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Ghana: NDC Distances Itself From Bloody Past
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Accra Mail (Accra)
16 May 2008
Posted to the web 16 May 2008
Accra
Yesterday, May 15 2008 passed off unheralded like any other normal day on the calendar. It was the day nineteen years ago when in a fit of anger about what he perceived as the injustice in the military, ex-Flt. Lt.
Rawlings and a band of other ranks took hostage several officers at the Air Force Station in Burma Camp, Accra. It was a short-lived act of terror that brought the junior officer to public notice.
He was disarmed by superior force and placed in detention to face a court marshal. While in detention, he was sprung out of jail on June 4 1979 by another band of junior officers and other ranks when they launched their own "revolution".
The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) was born and the Flight Lt was made chairman. His political career took off at a dizzying speed that was to culminate in his ownership of a political party. The National Democratic Congress, NDC, owes its existence to that day nineteen years ago when an insubordinate junior officer took his colleagues hostage to express the "anger of the people".
But yesterday, the Deputy General Secretary of the NDC Mr. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, denounced the party's association with the May 15, 1979 coup attempt by their founder, Mr. Jerry John Rawlings.
In a short but lively interview with the ADM Mr. Afriyie Ankrah said, "May 15 is not NDC so why should we remember it".
When asked if it was not relevant to remember such an occasion since the architect of the plot is their founder, the Deputy General Secretary said, "Boakye Gyan and Mr. Rawlings are the only people who can tell you how it was and its relevance". Mr. Afriyie Ankrah's denunciation of May 15 is a major departure from NDC party doctrine that has always tied up the NDC to May 15, June 4 and December 31.
With the "success" of the June 4 "revolution", which lasted for three whirlwind months, Flt. Lt. Rawlings' political future was also established. He went on to stage another military coup on December 31 1981 and formed his Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) which dictated to the country until after the elections of 1992 when it handed over to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) which had been created exclusively to see to the morphing of Rawlings from full military uniform to quasi-civilian garb. May 15 was celebrated under different guises though it was June 4 and December 31 which were elevated into national holidays. They were outlawed in 2000 by a Supreme Court ruling.
June 4 has the dubious reputation for inspiring the execution of three former military heads of state and five senior military officers. June 4's blood thirst was derived from Rawlings' admiration for what had taken place in Ethiopia when Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown and several leading members of his government were executed.
No other "revolution" therefore, except that of Mengitsu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia had been so blood thirsty in the West African sub-region which had witnessed coups and murders of senior political leaders before then. The premeditated nature of the June 4 executions continues to shock and haunt Ghanaian but still Rawlings is quite unrepentant.
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He told This Day, a Nigerian newspaper that they were "Very painful and regrettable, but there was no other way out". It is no wonder that the "new NDC" would want to distance itself from such a bloody past.
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