To the Christian authors of the anti-Rawlings Pastoral Letter

(Ghana Palaver)-- HYPOCRITES! ... What did you say, when President Kufuor referred to Rawlings and his Government as “evil forces” during the GIMPA Workshop for NPP Ministers in 2002?

President Kufuor called Rawlings “sasabonsam” at an NPP rally in Sekondi?

President Kufuor described Rawlings as “criminal, irresponsible and economic short-sightedness” for increasing the price of kerosene and LPG by less than 20%?

President Kufuor “summoned” his tribesman Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and talking about Rawlings,

(i) Took the opportunity to draw attention to an aspect of Ghanaian traditional society which subjects to sanction any person who did not accord a leader his due respect;

(ii) Said the nation was not poor but fell on unfortunate times in the hands of leaders who should not have been there;

(iii) Said if people who do not have any idea of what good character should be find themselves in leadership positions, then the country has a real problem.

1992 NPP Presidential candidate Professor Albert Adu-Boahen named his dog “Rawlings” after the former President?

NPP National Chairman Esseku, in responding to former President Rawlings' speech at the “Wahala 2” demonstration, called the former President the “Butcher of June 4”, the “Murderer of Judges”, “the most cruel oppressor”, wondered “what sort of creature” Rawlings is, and described the former President as being “possessed by some evil spirit” who had indulged in an “orgy of senseless blood letting?” (Press Conference on Tuesday, March 22, 2005).

Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta, a leading member of the NPP, described former President Rawlings as “one of the most notorious and daring armed robbers the nation has had to contend with in her 36 years as a sovereign state (Vanguard, Vol. 3 No. 170, November 9th-November 16th, 1993).

Major Mohammed Easah (Rtd), on behalf of a so-called “Association of Victims of AFRC/PNDC”, likened former President Rawlings to “an armed robber” who “held this country hostage for almost twenty years – killing, looting and destroying at will, and with reckless abandon”. (Press Conference, Thursday, 22 August, 2002).

Captain Ben Duah (Rtd), on behalf of a so-called “Association of Victims of Revolutionary Injustice” (AVRI), called former President Rawlings “a hypocrite” and “——an embodiment of unimaginable contradictions” and that “if there is anybody who can be likened to Atta Ayi, or even higher than Atta Ayi in his advancement as a super armed rubber (sic), then that person is no other than Jerry Rawlings. (Press Conference, Wednesday, 30th March 2005).

Corporal Matthew Adabuga stated that “talking about armed robbery who says there can be anybody in this country higher in rating than Rawlings as an armed robber”. (Press Conference, Wednesday, 30th March 2005).

Haruna Atta, Editor of the 'New Statesman', published that Rawlings had “a destabilising personality, the stuff the Hitlers, Sgt. Does, Iddi Amins, Bokassas, etc are made of”. (New Statesman, January 16, 1994).

Haruna Atta wrote of Rawlings that “I have over the years developed an aversion to his [Rawlings'] type, to the point where like some people recoil at the sight of anything that crawls, I go into paroxysms of hair standing on end, skin crawling with revulsion, anytime I but think of that type”. (New Statesman, November 24, 1993).

Haruna Atta called Rawlings a “fraud and a knave” (New Statesman, November 6, 2005.

Kofi Coomson, Editor of the 'Chronicle', wrote that “Rawlings is Mad” ('Ghanaian Chronicle, Monday, February 15th-21st, 1993).

The 'Free Press' drew Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings with the face of a donkey and published it as a cartoon on its front page for more than three months? This is a very small sample only of the massive insults that President Kufuor and his supporters have been heaping on former President Rawlings. We have reproduced them because of a Pastoral Letter that some so-called men of God issued last Friday.

The 'Daily Graphic' of Saturday, April 9, 2005, reported the Pastoral Letter as follows:

Leaders of the church in Ghana, yesterday attacked “indecency” in Ghanaian politics and demanded an apology from former President Jerry John Rawlings for certain statements recently attributed to him.

In one of the most critical Pastoral Letters lately, the heads of the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and Pentecostal churches said whatever the grievances, the President was the persona of the nation and “disrespect towards him is tantamount to bringing the people of Ghana into contempt, disrepute, dishonour and disgrace.

In that light it is unconscionable for the President to be called a thief. It is equally difficult to condone the couplet 'Ataa Ayi nie, Kufuor nie'.

The Most Rev. Dr. Justice Akrofi, the Anglican Bishop of Accra and Archbishop of the Province of West Africa, Most Rev. Dr. Robert Aboagye-Mensah, the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Rt. Rev. Dr. Yaw Frimpong-Manso, the Moderator of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church of Ghana and Apostle Dr. Michael Ntumy, the Chairman, Church of Pentecost, said to condone such rhetoric is in effect to open the gate for sliding down into indiscipline, chaos, violence and anarchy.

They, therefore, demanded an apology for those statements and called for political discourse of dialogue characterised by mutual respect, coolness, with truth and truthfulness, maturity and sobriety and of descent (language) language”.

And what had prompted this acerbic Pastoral Letter from so-called “men of God” some of whom have formed themselves into an Ashanti cabal within the Christian community to “protect and defend” their Ashanti tribesman and kinsman in the Ghanaian Presidency?

Simple. Jerry John Rawlings had led a group of “Wahala” demonstrators to sing the current “top of the pops hit song, “Ataa Ayi nie—Kufuor nie, Awi nie—Kufuor nie, Koromfoo nie—Kufuor nie, Ya Na ti nie—Kufuor nie”.

The question all decent Christians are asking is: “where were these men of God for the twenty years that Kufuor and his men heaped the vilest of insults on former President Rawlings and his wife?