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Vol. 10(4), pp. 34-46, April 2016
DOI: 10.5897/AJPSIR2015.0859
Article Number: E8B72D358110
ISSN 1996-0832
Copyright © 2016
Author(s) retain the copyright of this article
http://www.academicjournals.org/AJPSIR
African Journal of Political Science and
International Relations
Review
Disseminating the national reconciliation commission
report: A critical step in Ghana’s democratic
consolidation
Felix Odartey-Wellington1* and Amin Alhassan2
1Department of Communication, Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia, Canada.
2Department of Communication, Innovation and Technology, University for Development Studies,
Tamale, Ghana.
Received 21 December, 2015; Accepted 17 March, 2016
Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) as transitional justice and conflict resolution
mechanisms, have gained international prominence, especially following South Africa’s much
publicised TRC experience. Among other things, TRCs are expected to contribute to democratic
consolidation by correcting the historical narrative, acknowledging past human rights violations and
fostering a human rights culture in nascent democracies. This was the spirit in which Ghana’s National
Reconciliation Commission (NRC) executed its mandate from 2002 to 2004. However, a decade after the
commission issued its final report, this article reflects on the failure of the Ghanaian state to
disseminate the report. It is argued that the failure to disseminate the NRC Report could jeopardise the
commission’s potential contributions to sustainable reconciliation, human rights and democracy in
Ghana. This article accounts for the failure to disseminate the report, and makes corrective
recommendations as well as suggestions for future research.
Key words: Transitional justice, human rights, Ghana, national reconciliation commission, truth and
reconciliation commissions, authoritarian enclaves.
INTRODUCTION
More than decade after Ghana‟s National Reconciliation
Commission (NRC) delivered its final report following
extensive hearings and consultations on the West African
postcolonial nation‟s human rights past, the report is yet
to be disseminated, and it might never be. The NRC was
established by an Act of the Parliament in the J. A.
Kufour New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration to
investigate the country‟s history of extensive state-
sponsored human rights abuses. In establishing the NRC
(a truth and reconciliation commission or TRC), the NPP
administration and its parliamentary majority sought to
denounce past incidents of human rights violations,
assemble an accurate historical record that will inform the
evolution of the nation‟s democratic dispensation, and
develop human rights discourse in Ghana to contribute
meaningfully to the consolidation of that
*Corresponding author. E-mail: felix_odartey@cbu.ca. Tel: 902-563-1234. Fax: 902-563-1247.
Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 4.0 International License
dispensation. We suggest that a committed public
communication of the report is vital to the achievement of
the goals set for the NRC. By way of context, this paper
briefly discusses the concept of TRCs as instruments of
transitional justice, and also provides the background to
the establishment of the NRC, its mandate, and its key
findings. We examine the possibility of deepening a
culture of human rights and informing political culture
through the dissemination of a TRC‟s final report. This
article then accounts for the failure to actively
disseminate the NRC Report (a confirmation of a
prediction made in a previous assessment of the NRC‟s
impacts), and consequences of this failure. We conclude
with some recommendations for disseminating the NRC
Report in Ghana. Though Ghana‟s TRC experiment was
concluded a decade ago, there is a paucity of work
dedicated to its impacts.
1
This paper joins the
conversation to engender more research in this regard,
and hopefully, return the NRC‟s work to the public
agenda in Ghana. While the article is Ghana-focused, the
reflections herein are of consequence to future
transitional justice initiatives in other parts of the world.
Truth commissions as transitional justice instruments
Transitional justice refers to “formal and informal
procedures implemented by a group or institution of
accepted legitimacy around the time of a transition out of
an oppressive or violent social order, for rendering justice
to perpetrators and their collaborators, as well as to their
victims” (Kaminski et al., 2006: 295). Therefore, the key
moments articulated in transitional justice discourse are:
1. A change in a nation‟s political dispensation from one
of oppression and violence (e.g. a dictatorship or civil
war) to one that values a respect for human rights and
enjoys political legitimacy (e.g. through a popular vote);
and , 2. Procedural structures established to confront
past human rights abuses.
The field of transitional justice as an area of study
developed rapidly in the aftermath of radical political
transitions in Latin America and Eastern Europe in the
eighties (du Toit, 1994), as well as the end of apartheid
(and the consequent emergence of democracy) in South
Africa in the nineties. It seeks to negotiate the ethical and
legal conundrum created after repressive authoritarian
governments have given way to democratic regimes
(Hayner, 2011). The main concern is often that of
dealing with past human rights abuses, while at the same
time recognising the fragility of emergent democratic
societies or regimes, and the threats posed by still
powerful institutions and elements associated with former
regimes (Benomar, 1995; Herz, 1989; Huyse, 1995;
Rosenberg, 1999). The TRC is an instrument of
transitional justice recognised as being viable in such
circumstances (du Toit, 1994; Ignatieff, 1996; Rosenberg,
1999; Walzer, 1997). This is an official body tasked to
“investigate and report on a pattern of past human rights
Odartey-Wellington and Alhassan 35
abuses”
2
(Hayner, 2011: 17), and the goals of
establishing such a body are myriad, such as promoting
reconciliation through knowledge of the truth about past
human rights abuses, providing reparations and
apologies to victims, and preventing a recurrence of past
abuses (Hayner, 2011; Ignatieff 1996). Transitional
justice scholar Priscilla Hayner also observes that the
“the obligation about making public the truth about past
abuses has been recognized as a state obligation under
international law” (2011: 23). The NRC made a similar
observation (2004 Vol. 1 Ch. 1: 1). In nascent
democracies, the goals of a TRC are in part achieved
through the publication of an accurate record of past
human rights abuses, with the anticipation that a more
accurate national historical narrative and a robust culture
of human rights would result, which in turn would
positively influence political culture (Adu-Berinyuu, 2004;
Gibson, 2004; Hayner, 2011; Reddy, 2004-2005).
