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Brief Biography: J.J. Rawlings
His Excellency the Former President of Ghana, Flt Lt (rtd) Jerry John Rawlings was born on the June 22nd, 1947 in Accra and was twice the head of state of Ghana.
His first political appearance on the Ghanaian scene was on May 15, 1979 when an unsuccessful coup d'état he led resulted in his arrest, imprisonment, and a death sentence. But before he could be executed, his friends in the Ghana military led by Junior Officers and the ranks overthrew the then military government of General Fred Akuffo in a coup on June 4, 1979.
The Junior Officers and the ranks set Rawlings free from prison, and installed him as head of the new government - the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC).The AFRC handed over power to Dr. Hilla Limann who won the popular vote in the election to establish the Third Republic. Less than two years later, Dr. Limann's civilian and constitutional government was overthrown again by Jerry Rawlings on December 31, 1981. He then installed the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) regime.
After two terms in office, barred by the constitution from standing in any election, he anointed his vice-president John Atta-Mills as his choice to replace him as President. Ghanaians rejected his choice in the 2000 election by voting for the opposition NPP's candidate, John Kufuor.
He is a product of Achimota School, and married to Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings and has four children: three girls and a boy. He is the joint recipient of the 1993 World Hunger Award.
Military Career
In March, 1968, he was posted to Takoradi in the Western Region to continue his studies. He graduated in January 1969, and was commissioned a Pilot Officer, winning the coveted "Speed Bird Trophy" as the best cadet in flying and airmanship. He earned the rank of Flight Lieutenant (Flt. Lt.) in April 1978.During his service with the Ghanaian Air Force, Rawlings perceived a deterioration of discipline and morale, reflecting the corruption of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) at that time. As promotion brought him into contact with the privileged classes and their social values, his view of the injustices in society hardened. He was thus regarded with some unease by the SMC. He read widely and discussed social and political ideas with a growing circle of like-minded friends and colleagues.
On May 28, 1979, Rawlings, together with six others who were arrested earlier, appeared before a General Court Martial in Accra, charged with leading a mutiny of junior officers and enlisted men of the Ghanaian Armed Forces on May 15, 1979. There was strong public reaction, especially after his statement had been read in court, explaining the social injustices that had prompted him to act. The ranks of the Armed Forces, in particular, expressed deep sympathy with his stated aims.
{sidebar id=10 align=right}Military Coup
When he was scheduled for another court appearance on 4 June 1979, Rawlings was sprung from custody. With the support of both the military and civilians, he led a coup that ousted the Supreme Military Council from office and brought the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) to power.The AFRC, under the chairmanship of Rawlings, carried out a much wider "house-cleaning exercise" aimed at purging the armed forces and society at large of corruption and graft as well as restoring a sense of moral responsibility and accountability in public life.
On 24th September 1979, the AFRC handed over power to a civilian government led by the People's National Party (PNP), under President Hilla Limann.On 31st December 1981, a Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), composed of both civilian and military members, was established with Rawlings as Chairman. In his second tenure in power, Rawlings' policies became more centrist, and he began to advocate free-market reforms.
However, despite the country's economic success, the Ghanaian government was criticized both at home and abroad for committing numerous abuses of human rights.In the early 1990s, the economy of Ghana was still not performing as well as it had in the early 1970s, on the other hand, the basic needs of the citizens were being met, many of them by domestic products, and the economy showed steady improvement with guidance from the International Monetary Fund.
Rawlings's reputation on foreign policy received a boost when he acted as a key figure in a mediated peace settlement between factions in nearby Liberia, a nation burdened by five years of civil war.
Democratic President
Citizens began demanding a more democratic form of government as the 1990s progressed. Rawlings answered this demand by forming a National Commission for Democracy (NCD), empowered to hold regional debates and formulate some suggestions for a transition to multi-party democracy. Although opposition groups complained that the NCD was too closely associated with the PNDC, the commission continued its work through 1991. In March of that year the NCD released a report recommending the election of an executive president, the establishment of a national assembly, and the creation of a prime minister post.
The PNDC accepted the report, and the following year Rawlings legalized political parties--with the provision that none could use names that had been used before--and set a timetable for presidential elections.When these presidential elections were held in 1992, Rawlings stood as the candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the successor party to the PNDC. Although his opponents were given access to television and newspaper coverage and to the freedom of the press had been lifted--no single candidate could match the popularity of the sitting head of state. Election returns on November 3, 1992, revealed that Rawlings had won 58.3 percent of the vote, for a landslide victory. Foreign observers declared the voting to be "free and fair."
