Former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings was to testify on Thursday before a national reconciliation commission investigating human rights abuses during his 19-year regime in the west African state.
Rawlings, who staged military coups in 1979 and 1981 and went on to rule Ghana with an iron fist for 19 years, appeared at the downtown headquarters of the reconciliation commission in the capital Accra at around 0920 GMT under a tight security cordon.
Police personnel had been deployed since before dawn to control the crowds of Rawlings’ supporters and loyalists of his National Democratic Congress.
By 0930 GMT, some 4 000 people thronged the entrance to the commission, chanting their support for ”JJ” — the initials of his name, Jerry John. Rawlings was subpoenaed by the South Africa-styled reconciliation commission to answer questions related to an extra-judicial killing in 1984 and the June 1982 abduction and murder of three High Court judges and a retired army officer.
An official enquiry in 1992 exonerated Rawlings in the killings, but families of the victims have called for the investigation to be reopened.
”The ex-president will be allowed to speak on only these two issues,” said NRC executive secretary Ken Attafuah.
President John Kufuor, who narrowly defeated Rawlings’ hand-picked successor John Atta-Mills in 2000 elections, set up the nine-member commission in 2002 to investigate atrocities committed both during and before the Rawlings regime.
Kufuor has come under heavy criticism for the commission, which his opponents say is nothing more than a political witchhunt.
Concerns that Rawlings would refuse to appear, and then face possible arrest, have rocked normally staid Ghana, which has become one of the democratic and economic bright lights on the world’s poorest continent since Rawlings stepped down. – Sapa-AFP