Military Brutality Again

The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) of the Ghana Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Peter Augustine Blay

A Daily Searchlight reporter, Andy Odoom, three policemen-L/Cpls Jonathan Fiagbedzi, Bright Amanfo and Mohammed Mansur were victims of the latest round of military brutalities in town.

It was instructive that as the aforementioned persons were being assaulted, bystanders, who could not countenance the ongoing aberration, hooted at the soldiers. Without doubt, the public reaction suggests that the people are opposed to this brutish conduct and would not brook anymore of it.

It took place at a section of the very busy Malam- Kasoa road where a soldier, driving an army vehicle with registration number 73 GA 34, got angry at a reporter who could not pull off for him to overtake him.

Mr Odoom, the reporter who was at the wheels, had offered the cops a lift but received slaps from the soldiers because of his understandable inability to pull off the road because of the almost bumper-to-bumper traffic situation on the road. When one of the cops queried the soldiers for being unruly, he too was beaten up, paving the way for his colleagues, including a female soldier, to beat up the other policemen.

It was an unprovoked assault session, offering bystanders a spectacle they palpably despised, although the soldiers visibly relished their unruly conduct.

We have composed two editorials on military brutalities since the Independence Day assault on a press photographer by some military policemen and an officer.

Matters bordering on human rights can never be over flogged. It is for this reason that we are re-visiting the issue of military brutalities, with a view to having those responsible for ensuring discipline among uniformed personnel, wake up to their responsibilities.

We are in a 2013 Ghana, peopled by civilised citizens who would not brook 1979 brutalities. We would repeat for the umpteenth time that this nonsense must stop.

We recall a portion of our last editorial on the subject following a so-called apology rendered by government to the victim of the Independence Square military brutality. In that editorial, we expressed misgivings about the government apology explaining that the remorse should have emanated from the military followed by a genuine probe and an appropriate sanction against the defaulters.

Now that another group of soldiers has done the unthinkable of beating up enforcers of the law, which supersedes military law, we think that they have crossed the red line and the need for the military high command to wake up cannot be over-emphasised. Indeed, the situation does not lie within the realm of a PR statement because if we sweep it under the carpet, we would be sending an erroneous message to recruits at the Armed Forces Recruits Training Centre that they can assault civilians including policemen when they so wish and no action would be taken against them. Is this the kind of Ghana we are building in a democratic dispensation?

The gross indiscipline sweeping across the country has doubtlessly not spared the regiments and it is a worrying development which we ignore at the peril of civility in our society. Is there a silent order to soldiers to start beating their civilian compatriots in town?