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Editorial News of Monday, 4 June 2001

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June 4 made mistakes - Rawlings

The Dispatch says as the nation remembers what happened 22 years ago - June 4, 1979, the day ceases to be a statutory public holiday. Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings reportedly, gave his verdict on June 4 years ago, which the paper recaps.

Addressing a press conference in Accra on June 4, 1981 to mark the second anniversary, the Flt. Lt. said the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) could not achieve its goals and admitted that the Council made mistakes.

A Daily Graphic report, which also quoted Rawlings, described as a leading member of the June 4 Movement, said "it was the monkey's refusal to pick one nut at a time out of the gourd that led to his downfall" adding that "those who make a peaceful revolution impossible make a violent revolution inevitable."

The Flt. Lt. who was Chairman of the AFRC then explained that the Council could not achieve "the wholly new society", it cherished within the three and half months that it was in power. He also admitted that the council also made mistakes and the task it set itself could not be fully accomplished, that "but at least we provided some corrective measures to earlier abuses of military rule."