Historical context of human rights abuses in Ghana
The violence and human rights abuses located in Ghana‟s
history do not compare with the human rights abuses and
social convulsions that have wracked other African
countries such as South Africa, Sierra Leone, and Liberia
(Ameh, 2006a; 2006b). As Ghanaian academic Robert
Ameh observes, “having had the same President from
1981 to 2000; four successful democratic elections in
1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004; and the first ever change in
government through the ballot box in 2000, Ghana could
be described as one of the few countries in sub-Saharan
Africa that has enjoyed a relatively long period of political
stability” (2006b: 85). Following the Ameh‟s assessment,
Ghana has successfully held two more elections: one in
2008, and the other in 2012. That the 2008 presidential
elections were decided by a razor-thin margin of
approximately 0.50 percent (Gyimah-Boadi, 2009), and
the 2012 elections were finally settled by a Supreme
Court decision without the nation degenerating into a
violent upheaval, is further evidence of Ghana‟s promising
democratic credentials. Yet, Ghana‟s political history is
replete with gross human rights violations and ethnic
conflicts that have spawned legacies which threaten
social cohesion, development, and Ghana‟s nascent
democracy (Ameh, 2006a; 2006b). This is traceable to
colonialism, the violent inter-political conflicts that
characterised the struggle for independence, as well as
the numerous coups d‟état that have occurred in Ghana
since independence in 1957.
The last two military governments that resulted from
these coups d‟état, the Armed Forces Revolutionary
Council or AFRC (1979) and the Provisional National
Defence Council or PNDC (1981-1992) were particularly
brutal, and during those regimes, human rights
violations became endemic to the Ghanaian body politic.
Ameh classifies these two regimes, both led by Jerry
John Rawlings, as being “the most violent political
36 Afr. J. Pol. Sci. Int. Relat.
regimes in Ghana‟s political history” (2006a: 347).
Ghanaian political scientist Kwame Boafo-Arthur also
describes the PNDC regime as “a decentralised structure
of tyranny and violence” (2005: 104; see also Oduro,
2005; Alidu and Ameh, 2012). As the NRC hearings
disclosed, these regimes were characterised by killings
and detentions without trial, sexual assaults, torture, trials
without due process, disappearances, arbitrary
confiscation of property, illegal dismissals, and a wide
range of human rights violations (Ameh, 2006a: 347).
This prompted the Commission to conclude, in
Hobbessian terms, that the AFRC-PNDC eras constituted
“a period of bloodletting” during which “life was solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short” (NRC, 2004, Vol. 1 Ch. 5:
105).
In 1992, bowing to international and domestic pressure,
the PNDC ushered Ghana back to civilian multi-party
democracy, but entrenched in the 4th Republican
Constitution indemnity clauses that preclude any
prosecutions of state functionaries who have in the past
committed human rights abuses. This measure was
reminiscent of legislative strategies deployed by the
military junta in Argentina prior to leaving office in 1983,
and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet‟s Amnesty Law in
1978 (Hayner, 2011). Consequently, the transition to
multiparty democracy in Ghana can be described as what
Samuel Huntington calls a “transformation” (1995: 65).
This is a transition in which an outgoing authoritarian
regime is sufficiently strong, such that “those in power in
the authoritarian regime take the lead and play a decisive
role in ending the regime and changing it into a
democratic system” (Huntington, 1995: 65). This makes it
possible for dominant elements within the outgoing
authoritarian regime to determine the nature of the
emerging democracy, to legislate amnesties, and “make
the amnesties stick” (Huntington, 1995: 70). This is the
category in which Huntington places pre-1990 transitions
in Latin America such as regime changes in Brazil, Chile,
and Guatemala, where, as in the Ghanaian case,
outgoing regimes succeeded in legislating amnesties
(Huntington, 1995). Similarly, in Ghana, the PNDC was
well positioned to determine the entire transitional
process. Led by the military head of state, Jerry
Rawlings, it successfully transformed itself into a left-of-
centre political party: the National Democratic Congress
(NDC), and thus was able to legitimise itself by
participating in the multiparty democratic process that it
had initiated. After successfully winning two elections (in
1992 and 1996) and thereby further consolidating itself as
a force in Ghanaian politics, the NDC lost elections to the
liberal democratic New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2000. It is
against this background that the NRC was established.
The NRC in Ghana
In 2002, the Kufuor-led NPP administration through the
Parliament of Ghana established the National
Reconciliation Commission (NRC) to investigate the
extensive post-independence state-sponsored human
rights violations and abuses.
The NRC policy was a plank in the NPP‟s platform
during the 2000 elections, and a policy priority for the
party after it won elections in December 2000, so that
within a year of being in office, the NPP introduced the
National Reconciliation Bill in Parliament (Ameh, 2006b:
85). Although the autocratic PNDC era gave way to a
democratic dispensation in 1992, in reality, the NPP was
the first post-autocratic transitional administration as it
signaled a major break from the autocratic past. Thus,
the subsequent legislative process leading to the
passage of the National Reconciliation Act (Act 611) was
fraught with controversy both in and outside Parliament
(Ameh, 2006b: 86). While the NPP majority in Parliament
championed what they argued to be the laudable human
rights goals of a TRC, the NDC, which constituted a vocal
and powerful minority, rejected a truth commission,
framing it as witch-hunt. As noted above, the NDC is the
civilian successor to the authoritarian AFRC and the
PNDC. It therefore had a lot of political capital to lose if
the human rights abuses perpetrated under those
regimes were brought to the fore (Alidu and Ameh, 2012).
Outside Parliament and in Ghana‟s vibrant mass
mediasphere (this was before the proliferation of social
media), the public engaged in a vigorous debate over the
necessity of a TRC, and if so, the historical period to be
covered by its mandate. The public was also interested in
the membership of the proposed TRC, and what the
subject matter of its mandate should be (Ameh, 2006b:
86).
The conflict surrounding the NRC Bill in Ghana was not
novel. In the case of Guatemala, for example, civil society
and victims‟ groups seeking a stronger mandate for the
Historical Clarification Commission set up in 1994 to
investigate human rights abuses after more than thirty
years of civil war, effectively delayed the start of the
commission‟s work for more than three years (Hayner,
2011: 32). In South Africa, parties in opposition to the
post-apartheid government of the African National
Congress (ANC) expressed animosity towards the setting
up of a TRC in 1995 (Boraine, 2000). The Afrikaner
Freedom Front, for example, alleged that the TRC was
merely a witch-hunt against the former regime (Boraine,
2000: 39). As in the Ghanaian context, some opponents
of the ANC felt that given their actions in the apartheid
era, they had a lot to lose politically from an examination
of the past. Yet, it is significant that eighty-five percent of
Ghanaians surveyed by the highly respected Ghana
Center for Democracy and Development (CDD-Ghana)
were in favour of a TRC (CDD-Ghana, 2001).
