ACCRA, Sept 4 (AFP) - A South African-style reconciliation commission set
up to investigate rights abuses under Ghana's former president Jerry
Rawlings began its work Tuesday by registering the first cases of alleged
victims.
   Around 120 people filed complaints on the first day in the office of the
nine-member National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) in Accra and in nine
other regional centers, officials said.
   "Our work is mainly to find the facts of all those who had been
adversely affected by the various human right abuses over the last 20 to 30
years," NRC president Amua Sekyi told AFP.
   "We believe that our work will unify the country and enable us to live
together as one people."
   Many of the alleged victims standing in line Tuesday carried scars and
other indications of possible torture.
   Some said they were imprisoned without trial or tortured between 1981
and  1992, under the regime of the Provisional National Defence Council
(PNDC) set up by Rawlings.
   One man showed a deformed ear and explained, "they used it as an
ashtray."
   "In 1986; I reported on what I saw. Some suspects who had burnt organs,
or others had portions of their flesh cut and given to others to chew," a
Ghanaian journalist who had worked at the time for foreign media told AFP.
   The NRC estimates more than 400 cases could be filed by the end of
September, when the committee is due to wind up its hearings.
   The commission is to make recommendations or seek compensation for the
victims.
   But under the law passed in January that set up the NRC, none of the
complaints can lead to a trial.
   Rawlings first seized power in June 1979 and in September of the same
year handed power to an elected civilian government. He staged a second
coup on December 31, 1981. He led Ghana at the head of the Armed Forces
Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the PNDC respectively after both those
coups.
   The two military regimes are accused of having tortured, tried and
executed  their opponents.
   Rawlings' supporters have accused John Kufuor's government of launching
a  witchhunt against officials from the previous administration.
   South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which closed its
doors  at the end of last year after six years of work, was empowered to
grant amnesties to those on both sides of that country's liberation
struggle whose acts, including murder, were clearly political, and who
demonstrated repentance after making a full confession.

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