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03.11.2006 General News

Coup in Ghana?

By enquirer
Coup in Ghana?
03.11.2006 LISTEN

A coup in Ghana today will have bloody and heavy toll on innocent civilians as well as key opponents of the government, sections of the media and serving soldiers, a snapshot of a coup plot and a crush plan secretly prepared by the Ghana Armed Forces has revealed.

Secret documents obtained from the vaults of the Ghana Armed Forces(GAF) has revealed elaborate preparations towards a deadly and bloody assault on “dissidents” who may be plotting “subversive” attacks to overthrow the government using Radio Gold, a private radio station in Accra.

The revelation comes in the wake of claims from the Commander-In-Chief of the GAF; President John Agyekum that ex-President Rawlings is planning a coup to topple his government.

The Ghana Armed Forces documents prepared by the five Infantry battalion seen by The Enquirer indicates that the “dissidents are a mix of disgruntled politicians, political opponents of the Government of the day and disgruntled soldiers/ex-soldiers of the Ghana Armed Forces. The ex-Soldiers in particular, may have received additional training in raid and commando operations”.

The crush plan of the GAF also indicates that the dissidents may be wearing assorted cloths, carrying small arms, grenades, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG), MG, explosives any booby traps. Their mode of communication according to the documents is through the use of Mobile phones and Motorola.

The coup crush also anticipates that the dissidents may be planning to carry out kidnapping, arson and sabotage with the intention of suing Radio Gold to propagate subversive information as a precursor to an overall aim of overthrowing the incumbent Government. According to the documents is meant to capture and control Radio Gold 'as soon as possible.

The plan also makes medical provisions for civilian casualties as well as dropping of leaflets to warn residents in the Lartebiokorshie and its surrounding arrears such as Dansoman, Kaneshie and Mateheko.

In a detailed plan as to how to execute the counter offensive, the Armed Forces documents divided the execution in five phases which included among others Capture of FM station with task Forces reorganising into cut-off, Assault troops etc.

Phase 1: of the execution stage has to do with “mobilization and marry up of troops at 5BN, Phase 2: “movement to FRV/Dispersal point, Phase 3: Encirclement, Phase 4: Assault, Phase 5: Reorganization”The assault troops according to the plan would also be expected to use routes such as the “5BN-37 Military Hospital, Intersection-Ako Adjei Interchange-Nkrumah Circle-Obetsebi Lamptey Circle-Kaneshie Market-First traffic Light-left turn to Mataheko-Russia Junction-Lartebiokoshie/Kaneshie Road-Lartebiokorshie Basic School.”

Soldiers deployed to the battlefield would be expected to make deployment that would cordon off Radio Gold and block all access roads leading to the station in order to cut off re-supply to the dissidents.

The soldiers would then be expected to carry out arrests and detention of all escaping dissidents as well as control traffic. The Armed Forces pan also entails foot and mobile patrols as and when orders are given as well as be prepared to undertake any other tasks on order.

Troops of the Armed Forces would also disarm explosives and clear booby traps and mines as well as rescue hostages.

Coup In The Making …No Sweat

Meanwhile, the Armed Forces document has already began generating controversy within the intelligence community with sharp differences in opinion on the meaning and spirit of the documents.

Whilst sections say the documents suggests conclusively that a real and imminent coup looms on Ghana, senior security officers within government have told The Enquirer that the Armed Forces is only using the crush plan as a guideline for dealing with a coup if it occurs.

“Its part of the Ghana Armed Forces' routine training in preparation for any eventuality” a senior security officer told The Enquirer.

The officer who did not want to be quoted indicated that around this time of the year (getting to Christmas), the security services are always on the alert “because most coups take place around this time of the year.”When told that the document is conclusive and even names specific radio stations as potential casualties, the officer insisted that it was a routine training guideline.

But other security analysts say the document suggests a “real threat and a real counter plan.”Even though the Security analyst admitted that the Armed Forces conducts drills of that nature, this particular documents crosses the border of a “routine” drill.

“Coming in the wake of recent pronouncements from the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces that there is a coup, I think this real”

The Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, President Kufuor recently said thee is a coup plot against his government and the mastermind is good old Jerry Rawlings, the two time coup maker who also returned the country to constitutional democratic rule after his exploits.

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