after 30 minutes and he was hurriedly buried.

Opanin Kofi Mensah, who Madam Ntiwaa mentioned in her testimony, confirmed that story and added that the name of one of the soldiers was Sgt Ewusi.

He named the place they were taken to in Dunkwa as Bungalow No 1. Opanin Mensah said he was arrested for refusing to take part in communal labour on the farm of a private person, which the regent of the town, called S.K. and chairman one Akwasi Seidu organised in the name of the stool of the town

He said the soldiers hit his chest with the butt of their guns in the queenmother's house, and in Bungalow No 1, when the soldiers had taken some alcoholic drink they had seized, they took turns and gave him 120 lashes.

One of them stepped on his groin, he said, and added, that he has since had a dislocation in the groin.

Opanin Mensah said his wife who was also beaten when he was arrested fled into the bush and, died three months later.

He prayed the Commission to recommend as appropriate compensation for him.

Another Witness, Opanin Kwaku Fokuo, from Dunkwa Denyase, said some three soldiers from Kumasi auctioned the contents of his wholesale store in 1982, and has since lost his business.

CPP activist wants seized building given back to the party

Accra, March 12, GNA - Mr John Kojo Mensah, a Farmer from Tarkwa and member of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) on Friday appealed to the National Reconciliation Commission to retrieve an office building belonging to the party in Tarkwa that was seized during the 1966 coup. He said the building, sited at the "Nzema Line Old market", was constructed out of contributions from CPP members, adding that it was raised to the lintel level when policemen seized it with some of the building materials.

Mr Mensah, who said the party members in Tarkwa mandated him to file the petition, could not provide any documents to support his claim and that the police seized the documents.

He said before the foundation for the building was erected, one Mr Hooper, now deceased, then chairman of the local branch of the party, provided a piece of gold that was buried in the ground to signify the party's importance.

The Witness said the building was completed after the coup but was used by one of the Ministries.

Mr Mensah also filed a second petition for his late brother, Boakye Yiadom, who he said, died of injuries from a severe flogging by some soldiers a year before.

Mr Mensah said his brother was a storekeeper and that after flogging his brother, the soldiers who he called "Killer and his gang" sold all his goods.

He said his brother was diabetic and that since he had no money to take good care of himself, his wounds deteriorated and he died a year later in hospital.

Another Witness Madam Diana Abban from Dunkwa Dominase, told the Commission of how a tenant reported his uncle, Mr Mento, to soldiers at Bungalow No 1, after attempting to eject the tenant in 1982. She said some members of the then People's Defence Committee, (PDC) and the tenant came to arrest the uncle, but when they did not meet him turned to her mother.

She said a soldier slapped her mother when he asked of the key to his uncle's room.

The soldiers forced the door open and ordered her mother and the PDC people to face the wall and then searched the room and took some of the uncle's properties away.

Madam Abban said he soldiers then asked the tenants in the 12 rooms of the house to stop paying the rent to his mother and pay it to the PDC. She was also not to collect the proceeds of oil palm seedlings, which belonged to her uncle.

Madam Abban said there was no document on the confiscation of the house, but the PDC collected the rent and the proceeds from the seedlings for one an half years before giving back the house upon an appeal from her mother.

Ex W/O Jomo Ghanatta, another Witness, who was on peace- keeping mission in Lebanon on Ghanbatt 21 in 1983/84 complained of being a victim to Ofori Electronics.

He said the troops made orders for goods for delivery at home. He said he lost 19 packets of roofing sheets, each then valued at 19 dollars.

The ex Warrant officer appealed to the Commission to invite Ofori Electronics to the Commission to explain its failure to deliver the goods.

General Alexander Erskine said the Commission was in touch with Ministry of Defence on the case of Ofori Electronics, and announced to all troops, but had not petitioned the Commission to contact him with the Cost Insurance Freight document as the Commission goes about that case.