Rawlings complains to Media Comission

Former president Jerry John Rawlings has protested to the National Media Commission (NMC) about what he described as the persistent campaign of vilification against him and his family by the “Crusading Guide, the Daily Dispatch and the Daily Guide.”

A statement from the office of the former president and signed by his special assistant and director of public affairs, Victor Smith requested the NMC, by virtue of Article 167 (b) of the Constitution, to investigate “the use of certain allegations in the above referenced newspapers to tarnish president Rawlings’ reputation and to invade his privacy.”

Ex-president Rawlings dissociated himself from all forms of interference in the activities of journalists in the pursuit of their profession, the statement said.

The statement noted that to the objective mind, there appeared to be a syndicated attempt by the above referenced newspapers to draw the former president into matters they were raising and possibly subject him and his family to public ridicule.

The statement contended that apart from the general disaffection towards both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the former president that those allegations might create, it might also provide an opportunity for agent provocateur and rogue elements within the State Security apparatus who may choose to escalate matters by stage-managing an attempt to harm media practitioners.

The former president values freedom of expression and indeed provided a facilitative environment for the nurturing of freedom of speech and proliferation of private media during his time in office, the statement said.

“It is contradictory therefore to suggest that the ex-president or anyone associated with him would want to carry out the types of threats being peddled in the media,” it pointed out further.

It said, “President Rawlings would like the good people of this country and elsewhere to know that he will not react to lying agents of a persistently lying government.”

According to the statement, lessons from other parts of the world suggested that in cases of sustained allegations of threats directed principally against members of the opposition, agents of ruling governments or even complainants themselves tended to be the real manufacturers of the allegations in question.

“The use of newspapers for strictly political purposes and for channeling unbalanced information that denigrate individuals is something we ought to condemn”, it stated. It reminded the NMC that it would be failing in its duty if it did not urgently “stem the tide of deliberate and orchestrated harassment and vilification of the former First Family by certain press houses.”