The NRC’S mandate
Section 2 of the NRC law, Act 611, stipulated that the
NRC was to be constituted by a Chair and eight other
members, all of whom were to be appointed by the
President of Ghana in consultation with the Council of
State (a constitutionally-mandated body that advises the
President). The object of the NRC under section 3 of Act
611 was “to seek and promote national reconciliation
among the people of this country by establishing an
accurate, complete and historical record of violations and
abuses of human rights inflicted on persons by public
institutions and holders of public office during periods of
unconstitutional government…” While the NRC was to
mainly focus on periods of unconstitutional rule in Ghana,
viz., 24 February 1966 to 21 August 1969, 13 January
1972 to 23 September 1979, and 31 December 1981 to 6
January, 1993, it was also mandated to pursue its object
by investigating abuses that occurred between 6 March
1957 (the date of Ghana‟s independence from colonial
rule) and 6 January, 1993 (the inception of the current
democratic dispensation), upon application by any
person.
The NRC was mandated to investigate violations and
human rights abuses within its mandate period that fell
under the rubric of “killings, abductions, disappearances,
detentions, torture, ill treatment and seizure of properties”
perpetrated against persons by “public institutions, public
office holders or persons purporting to have acted on
behalf of the state” (S.4, Act 611). As well, the NRC was
to “investigate any other matters which it considers
requires investigation in order to promote and achieve
national reconciliation.” Within three months of concluding
its work, the NRC was to submit its final report, which,
among other things, would “suggest measures to prevent
and avoid the repetition of …violations and abuses” (S.
20.2, Act 611). The NRC was also to make
recommendations to the President for redressing the
wrongs suffered as a result of past human rights
violations. The life of the NRC was to come to an end
after the submission of its final report but the process of
national reconciliation would be recognised as work in
progress.
In May 2002, President Kufuor inaugurated the NRC,
having earlier appointed its members in consultation with
the Council of State. The NRC was to be chaired by
Justice K. E. Amua-Sekyi, a retired Supreme Court
Judge. The eight other commissioners were: Catholic
cleric Most Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle; Maulvi
Abdul Wahab Bin Adam, Ameer (Head) and Missionary-
in-Charge, Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Ghana; Professor
Florence Dolphyne, former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Ghana; Lt-Gen E. A. Erskine, First Force
Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in
Lebanon; educationist Dr. Sylvia Boye; trade unionist
Christian Appiah-Agyei; traditional ruler Uborr Dalafu
Labal II; and Law Professor Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu. The
president also appointed as executive secretary of the
NRC, Dr. Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah, a human rights
scholar and the Director of Public Education and Anti-
Corruption at the constitutionally mandated Commission
Odartey-Wellington and Alhassan 37
for Human Rights and Administrative Justice.
THE NRC’S FINDINGS
The objectives of the Commission embraced not just
individuals who had suffered from these human rights
violations and abuses, but also the Ghanaian society as
whole. Parliament rationalised that confronting past
human rights violations was necessary not only to
reconcile the nation by assuaging the pain and hurt of
victims, but also for the purposes of consolidating
democracy, as well as promoting constitutional rule and a
culture of respect for fundamental human rights and
freedoms. The Commission was interested in the factors
and conditions that underpinned, enabled, and accounted
for those violations and abuses, and how these violations
and abuses can be avoided, going forward. It was in the
foregoing context that the Commission, after taking
statements from the public, considering 4,240 petitions
from persons resident in Ghana and abroad,
3
and
conducting investigations and hearings across the
country, rendered its report.
Cumulatively, the Commission observed “a general
lack of knowledge and consciousness and respect for
human rights in the country” (NRC 2004 Vol. 3 Ch. 1: 28).
A culture of human rights was absent from the nation's
socio-political deep structure as a non-negotiable value.
Thus, while a higher number of abuses were reported
regarding military regimes, even constitutional
administrations yielded records of human rights violations
(NRC 2004 Vol. 3 Ch. 3: 150-151).
To address Ghana‟s history of egregious human rights
abuses that the NRC documented in its report, the
Commission made a number of recommendations to be
carried out by the state, including the payment of
monetary reparations to victims of past human rights
violations, the establishment of medical trauma facilities,
symbolic reparations, community reparations, restitution
for victims of illegal property seizures, institutional
reforms, and a reconsideration of the indemnity clauses.
It must however be noted that while the NRC public
hearings enjoyed extensive coverage on print and
electronic media platforms in Ghana and abroad, its
report has not been disseminated, beyond excerpts in the
media immediately following its release.
The importance of TRC reports
As the Chilean (Adu-Berinyuu, 2004) and South African
(Gibson, 2004) examples show, TRCs are expected,
through their educative and transformative functions to
consolidate democracy and a culture of human rights in
their respective national communities. South African
Political scientist Andre du Toit argues that truth
commissions have the function of “generating and
38 Afr. J. Pol. Sci. Int. Relat.
consolidating new and distinctive conceptions of political
morality that can henceforth inform the political culture”
(2000: 125). American political scientist James Gibson,
who has written extensively on South African politics,
believes that it was in this vein that South Africa‟s Truth
and Reconciliation Commission urged that its report be
widely disseminated, on the assumption that a wide
circulation and readership would translate into a more
successful adoption of human rights values in South
Africa (2004: 6). Civil society scholar Paavani Reddy also
notes as follows:
The truth commissions, through analysing the
testimony of victims, establish the truth about gross
human rights violations, which were often denied by the
Government. Who were the victims? What were the
injustices done to them? Why were these crimes
committed and by whom? Commission reports clarify,
document and publicise the tortured past, opening it to
wide public discussion. This documentation becomes part
of the national consciousness and helps to build a culture
of respect for human rights and to prevent such crimes
from happening again. It also reduces the potential for
future denials about the past and conflict over such
contention (2004-2005:20).
The mass dissemination of a TRC report is therefore
critical to the overall success of a TRC program in
shaping national historical narratives and social attitudes.
In this regard, it is relevant to consider the following
observation made by American jurist Stephan Landsman:
Truth commissions can serve even more effectively than
trials to educate the citizenry to the nature and extent of
prior wrongdoing. Since they are not limited to the
individualised facts of a set of prosecutions, they can
marshal and disseminate all the relevant facts about an
oppressive regime. The record a truth commission can
develop is the most powerful tool available to inoculate a
society against dictatorial methods (1996: 88).
Gibson‟s study has shown that the South African TRC
may have significantly contributed to more sensitive
attitudes towards human rights in South Africa (2004: 46).
To borrow from his assessment of the contribution of
South Africa‟s TRC to the fostering of a culture of human
rights and respect for the rule of law in South Africa,
culture in this sense refers not just to the practices of
institutional elements (such as the judiciary and security
apparatus) but also to “the beliefs, values, and attitudes
of ordinary citizens” (Gibson, 2004: 6). The assumption is
that a concern for a culture of human rights must go
beyond state institutions to encompass civil society
(Aidoo, 1993: 713). According to Gibson, “a human rights
culture is one in which people value human rights highly,
are unwilling to sacrifice them under most circumstances,
and jealously guard against intrusions into those rights.
