The Dispatch

The Dispatch carries a front page screamer which says: "General Abacha should not be condemned - Rawlings". The paper says President Jerry Rawlings in an interview with the "Business in Africa" magazine, has defended the one-party system of government as appropriate for many African countries and urged the world not to condemn the late Nigerian leader, General Sani Abacha. The Dispatch quotes President Rawlings as telling the magazine that "a great deal of progress was achieved when I was in uniform because we did not have a constitutional or multi-party system with all its complications. "We could have achieved more had we continued with our (one party) system. That is not to say I am against multi-party democracy, but I think it has to be constructive", he is reported as saying. According to the paper President Rawlings continued that: "I am a product of a military institution, that was my last place of employment before I got this position. As a result of the experience we went through, the aspirations, the assumptions, the desires of the mass of our people had synchronised with the security apparatus." "After we took over and did what we had to do, and having subjected ourselves to an electoral process on two occasions, finding myself here today is an acknowledgement that before I can claim to be a military man, I am first and foremost, a civilian", he was reported as saying.. GRi