Reconciliation Commission ends hearings

After 18 months of listening to more than 2,000 accounts of human rights violations, Ghana's National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) has wrapped up public hearings and now sets to work on recommendations to help heal the West African nation's political wounds. The NRC, set up under current president John Kufuor, is investigating human rights abuses committed by all the military governments that have ruled Ghana for most of its 47 years as an independent country. Much of the focus has been on the reign of previous president Jerry John Rawlings. Since the start of 2003, witnesses from all walks of life have come forward to tell of executions and torture, of loved ones disappearing and property being seized, of workers being arbitrarily dismissed from jobs or bosses being fined for being too rich. "Individuals, families, communities have suffered abuses. To each and every one of them, we say we are sorry. We share your pains. We hope that with time your wounds would heal," Kweku Etru Amua-Sekyi, chairman of the nine-member panel, said in a statement after hearings ended on Wednesday. But some on the streets of the capital Accra are still doubtful about what the NRC, which is costing an estimated US$5 million, will actually achieve. "It is natural for those who have a forgiving heart to reconcile with those who wronged them. But at the hearings most people went the extra mile to prove their innocence. It is not a good tone for reconciliation," civil servant Kaba Martin told IRIN on Thursday. Divine Kudjo, an importer, agreed, saying only time would heal the country's wounds. "That is the only positive approach to reconciliation," she said. "The deep-seated self-interest shown by some individuals at the trials is proof that we are far from being reconciled." Many witnesses at the hearings were ordinary Ghanaians, like Afriyie Ibrahim, a trader, who described how she had had a miscarriage three days after being flogged by soldiers in 1982. "They ignored pleas that I was four months' pregnant and pushed me on a large table, held both legs and hands and lashed me on all parts of the body with canes," she explained. Another was Grace Obeng. Her soldier son Stephen had been thrown into jail for offending a "big man" in the army, she testified. Three days later his younger brother received a message asking him to bring water to the prison, only to be arrested himself. When Grace went to visit them she was beaten until she bled. The two brothers were later executed. Other witnesses, including ex-president Rawlings, were extremely high-profile. Rawlings, a former flight lieutenant in the Ghanaian air force, bungled his first attempt at a military coup in 1979, but succeeded two years later. He then spent 19 years as head of state, initially as leader of a military junta and then from 1992 as elected president. Rawlings finally stepped down in 2000 in accordance with the constitution after serving two successive terms. The former head of state was summoned to the NRC hearings in February to answer questions about his alleged role in the killing of a former military colleague in 1984 and the murder and burning of three high-court judges and an army officer in 1982. He told the hearing he was innocent. The NRC has the investigative powers of a high court but cannot bring charges against suspected wrongdoers or sentence them. Instead it aims to establish an accurate, complete and historical record of human rights violations inflicted by people linked to the state. It will then make recommendations for redress to prevent abuses happening again. The NRC has until October 13 to submit its report to President Kufuor, who narrowly defeated Rawlings' chosen successor in the 2000 elections. Rawlings' party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused Kufuor and his National Patriotic Party (NPP) of using the Commission as an election tool ahead of presidential and parliamentary polls at the end of the year. "The date for the submission of the Commission's report is calculated to derail the chances of the NDC in the December elections. It has been timed so that the Government can use the report to chastise the NDC," Ludwig Hlodze, the number two figure in the NDC's youth movement, told IRIN on Thursday.