Almost immediately, the leaders of the country's opposition parties claimed that the presidential election was not fair, and that widespread abuses had occurred. The leaders encouraged their followers to boycott subsequent parliamentary elections, with the result being that NDC candidates won 189 of 200 seats in the new parliament. Rawlings was therefore accorded a four-year term backed by an elected assembly of supporters for his platform. Answering questions of polling place irregularities, he promised to initiate a new voter registration program to be completed in time for elections in 1996.
Source:jjrawlings.info/about.html
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Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
Synopsis: In 1988, when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma, the mass slaughter of protesters against the brutal rule of strongman U Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights. In July 1989 the government placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, a state she has been in ever since. In 1991, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts.
{sidebar id=10 align=right}(born June 19, 1945, Rangoon, Burma [now Yangon, Myanmar]) Myanmar opposition leader, daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero of independent Burma) and Khin Kyi (a prominent Burmese diplomat), and winner in 1991 of the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father, then the de facto prime minister of what would shortly become independent Burma, was assassinated. She attended schools in Burma until 1960, when her mother was appointed ambassador to India.
After further study in India, she attended the University of Oxford, where she met her future husband. She had two children and lived a rather quiet life until 1988, when she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother.
There the mass slaughter of protesters against the brutal and unresponsive rule of the military strongman U Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.
In July 1989 the military government of the newly named Union of Myanmar placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and held her incommunicado. The military offered to free her if she agreed to leave Myanmar, but she refused to do so until the country was returned to civilian government and political prisoners were freed.
The newly formed group with which she became affiliated, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won more than 80 percent of the parliamentary seats that were contested in 1990, but the results of that election were ignored by the military government (in 2010 the military government formally annulled the results of the 1990 election).
Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest in July 1995. The following year she attended the NLD party congress, but the military government continued to harass both her and her party. In 1998 she announced the formation of a representative committee that she declared was the country's legitimate ruling parliament.
The military junta once again placed her under house arrest from September 2000 to May 2002. Following clashes between the NLD and pro-government demonstrators in 2003, the government returned her to house arrest.
Calls for her release continued throughout the international community in the face of her sentence's annual renewal, and in 2009 a United Nations body declared her detention illegal under Myanmar's own law. In 2008 the conditions of her house arrest were somewhat loosened, allowing her to receive some magazines as well as letters from her children.
In May 2009, shortly before her most recent sentence was to be completed, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest after an intruder (a U.S. citizen) entered her house compound and spent two nights there. In August she was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, though the sentence immediately was reduced to 18 months, and she was allowed to serve it while remaining under house arrest.
At the time of her conviction, the belief was widespread both within and outside of Myanmar that this latest ruling was designed to prevent Aung from participating in multiparty parliamentary elections (the first since 1990) scheduled for 2010.
This suspicion became reality through a series of new election laws enacted in March 2010: one prohibited individuals from any participation in elections if they had been convicted of a crime (as she had been in 2009), and another disqualified anyone who was married to a foreign national from running for office (her husband was British).
In support of Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD refused to reregister under these new laws (as was required) and was disbanded. The government parties faced little opposition in the Nov. 7, 2010, election and easily won an overwhelming majority of legislative seats amid widespread allegations of voter fraud.
Aung was released from house arrest six days after the election and vowed to continue her opposition to military rule.
Copyright © 1994-2011 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa
JusticeGhana Military Personality today is General A.A. Afrifa
The OmanbaPa Research Group
General Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa, together with General I.K Acheampong and General Federick William Kwasi Akuffo, alongside five senior military officers: Amedume, Boakye, Felli, Kotei and Utuka, were executed by firing squad on 26 June 1979, after the 4 June Uprising, that was staged by the then Captain Kojo Boakye Djan. This ushered in the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), to be headed by one Flt-Lt J.J. Rawlings.
Born on 24 April 1936, in Asante Mampong, in Asante Region, the young Akwasi began his elementary education at Presbyterian Boys Boarding School, Mampong. Between 1952 and 1957, Akwasi was at Adisadel College, Cape Coast, where he obtained his secondary education. He was enlisted into the Ghana Armed Forces in 1958 and had his officers’ cadet training in Ghana and later at Mons Officers Cadet School, Sandhurst (1958-1960), in UK.
In 1960, Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Ghana Armed Forces and served as General Staff Officer in the army from 1962 up to 1964. He also attended the Defence College, at Teshie in Accra. He is said to be one of the outstanding soldiers sent to serve with the United Nations peace operation in the Lumumbas Congo.