Such a culture may stand as a potent (but not
omnipotent) impediment to political repression” (2004: 6).
Gibson also lists several values and attitudes as being
central to a culture of human rights, including “support for
the rule of law; political tolerance, rights consciousness,
support for due process, commitment to individual
freedom; and commitment to democratic institutions and
processes” (2004: 9). To these we add a collective
commitment to defending the rights of others against
oppression. As the NRC Report (2004 Vol. 3 Ch. 1)
reflects, at all material times, this particular value was
lacking in Ghanaian cultural discourse.
Without the educative element, the entire rationale for
having a TRC instead of prosecutions, is defeated, as
human rights concepts emphasised in commission
reports do not enter the deep structure of public
discourse or state practice. Also, the closest a TRC
comes to providing retributive justice for deserving
victims is through its individual and institutional
accountability role (Posner and Vermeule, 2004). Without
an effective dissemination of the commission‟s record,
this role is defeated; further entrenching impunity and
deepening the bitterness felt by marginalised groups and
victims, with the potential to unleash future acts of
vengeance that could lead to political destabilisation. This
is because to the extent that a TRC report incorporates
the voices of victims, it recognises and acknowledges
their pain and hurt. When a report is muted, the
consequence is an attenuation victim voice and agency.
Therefore, as Brahm points out, the extent to which a
truth commission‟s findings are accessible to the public is
vital for the achievement of a stronger impact (Brahm,
2007).
As well, TRCs often barter immunity for information,
information that would help rectify the record and raise
awareness (Landsman, 1996). In this regard, the TRC‟s
narrative informs future politics. Citizens develop a critical
awareness of the past and can make informed political
choices in the future, especially choices regarding
political actors or public policy proposals. Michael
Ignatieff observes that a truth commission has the
potential to “reduce the number of lies that can be
circulated unchallenged in public discourse” (1996: 112).
He also notes that “truth” commissions can and do
change the frame of public discourse and public
memory,” and that “the past is an argument and the
function of truth commissions, like the function of honest
historians, is simply to purify the argument, to narrow the
range of permissible lies” (1996: 113). In Ghana, the
value of the NRC is that it successfully constructed a
cumulative record of the systemic nature of state
oppression, a record which would create awareness,
especially for those born after the return to constitutional
rule in 1992, who might have laboured under the
impression that state oppression existed only in isolated
incidents. While it is possible that some citizens might
decline to accept a TRC‟s “truth” because of real or
perceived bias, or because a commission‟s truth might be
politically harmful to a category of the society (such as
perpetrators in South Africa, Latin America, and Ghana),
without efforts to actively publicise the commission‟s
report, how would the commission‟s „truth‟ enter the
public sphere so that it would be subjected to necessary
contestation? It is relevant at this point to account for the
existence in Ghana of what Chilean sociologist Manuel
Garreton describes as “authoritarian enclaves” (1994:
233) that nestle cheek-by-jowl with democratic institutions
in nascent democracies. These enclaves include the
legacy of human rights violations from previous regimes,
the institutionalisation of constitutional or legislative
elements that constrain democratic practice, the
existence of certain powerful actors who are not
absorbed into the democratic context and who threaten
the new democratic dispensation, and fourthly, “the
generalised presence of anti-democratic and
authoritarian values, mentalities and attitudes” (Garreton,
1994: 233). The last enclave that Garreton identifies
provides the enabling environment for human rights
abuses.
In Ghana, these enclaves are constituted by elements
such as the constitutional indemnity clauses, exercises in
what we call “human rights revisionism,” and the
continued strength of the political party that represents
the interests of two of the erstwhile repressive regimes.
The choice of a TRC instead of the prosecution of
perpetrators of past crimes of human rights abuse often
signals the continued political strength of these
perpetrators, hence the need for a certain degree of
accommodation and compromise (Ross, 2004; Oduro,
2005). The Ghanaian case is no different, as we have
pointed out in this paper when describing Ghana‟s
transition as a transformation a la Huntington. While the
NPP discontinued hitherto official state commemorations
of the AFRC and PNDC interventions, senior functionaries
of the NDC, which was voted into office again in 2008
after eight years in opposition and remains in power,
religiously observe these commemorations in pomp and
pageantry, during which speakers routinely engage in
human rights revisionism by attempting to rationalise the
atrocities committed during those regimes.
4
The foregoing
dynamics make the dissemination of the NRC Report an
even more urgent exercise.
THE FAILURE TO DISSEMINATE THE NRC REPORT
Although the NRC hearings were given extensive
attention by the mass media, the hearings were pieces of
the nation‟s historical tapestry that needed to be
synthesised to make complete sense. This is why the
NRC Report, compiled at the end of its hearings and
analyses, is important. The NRC Report (five volumes
and almost 1500 pages long) was subsequently
summarised for easier public access and consumption by
CDD Ghana in 2005, and then launched in the various
regions of Ghana. CDD Ghana has also held meetings
with heads of institutions that came up for negative
mention in the report, to discuss post-report reforms.
Odartey-Wellington and Alhassan 39
Beyond the CDD initiative, little else was done to
disseminate the report.
Significantly, the NPP administration committed to
dissemination when it issued a White Paper in
acceptance of the NRC Report, as evidenced by the
following excerpt:
Government is satisfied that Ghana can make greater
strides if all of us become true apostles and disciples of
human rights and raise our collective voices loudly
against their violation and abuse. Educational
administrations, teachers, and researchers must study
the Report of the Commission carefully. Government
accordingly directs that copies of the Report should be
made available in all school libraries by the Ministry of
Education. This should extend to private schools as well.
Appropriate parts, as determined by teachers and
curriculum developers, should be made required reading.
We must all be united in our commitment to ensuring that
these violations and abuses would never again occur.
(Government of Ghana, 2005)
However, the administration did not follow through with
the laudable aspirations outlined above, and made no
attempt to ensure the implementation of those policy
initiatives.
