The Untold Saga Of Rawlings’ Ghastly Rule

PNDC Secretary spills the bean:
A great deal of effort will have to be made to fill the void when the history of Ghana comes to be written, as not much of the dark and bloody 19-years regime of ex-President Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings has been told in an orderly manner, says onetime Secretary to the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), Mr. B. B. D. Asamoah.

According to Mr. Asamoah, it was so risky to write about the evil practices that went on during the Rawlings era since engaging the ex-President in a debate or offering a dissenting view on any issue was a punishable offence.

He said the political style that equates political opposition and dissenting view to animosity was the way of life during JJ’s PNDC era.

The 80-year year old pensioner told this paper in an interview that he served in detention on several occasions for his open and blunt criticism of the PNDC, stressing that this was the cause for the many killings and sufferings during the regime.

A mere wave of handkerchief on any occasion was considered as an anti government gesture to be suppressed by very cruel measures and that it is this political culture that makes the PNDC the most unjust, dark, cruel and evil regime since the country’s independence.

“It is the same culture that resulted into why people allowed official deceit, crime, lies, incompetence and irresponsibility to reign from the high-ups without protest”, the former PNDC Secretary noted.

For him, what is needed to move this country forward is to conscientise the minds of Ghanaians on some of these events for people to acknowledge the fact that politics is not a matter of winner takes all, but rather the understanding of the factors that make democracy thrive.

He argued that it is also about taking informed decisions for the development, betterment and progress of the nation, something he suggested must be undertaken by the Kufuor administration if it is to enhance its political clout and score wins in the nation’s contemporary political history.

In a letter written to President Kufuor, Mr Asamoah wonders why, in his view, the present administration continuous to “protect and co-operate with murderers, torturers, tyrants, looters and thieves”.

Drawing Christian inspiration from Good Friday, he wrote that two thousand and six years ago this Friday, March 30, 2007, Jesus Christ was put to death by execution, saying the young Jesus was killed because he was preaching against crime and sin on earth.

Mr Asamoah’s letter to President Kufuor stated that “in the fifty years of Ghana’s failed independence, many good men and women have died, murdered in various ways”, an incident he wished the present regime investigate.

This paper can confirm that Mr Asamoah personally sent the letter to the President’s office at the Castle in the morn