By 1965 Afrifa was staff officer in charge of army training and operations, in Kumase, which served as the headquarters of the Second Infantry Brigade (the HQ of the Northern Command). Military historians have it that it was this enviable position at the training school that motivated and probably imbued him with the courage and certainty of overthrowing the leadership of the Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and his then one party state of Ghana.
Afrifa eventually came to military and political limelight on 24 February 1966 where together Lieutenant-Colonel Kotoka, led a joint southern-northern military exercise codenamed: “Operation Cold Chop”- a military exercise that out staged Nkrumah-led Convention Convention People’s Party while the Osagyefo was on peace mission in far away Vietnam.
But legend has it that President Nkrumah persuaded young Afrifa to join the army. This was upon the impression he formed about Afrifa when he once visited Adisco. Professor Adu Boahen has this to write about the 1966 coup: “…Shortly before 6.00am on that day a strange voice, later identified as that of Major A.A. Afrifa, asked Radio Ghana’s listeners to stay by their radios for an important announcement. Later, Col. E.K. Kotoka burst on air with:
Fellow Ghanaians, I have come to inform you that the Military, in co-operation with the Ghana Police, have taken over the government of Ghana today. The myth surrounding Nkrumah has been broken. Parliament is dissolved and Kwame Nkrumah is dismissed from office. All Ministers are also dismissed. The Convention People’s Party is disbanded with effect from now. It will be illegal for any person to belong to it. We appeal to you to be calm and co-operative. All persons in detention will be released in due course. Please stay by your radios and await further details.” That marks the beginning of Afrifa’s political bid in Ghana.
By 1969, following the resignation of General Ankara as head of state and Chairman of National Liberation Council (NLC), had been installed head of state of Ghana and leader of that military junta that he was a main character. He became the Chairman of the Presidential Commission between 1969 and 1970 when the second republican rule was restored and bestowed on ‘opposition leader’ Dr K.A. Busia-led Progress Party on 03 September 1969.
General AKwasi Amankwa- known by his admirers as Okatakyie retired from the army and embarked on farming at his home village in Krobo, near Asante Mampong, in Sekyere West District. Yet, his continued passion for politics never waned. He championed the cause of Popular Movement for Freedom and Justice that thwarted the aspirations of General I.K. Acheampong’s Union Government project which sought to establish one party state.
It came as no surprise when in 1978, the Kutu-led National Redemption Council (NRC) that toppled the PP government that he helped installed in 1969, had no option but to arrest and detain him.
Yet, that was not the political end-tunnel of the Okatakyie who is speculated to have warned Kwesi Akufo-led Supreme Military Council about the dangers that JJ Rawlings and his 15 May mutineers, posed to their collective security. Until his death, the Okatakyie was a staunch member of Paa Willie-led United National Convention (UNC) and the Abakomahene of Krobo.
The former head of state was elected Member of Parliament in 1979 but failed to take up his seat at the Third Republican Parliament. He was untimely executed at the prime age of 43 together with two other former heads of state- Acheampong and Akuffo whom he had earlier cautioned about the future.
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JusticeGhana.com
Betty Mould-Iddrisu
Minister of Education
Date of Birth: 22/03/1953
Education: LLB, University of Ghana, Legon, 1973-76; LLM, London School of Economics, United Kingdom, 1978; BL, Ghana School of Law.
Career: Copyright Administrator, Head of Industrial Property Law Division, and Head of International Law Division, Ministry of Justice, Ghana, 1978-2003; Co-founder, African Women Lawyers Association, 1999; Director and Chief Legal Advisor, Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, UK, 2003-2009; Minister for Justice and Attorney General, 2009-11; Minister of Education, 2011 to date
Commentary: Betty Mould-Iddrisu is Ghana's first female Attorney General and was once tipped to be President John Atta Mills's running mate in the 2008 presidential elections. She is married to Mahama Iddrisu, who served as an advisor and Defence Minister under the Jerry Rawlings government. According to some commentators, Rawlings's wife Nana Konadu encouraged President Mills to appoint Mould-Iddrisu as Attorney General.
Some National Democratic Congress (NDC) party members have called for Mould-Iddrisu to take up a different position in government. They are angered by her failure to prosecute former New Patriotic Party (NPP) officials for alleged corruption during their time in office.
Source: Africa Confidential
Ignatius Kutu Acheampong
The OmanbaPa Research Group
As part of our efforts to travel back to the memory lane, we shall randomly, be focusing on some of the past times of Ghanaian statesmen and women.