Human rights researcher Nahla Valji notes that in
Sierra Leone, UNICEF has produced a special report on
that country‟s truth commission for the youth, and the
Working Group on Truth and Reconciliation has launched
a textbook version of the report complete with cartoons
and exercise questions to be used in secondary schools
(Valji, 2006). Many will find untenable the response of a
former attorney general of Ghana that while such an idea
is worthwhile, the NPP administration had neither the
funds nor a plan to do so (Valji, 2006). As at June 2007,
the NPP administration, on the recommendations of the
NRC, had paid various sums of money as reparations to
victims of past human rights abuse (Adoma-Yeboah,
2007b; Asare, 2008). While such reparations are an
essential aspect of the truth and reconciliation process
and have a social justice imperative,
5
the administration
could have mobilised the comparatively minimal
resources required to finance a distribution of the
Commission‟s report to schools, as the administration
committed to do in its white paper. Yet, inquiries
conducted by CDD-Ghana at our request disclosed that
this commitment has not been followed through.
6
And as
far back as November 2007, Dr. Agyeman-Attafuah who
was the executive secretary of the NRC, expressed
disquiet about the government‟s focus on financial
reparations to the exclusion of other recommendations
made by the NRC (Adoma-Yeboah, 2007a).
7
To further assess the penetration of the NRC narrative
within the public sphere, we conducted a search on
Ghanaweb.com, a news database that aggregates news
reports from Ghana. Like Tsikata (2009), we make the
assumption that news databases like Ghanaweb serve as
40 Afr. J. Pol. Sci. Int. Relat.
a virtual Habermasian public sphere within which citizens
engage with or are exposed to matters of public interest.
Therefore, the extent to which the NRC‟s work continues
to be of interest to Ghanaians will be reflected by how
often the NRC is referenced substantially in public
discourse.
Using the phrase “National Reconciliation Commission,”
we searched Ghanaweb year by year. For the year 2015,
there were six entries, with three being the same news
story. In all, the NRC had been mentioned in passing and
not as the subject of the item. Even when human rights
violations occurred, there were no references to the NRC
Report in the media. For example when police brutally
suppressed a peaceful protest against the Electoral
Commission in September 2015 (Bonsu, 2015), none of
the resulting commentaries referenced the NRC Report
to caution against state-sanctioned political violence. The
search results for 2014 were slightly better, with twenty-
two items, though again, the NRC was often mentioned in
passing.
8
Not even the tenth anniversary of the NRC
Report merited mention. For 2013, there were twelve
items, following a similar pattern. 2012 yielded twenty-six
items. The foregoing pales into comparison with the
number of news items for 2004 (three hundred and fifty-
five), 2005 (eighty-one) and 2006 (forty-two). From 2007
(when there were twenty-five hits), the number appears
to decline radically. The declining numbers could be due
to a decrease in salience as the NRC became more
distant in time. But it also signals a decline in significance
within the public sphere. It is telling that in 2014, the NRC
was not commemorated in Ghana despite its significant
contributions and the NRC‟s recommendation that annual
reconciliation lectures be organised “to foster human
rights, rule of law and democratic principles” (NRC 2004
Vol. 1, Ch 7: 173).
ACCOUNTING FOR THE FAILURE TO DISSEMINATE
THE NRC REPORT
As noted above, the NPP administration did little to
publicise the NRC Report. The administration made the
executive summary of the report available on the Ghana
Government website. As Attafuah (2007) argues, this
was a commendable but inadequate measure, because
“Internet access in Ghana is very limited and unreliable”
(Fosu, 2011: 494) especially for the working poor or
those in rural areas. In any event, the link to the report,
http://www.ghana.gov.gh/NRC/index.php, has been
defunct for several years.
The strongest reason for the failure of the NPP
administration to disseminate the NRC Report lies in the
lack of institutional plans to do so. Valji notes that when
the government accepted the NRC Report and pledged
to publicise same, it did not provide a clear plan or
roadmap for dissemination (Valji, 2006: 41). A clear
report dissemination strategy was also missing from the
NRC‟s mandate. Indeed, the NRC itself did not include a
clear dissemination strategy in its report, save for a
recommendation that “The findings of the Commission
should be used as teaching materials and scripts for
drama, film-making, etc., to educate the nation to avoid
similar human rights abuses in the future” (2004 Vol. 3
Ch.1: 28). Therefore, once the NRC fell off the public
agenda, there was no mechanism in place to ensure that
its report was disseminated. As well, as with any
government, the administration was faced with multiple
priorities and the NRC agenda could not be sustained as
a priority (Valji, 2006: 26, Hayner, 2011: 57). Our reading
of Valji‟s paper, as well as conversations with key players
such as the CDD‟s Gyimah-Boadi and Oduro, and the
NRC‟s Agyeman-Attafuah, together with a careful
reflection on the NPP‟s actions in regards to the NRC and
its report suggest other factors that influenced the failure
to actively disseminate the report.
One key reason was the loss of the NRC‟s champion in
the NPP‟s policy implementation process. Specifically,
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the NPP‟s first Attorney
General and Minister of Justice, a human rights activist
who was closely connected to transitional justice
advocates and championed the NRC process, was
reassigned to the Foreign Ministry less than a year into
the life of the NRC. His portfolio successors in the
Attorney General‟s Department at the time the NRC
Report was released did not show as active an interest in
the NRC concept. Akufo-Addo is the NPP presidential
candidate in the 2016 elections and it will be interesting
to observe how he handles the dormant NRC file in the
event that he is successful in the elections.
Another factor for the failure to disseminate the report
lies in the NRC‟s observation of the absence of a culture
of human rights in Ghana during its mandate period. The
absence of a culture of human rights in Ghana signals an
absence of an institutional capacity to properly conceive
of the normative dimensions of human rights. While the
administration was committed to human rights and
national reconciliation, and hence paid out reparations,
the administration was more focused on the pragmatic
aspects of human rights than the normative, philosophical
dimensions of the concept.
9
This normative deficiency is
one that public policy scholar David Crocker warns
against in his (1999) discussion of transitional justice
mechanisms. That is not to say that the payment of
reparations lacks moral basis. However, where a
government focuses solely on economic reparations to
the exclusion of equally relevant symbolic and
informational transitional justice recommendations, it
brings into the question its understanding of the
normative implications of transitional justice. It also
demonstrates a narrow view toward reparations, as it
privileges financial over symbolic reparations, and thus
excludes those who need a symbolic recognition of their
pain. Without such symbolic recognition, true reconcilia-
tion will remain elusive in Ghana.
The NPP administration‟s approach to the NRC Report
might also have been a result of the existing authoritarian
enclaves identified above. These include the continued
survival and even dominance of elements associated with
past authoritarian regimes. The NPP might have been
cautious in handling transitional justice issues, and
hence, preferred making monetary reparations to actively
publicising the roles of the dominant political elements in
the perpetration of past human rights abuses, interpreting
its pragmatic approach as being less confrontational, and
less prone to allegations of witch-hunting.
