Free Press

"Efforts at national reconciliation...Pianim advocates forgiveness", is the screamer on the front page of the Free Press. In the accompanying story, the paper says mr Kwame Pianim, an economic consultant and a politician, was "a victim of Rawlings' PNDC tyranny. he suffered a long prison term for his political beliefs". For this, the paper says Mr Pianim missed a golden opportunity in "a controversial court decision" to realise his dream of contesting for the highest office of the land, the presidency, adding, "yet Mr Pianim debunked vengeance as the way to heal past wounds". The Free Press reporting on the "1998 Fifth John Kugblenu Lectures delivered by Mr Pianim in Accra recently, quotes him as saying, "Leave the perpetrators of the wrongs to their conscience...and let nygones be bygones". The paper says the occasion itself demanded hostility since John Kugblenu in whose name the lectures were instituted, was also another victim of oppression. Mr Pianim, the paper says, described Mr Kugblenu as "a man of valour who paid the ultimate price in the fight for freedom of expression, the keynote of democracy". GRI