JusticeGhana Military Personality today is General I.K Acheampong
General I.K. Acheampong, together with General Akwasi Amankwaa Afrifa and General Federick William Kwasi Akuffo alongside five senior military officers: Amedume, Boakye, Felli, Kotei and Utuka, were executed by firing squad on 26 June 1979.
This was after the 4 June Uprising, staged by the then Captain Kojo Boakye Djan. The June 4 Military coup ushered in the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), which was to be headed by one Flt-Lt Jerry John Rawlings.
Born on 23 September 1931, in Kumase, Asante Region, young Kutu’s early education began in Trabuom Elementary School, St. Peter’s Catholic School, Kumase, and Central College of Commerce, at Agona Swedru, in the Central Region. He had to his credit Middle School Certificate; GCE ‘O’ Level and a Diploma in Commerce.
Acheampong then undertook various jobs related to his qualifications until he was enlisted into the Gold Coast Frontier Force as a recruit in 1951. Like the late Colonel Baidoo, Private Acheampong, rose through the ranks and by 1969, had become one of the few influential Akan military officers in the Ghana Armed Forces.
According to military historians, this brought Acheampong closer to civilian politics when power was handed over to democratically elected government of Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia in 1969.
Rumours have it that the then “Brigade-Major” Acheampong, upon recommendation of former Head of State General Afrifa, became not only a close pal to Prime Minister Busia but also, to his ruling Progress Party (PP) which he toppled on 13 January 1972.
Col Acheampong, later General, ruled as a head of state of Ghana from that date until his second-in-command, General F.W.K Akufo also deposed him in a palace coup on 5 July 1978.
Acheampong’s National Redemption Council (NRC) which he formed in the early years of his rule but later transformed into the Supreme Military Council on 9 October 1975, when he promoted himself from a Colonel to a General, is said to be one of the successful military regimes in Ghana’s political history.
The most cited policies of the said Nkrumahist sympathizer Acheampong, were the introduction and implementation of the change from the imperial to the metric system of measurement and the change from driving on the left to right-hand drive- dubbed: “Operation Keep Right” (Nifa, nifa… naa nyin).
Genereal Ignatius Kutu Acheampong had passion for agriculture so his Agriculture Commissioner- Colonel Bernasko, sought to imprint development based on ‘Operation Feed Yourself’- self-reliance in agriculture, in the minds of the Ghanaian.
Acheampong’s regime is well remembered for its National Reconstruction initiative geared towards employment promotion and skill training for workers. Projects such street lights reconstruction and upgrading of stadia to meet global standards, can hardly be ignored.
But not only these- the introduction of the Charter of Redemption and the National Pledge recited in schools, are perhaps, enduring legacies that successive regimes have failed to uphold. So, Acheampong could be described as a leader who promoted national unity.
There were indeed, other side of the coin. General Acheampong’s drive to make himself president for life through the foiled Union Government(UNIGOV), raised many eyebrows not only within his own military commissioners but also, among the Ghanaian population who recently escaped Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s one party state Government- the CPP, toppled on 24 February 1966.
So, in a referendum which took place on 30 March 1978 to decide on the question of whether the Ghanaian was to accept or reject the emerging military-cum-civilian political rearrangement, majority of the intellectuals opposed the idea.
Yet, the result swung in the SMC regime’s favour. As usual a hooping 60.11 per cent said yes to the UNIGOV, while some 39.89% scorned at the military-cum-civial political concept and accordingly, kicked against it. This ignited the usual allegations of voting rigging and its associated finger-pointings.
For for example, Justice Isaac Kobina Abban- the then electoral commissioner, who later became Chief Justice, went into hiding for fear of his life and the pressure to manipulate the results. This could be probably equated to the outcome of the the just-ended 07 December 2008 general election.
All these, coupled with alleged widespread corruption- known then as kalabule and the yentua diplomatic posture [reluctance to pay both deomestic and international debts accrued by his previous], obviously, perverted the said God-fearing, sympathetic and humorous military leader.
As was to be expected, his SMC regime, eventually brought to a political shame and his eventual overthrow and confinement to his Trabuom village and death.
General Acheampong and his colleagues, were hastily court-martialled, charged and executed for allegedly exploiting among others, the military profession to amass wealth.
More recently, Major Djan submitted that their seniours were killed because they unlawfully overthrew civilian regimes- and here, the First and the Second Republican Constitutions of 1957 and 1969.
…History is indeed written from class or ideological perspective!
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Credit JusticeGhana.com