10
The point
about authoritarian enclaves ties into another significant
reason why the report has not been disseminated. The
NDC was elected to form the ruling government again in
December 2008. As previously explained, the NDC had
been hostile to the NRC ab initio and therefore there was
no policy commitment to furthering the work of the NRC
once the party took office. The party subsequently won
the 2012 elections.
CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS AND FUTURE
RESEARCH
As Ghana continues to make strides in its democratic
experiment, it is obvious that there is still work to be done
to ensure the growth and sustenance of a democratic
culture in the nation. For example, the rise of media
irresponsibility in the form of ill-managed talk-shows that
provide a platform for political intolerance and ethnic
incitement potentially attenuate the public sphere
(Fletcher, 2014: 27) and negatively impacts democratic
development. Political violence and violent political
discourse have gained disturbing proportions in recent
years,
11
and dominant political parties are all affiliated to
armed militias.
12
Indeed, political violence exists not only
at the inter-party level but also at the intra-party level,
often resulting in serious casualties among political rivals,
a recent example being the politically-motivated acid
attack on an NPP regional chairman in May 2015. The
victim died as a result of horrific acid burns (Abdul-
Hamid, 2015). Despite the NRC‟s recommendations
(2004 Vol. 3 Ch.1), there are still incidents of state
security abuse of detention powers and disregard for
judicial orders (see Baneseh, 2016 for a recent
example), as well as the use of the state security
apparatus to protect regime interests (see Ibrahim, 2016
for a recent example). It is not uncommon these days for
opinion leaders, including those in the NPP, to muse
publicly about either the desirability of a military
intervention in Ghanaian politics or the inevitability of one,
going forward.
13
These are all inconsistent with a
meaningful mainstream pro-democratic human rights
culture, and true national reconciliation.
In this article, we have attempted to emphasise the
importance of disseminating the NRC Report to contribute
meaningfully to democracy in Ghana especially by
Odartey-Wellington and Alhassan 41
mainstreaming a more accurate historical narrative and a
robust culture of human rights in Ghana. We have also
accounted for the failure to actively disseminate the NRC
Report. Valji‟s comparative examples of truth commission
report dissemination sum up our views on the subject:
An adequate dissemination strategy for the work of a
truth commission is an integral component to the
commission‟s long-term success and relevance. In
particular, in the absence of a policy aimed at integrating
both the work and findings of a truth commission into the
curricula of schools, there is no impact made on
subsequent generations and no lasting contribution to
understanding the role of military rule in violence and
oppression. Moreover, proper dissemination furthers
acknowledgement for the victims and is in itself a form of
reparation. In Argentina, where the CONADEP report has
been reprinted no less than 25 times, one victim said, „It
is the most read book in the history of Argentina…
CONADEP is still having an impact on new generations.‟
Some truth commissions, after the initial investment of
time, money, and human resources in collecting the
information, have seen that their reports have no reach or
impact. Such was the case in Uganda; after eight years
of work, the final report, containing 720 pages of
testimony, analysis, and recommendations, along with
names of victims, has never made it beyond the hands of
a select few in government and donor offices. (2006: 41-
42)
Transitional justice scholar Joanna Quinn has also
argued that one of the undoings of the Ugandan truth
commission is that its report was not disseminated to the
public, with the effect that only the Commissioners were
impacted by the enormity of the testimony given during
the commission‟s hearings (Quinn, 2004). Thus, there
has been little opportunity for the Ugandan commission to
effect change in the wider national community.
Sadly, this paper confirms the predictions Valji made in
2006, just two years after the NRC had wrapped up, that
“the reality is that implementation of the [NRC‟s]
recommendations, beyond a reparations policy, is
unlikely to happen in the near future, if at all” (2006: 41)
due to a lack of monitoring commitment on the part of the
NPP administration.
While the NPP administration that commissioned the
NRC is no longer in office, the work of the NRC is
relevant to Ghana, irrespective of the political party in
power. With all its limitations, the NRC, like South Africa‟s
TRC, offered Ghana a bloodless, less acrimonious path
to transitional justice. The human rights culture that the
NRC advocated continues to be relevant, although we
fear that with the current dominance of the NDC in
Ghana, the possibilities of the NRC Report being
disseminated are minimal.
14
This is because as stated
above, the NDC has been ideologically opposed to the
NRC. It views the NRC as disproportionately targeting the
party‟s ideological origins
15
(Alidu and Ameh, 2012). That
42 Afr. J. Pol. Sci. Int. Relat.
being said, continuing with the NRC agenda will be a
politically wise choice for the NDC as it will promote true
reconciliation with people who might be hostile to the
party because they (or loved ones) suffered under its
predecessor military regimes. Following through with the
NPP‟s commitment to disseminate the NRC Report will
also demonstrate the NDC‟s commitment to human
rights.
We recommend that the government returns the NRC
Report to its website, and strikes a committee to
disseminate the NRC Report. This committee will
coordinate the National Commission for Civic Education,
the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative
Justice, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana
Education Service, the communications arms of the
government, as well as civil society bodies to publicise
and stimulate public discourse around the report. To
these key state actors, we add the Ministry of Education,
and the Ghana Education Service. These institutions
must take active steps to integrate the NRC Report into
the school curricula in Ghana. As well, the report itself
must be rendered in as many accessible versions as
possible. Also, there is a need for documentary films and
other media products that that would raise awareness
about the NRC‟s findings, and generate public discussion
around the report. We suggest that if he becomes
president of Ghana in 2016, Akufo-Addo considers the
recommendations made herein to complete the
significant contributions he made to the NRC process.
Our recommendations are without prejudice to the
realisation of all the other recommendations made by the
NRC to the Government. We see the recommendations
as being mutually complementary, and in this regard,
Attafuah‟s (2007) matrix of outstanding recommendations
that government, civil society organisations, and the
public must carry out, is a useful policy roadmap.
We have approached the subject with the assumption
that the Ghanaian state has the greatest responsibility in
the dissemination of the NRC Report. However, civil
society also has a role, despite relatively limited resources
as compared to the state. We therefore recommend that
civil society reinstates the NRC Report on the public
agenda, especially through media interventions when
issues of potential human rights abuse arise. In other
words, the elements from the report must be moments in
the articulation of civil society discursive responses to
human rights issues or crises. Civil society must also
consider how abridged versions of the report can be
made available to Ghanaians in the various local
languages. Further, in the contemporary media ecology,
it is possible for civil society organisations to upload the
report to their websites and social media as a research
resource.
What about other jurisdictions that might consider the
TRC option, going forward? The Ghanaian experience
should inform a TRC model that is well resourced, has a
strong public communication mandate and strategy, and
a clear plan for report dissemination.
The failure to disseminate the NRC Report creates the
risk of collective amnesia about the commission‟s
findings and its exhortation that “Never again shall such
wrongs be a feature of governance or a feature of life in
this beautiful land of our birth” (2004 Vol. 1 Ch. 8: 182;
Vol. 3 Ch.1: 2). Democracy is still at a nascent stage in
Ghana, and the NRC was an essential policy instrument
with the potential to positively impact the country‟s
political development. As Serbian jurist Nenad Dimitrijevic
(2006) argues, post-transitional societies require the
development of new ethical and moral foundations to
replace what has been entrenched under authoritarian,
criminal regimes, hence, the value of TRCs as
instruments of transitional justice. In that sense, the task
of “addressing the past in order to change policies,
practices, and even relationships in the future, and to do
so in a manner that respects and honors those who were
affected by the abuses” (Hayner, 2011: 11) is considered
a raison d'être for truth commissions. That the strong
authoritarian enclaves identified in this paper continue to
exist is sufficient evidence of the threats facing the
development of true democracy and national
reconciliation in Ghana. In the near future, an empirical
study such as that conducted by Gibson (2004) to
determine the success of the TRC in South Africa in
mainstreaming a culture of human rights would be vital to
assess the effectiveness of Ghana‟s NRC.
Conflict of interests
The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.
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https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/04ACCRA1934_a.html.
1
For example, Oduro‟s (2005) comprehensive article on Ghana‟s NRC,publish-
ed immediately following the completion of the NRC‟s work, looks more at
rationales for the TRC model in Ghana and prospects of success. Similarly,
Ameh‟s (2006a) article on the NRC sheds light on the public discourse
surrounding the setting up of the commission, and provides rationalisations for
the choice of a TRC in Ghana. His second article (Ameh, 2006b) on the subject
deals with the NRC‟s approach to truth in its hearings. His recent work on the
NRC, written with Alidu (2012) focuses on the role of civil society
organisations in the NRC‟s work. Valji‟s (2006) comparative assessment of the
NRC some months after it concluded its work, provides a good point of
departure for this paper. As well, Hayner‟s (2011) treatment of the NRC, while
limited in scope, provides critical observations.
2
While a truth commission in the strict sense is merely a fact-finding body,
some truth commissions have “the mandate of promoting reconciliation”
(Hayner, 2011: 19). Within the context of this article, however, the terms “truth
commission” and “truth and reconciliation commission” are used
interchangeably as Ghana‟s commission had a dual fact-finding and
reconciliatory intent.
3
As Hayner notes, the number of petitions “surprised the skeptics, who had
argued that the small number of human rights violations in Ghana did not
justify a truth commission” (2011: 56).
4
We argue that holding such commemorative events (and similar occasions
that offer a platform to perpetrators of human rights abuse such as Rawlings)
constitute human rights revisionism, to the extent that symbolically, they are
held to rationalise and celebrate the atrocities of those regimes. For example,
addressing youth in the Volta Region of Ghana in January 2014, Rawlings
appeared to gloat over the executions that the AFRC had carried out, as well as
the destruction of a market in Accra, an act that deprived hundreds of traders of
their livelihood (Appiah, 2014).
5
There is concern about a perceived bias of transitional justice in favour of
normative, dispute resolution justice, and reconciliation, at the expense of
social justice, in terms of economic, social and cultural rights (Mamdani, 1996;
Stanley, 2002; Arbour, 2007; Miller, 2008; Millar 2011; Lanegran, 2015). It is
argued that often, in post-conflict societies, some form of communal
redistributive justice is required, with post-apartheid South Africa as a case in
point. Such scholars
believe that while the South African TRC may have succeeded in preventing
the country from imploding as a result of racial and political animosities, it
failed to empower the marginalised black population in economic terms
(Boesak, 2005). The potential for TRCs to achieve social justice results, has
however been acknowledged (Verwoerd 1999; Asmal 2000; Arbour 2007;
Janesick, 2007). We see social justice as being implicated in the TRC model, as
one cannot have meaningful social justice in the absence of a human rights
culture and the prevention of impunity. As well, the payment of reparations
based on a TRC recommendation performs a social justice role in the form of
financial assistance to victims who lost property or breadwinners (Stanley
2002), though some view the payment of reparations to individuals rather than
collective reparations as inadequate for social justice purposes (Arbour 2007).
It must be noted that the focus of the NRC was on systemic impunity, rather
than on individual cases of human rights abuse. Yet, one must remain cognisant
of the following observation regarding the work of the NRC in Ghana:
For reparations to be effective and promote sustainable
coexistence, they should provide grounding for a future
based on social justice, while counter-balancing the
decision to displace criminal justice in the process. It is
recognised that in the case of South Africa, governmental
reticence to provide reparations, the judicial disregard of
pursuing prosecutions, and the dismissal of responsibility
for apartheid at a wider social level, have been identified as
factors that are limiting the opportunities for reconciliation
and developmental change. Ghana is likely to suffer a
similar fate if the key recommendations made by the NRC
are not carried through. (Appiagyei-Atua, 2008: 5)
6
In this regard, we are grateful to CDD-Ghana‟s E. Gyimah-Boadi, Franklin
Oduro and Abdul Wahab-Musah for their assistance.
7
In an issues paper, Attafuah also recommended the “education of the
Ghanaian public on the NRC Report by: producing hard and digitized copies of
Executive Summary, disseminating the Report widely throughout Ghana and at
all Ghana missions abroad and making copies available to all educational and
Odartey-Wellington and Alhassan 45
professional training institutions (from the primary school to the universities)
(2007: 8). He regarded the dissemination as a joint task for both the state and
civil society.
8
An exception was an online feature written by a PNDC sympathiser to attack
the integrity of the NRC law (Sangaparee, 2014). Another exception was
Ghanaian politician Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe‟s response to “fond
reminiscences of the June 4, 1979 coup” by another politician, describing this
as “inappropriate nostalgia" in light of the NRC‟s revelations and exhortations
(Aziz, 2014). Nyaho-Tamakloe made similar comments, invoking the NRC
Report in 2013 (Asmah, 2013). Similarly, the children of Major-General
Edward Utuka (who was killed by the AFRC) referenced the NRC Report in
response to comments made by Rawlings in 2014 rationalising the AFRC
killings. In a press release, they stated that “Our father was murdered without
any semblance of a proper and fair trial by Rawlings and his cohorts. Armed
Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) member Captain Baah Achamfuor and
Squadron Leader Kosi Dargbe, Chairman of Rawlings‟ kangaroo court
apparatus confirmed this on oath before the National Reconciliation
Commission” (Ofori-Adeniran, 2014).
9
The NPP‟s preoccupation with the pragmatic dimension of transitional justice
at the expense of the normative aspect, can be seen in the party‟s 2011 election
as parliamentary candidate Victor Okaikoi, a human rights abuse perpetrator in
the AFRC regime. Okaikoi had been a member of the Pre-Trial Investigative
Team (PIT), an AFRC organ that tortured former government officials
(Okaikoi and Koda, 1979; Jackson, 1999; Tagoe 2003; Mensah, 2003a;
Mensah, 2003b Mensah and Weiss 2003; Ghana NRC 2004, Vol. 2 Ch. 6). A
number of witnesses appeared before the NRC to provide disturbing testimony
about the torture they suffered under the hands of Okaikoi and his colleagues in
the PIT . For example, Colonel (Rtd.) Kofi Jackson, a victim of the AFRC,
testified that : “Capt. Okaikoi who was one of the interrogators came to sit on
the table in front of me and put his legs in between my thighs. He started
punching holes with a big needle in my chest” (Mensah, 2003c). Okaikoi
never apologised for his past and the NPP could not claim to be oblivious to
his antecedents.
Interestingly, after winning the NPP‟s nomination, Okaikoi attempted to frame
himself as a past opponent of the AFRC and hence, its victim, rather than an
active participant (Gadugah, 2012). This was in spite of the existence of
records in the NRC Report showing otherwise, suggesting that the NRC Report
is yet to be mainstreamed in Ghana.
10
Our argument here contrasts observations by Valji (2006) that the NPP might
have been ambivalent about the NRC in general because the party‟s members
would have preferred prosecuting AFRC and PNDC elements to opting for the
TRC process. Based on interactions with Ghanaian politicians, we can confirm
that many senior NPP elements would have preferred prosecutions for
perpetrators of past human rights abuses. However, we are also aware that the
return to constitutional rule has created a political elite that straddles the
political divide, giving rise to a politics of compromise that creates a reticence
to bring to account high-level political officials. The NPP appeared therefore to
have accepted the NRC as a more pragmatic option to achieve national
reconciliation.
11
These phenomena have been documented by CDD Ghana (CDD 2009a;
2010a; 2010b). In 2007, CDD-Ghana predicted the ill-portends of the “foot-
soldier” menace in Ghana (CDD, 2007). During the biometric voter registration
exercise in April-May 2012, ethnic political mobilisation became the basis of a
series of violent attacks and vitriolic discourse. The Ghana Catholic Bishops
Conference, among others, has had to comment on the troubling state of affairs
(Suleman, 2012. See also Duodu, 2012; Alidu and Ameh, 2012; and Donkor et
al., 2012).
12
In 2015, following violent political clashes during a parliamentary by-
election in Northern Ghana, the Interior Minister proposed licensing and thus
regularising political militias (Ansah, 2015).
13
For example, in January 2014, Supreme Court judge William Atuguba
warned as follows: “Those who downplay the importance of social justice from
time to time are bound to be rudely awakened to the magnitude of that error by
events not only that have locally happened in Ghana; I refer to the several coup
d‟états or revolutions…they were all based on denials of social justice”
(http://edition.radioxyzonline.com/pages/news/01082014-1855/17175.stm). In
July 2013, NPP MP Boniface Gambilla was reported to have praised the
AFRC‟s “House Cleaning” exercise
(http://edition.radioxyzonline.com/pages/news/07142013-1415/13284.stm), a
euphemism for a purge akin to the Red Terror in Ethiopia under Dictator
46 Afr. J. Pol. Sci. Int. Relat.
Mengistu Haile Mariam. In August 2012, Kobina Arthur-Kennedy, another
NPP politician, lauded the relevance and virtues of the AFRC coup (Gyasiwaa
2012). These personalities glossed over the human rights abuses that occurred
as a result of the coup. The NRC cautioned against the tendency for the media
and opinion leaders to shrilly vilify constitutional regimes and rationalise
politically expedient human rights violations. The NRC was concerned that
such interlocutors fail to inculcate in the public the patience required for
democratic growth, and by their comments “have helped to prepare the ground
for usurpers to step in, and use the media-led complaints as the justification for
the seizure of power” and human rights violations (NRC 2004 Vol. 4 Ch. 3:
195).
14
Comments made by President J.E.A. Mills (then the NDC‟s presidential
candidate) to the Political Attaché at the US Embassy in Accra which have
been revealed by Wikileaks make interesting reading. The brief indicates that
the attaché:
“…asked Mills what an NDC victory would mean for the
National Reconciliation Commission (NRC), which has
completed its hearings (but not yet issued a final report) on
alleged human rights abuses that took place between 1957
and 1993 (Note: a majority of the alleged abuses occurred
under the PNDC‟s rule.) Mills said he would study the
NRC report and implement the portions that appeared
„logical.‟ While not condemning the NR process, he said
he would not accept the report wholesale. If the report is
biased, he would set up a new, bipartisan commission to
give the process a fresh start.”
(http://wikileaks.org/cable/2004/09/04ACCRA1934.html).
After assuming office in January 2009, however, the Mills administration failed
to act on the NRC Report. After he died in office in 2012, his party went on to
win the 2012 elections and is still in power.
15
In his recently-published memoirs, Obed Asamoah who served as Foreign
Minister and Attorney General in various PNDC/NDC administrations said of
the NRC that it had “ostensibly noble objectives, but the purpose was to target
the AFRC and PNDC rule of Flt. Lt. Rawlings” (Asamoah, 2004: 501). The
following Wikileaks entry of a conversation between an NDC official and the
US Ambassador to Ghana is noteworthy:
...former and current NDC members remain concerned that
the commission‟s report will be used to prosecute key
figures of the PNDC, under whose rule many of the alleged
human rights abuses took place. On August 2, an NDC
Member of Parliament, in a private lunch, told the
Ambassador that Rawlings was concerned about the
possibility of being prosecuted for crimes that were
revealed during the NRC's hearings, and that this concern
affects his decisions about foreign travel. (https://
wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/04ACCRA1631_a.html)
