General News of Wednesday, 20 May 2009  |
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Rawlings' Speech At Oxford

ADDRESS BY FLT. LT. (Rtd) JERRY JOHN RAWLINGS, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE
REPUBLIC OF GHANA AT A LECTURE ON ‘DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY IN
AFRICA’ UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE OXFORD RESEARCH NETWORK ON
GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA – MAY 18, 2009

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen the subject matter of security and
democracy in Africa is thought provoking and interestingly, the story
of our diverse continent.

Africa’s diversity was existent long before the colonisation of the
continent and its subsequent partitioning leading to various regional
and political blocks.

I need not bore you with the historical antecedents to the
partitioning of the continent and the various security implications it
had. Nevertheless the subject of security and democracy on the
continent cannot be removed from the fallouts of the Berlin Conference
of 1884.

I recently had the opportunity to address the African Presidential
Roundtable in Berlin where the issue of land security was discussed.
It was evident that colonialism (a partnership of greedy landowners
and colonialists) had taken a great toll on the political fortunes of
the continent as land security continues to be an albatross round the
neck of many governments and indeed full-scale civil wars and other
conflicts have evolved out of land insecurity. Lest I digress, it is
important to first identify what security is. Security is the ability
of a people to feel safe and comfortable within a certain
socio-cultural framework. In this regard we can all understand the two
modern security structures - National Security and Human or Political
Security. National security involves protecting the state, its
institutions and sovereignty. Human or political security entails
issues of poverty, basic amenities, employment, and abuse of human
rights and a host of others. How can we have security without genuine
democracy? Since freedom and justice anchor democracy, how can you
have the security of peace and stability when there is no freedom and
justice? It is most unethical and politically unwise to attempt to
govern a people by resorting to a high ratio of physical security as
opposed to political/human security. Are we not violating people’s
human rights, sensibilities and sensitivities with the use of the
coercive machinery of the state by terrorising people into a State of
subjugation?

The use of the judiciary also, to jail innocent people contributes to
instilling fear and emasculating the populace. In effect, it creates a
false and intoxicating sense of security for the leadership at the
expense of the security and the empowerment of the citizenry. We then
get away with being corrupt dictators. Integrity, transparency and
accountability become meaningless in our leadership. Fear,
intimidation and terror tactics are the tools of corrupt
dictatorships.

On the other hand, a high ratio of political/human to physical
security is a mark of good leadership and a demonstration of
confidence in the sense of responsibility of our people. It empowers
our people. If we have the courage to empower our people, it then
demands of us a leadership that will necessarily be accountable to the
people, be transparent, and maintain a high degree of integrity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ghanaians experienced the worst form of famine
any country could conceivably endure in 1983 when there was widespread
drought due to a lack of rainfall. Food insecurity aside, there was
also insecurity associated with electricity. Ghana’s major
hydroelectric dam almost dried up and the country had to resort to
load shedding with its attendant negative impact on economic
development.

Regional security in Africa has always been an important factor in the
political directions of most African countries. Ghana belongs to the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). We have other
regional groupings such as the Southern African Development Community
(SADC). These institutions have all played significant roles in the
security of their various regions. Security cannot however exist in a
vacuum but always overlaps with the political environment.

In Africa, democracy and security have always been bedfellows. The
democratic system of governance relates to the free and equal
representation of the people in the management of a country. Several
exceptions aside, Western type of multiparty governance is the most
adopted form of political system on the continent and I must say the
major source of insecurity on the continent.

Democracy works only when it has evolved within a specific
socio-cultural environment and fused into the traditional political
systems such that it is seen as an indigenous product, but
unfortunately Africa has not been given the opportunity to develop
this.

In 1987 the government of the Provisional National Defence Council
established the National Commission for Democracy with the task of
seeking national consensus on Ghanaian political reform. Their final
report hinted at a democratic system that was not multiparty based but
on a grass roots system that encouraged elected unit committees
district assemblies, regional assemblies and national assemblies - In
effect, the continuation of the governing structure of the PNDC. The
concept was more entrenched within the socio cultural fabric of our
traditional political system and was aimed at ensuring that every
citizen played a direct active role in national politics. The aim of
our leadership at the time was to place utmost importance on
participatory governance, where power belonged to the ordinary
citizen. Such empowerment in an evolving political situation ensured
stability because our leadership was under a constant challenge to do
the peoples’ bidding and not capitulate to the whims of a select
elite. Governance was demystified. There was a sense of social
responsibility, respect for human values and transparency of
governance.

Democracy is about what the people want and need, not about what the
rulers think the people want or need.

The multiparty system of governance prescribed and inflicted on us by
some Western powers did not factor the social cultural fabric of our
traditional political system that existed before Western multiparty
democracy. We can sit on our high horses and send observers to cover
elections across the continent and they will return with lovely
stories of free expression of the people’s will. What they fail to
realise is the fact that many voters are influenced into voting in a
certain pattern and are threatened with violence should they vote
otherwise. Unfortunately that situation persists on our continent and
we cannot play the ostrich, adopt democracy in the form that the West
has handed down to us and expect that our security will be guaranteed.
Democracy could be described as existing in name and form but without
substance in some parts of the continent.

In developing Western style multiparty democracy on the continent, we
have resorted so much to text book definitions which have been imposed
on us and have refused to do a critical analysis of the impact such
wholesale adoption has had on our societies.

THE GHANA EXAMPLE

Ladies and gentlemen, Ghana is one country that has gone through it
all. I first took political office in 1979 when the military top brass
had presided over one coup after the other and turned Ghana into a
very corrupt state following the failure of the two post-independence
elected governments to manage the country. The intervening military
leadership did little to curtail the corruption that had been
inherited and inflation and other economic indices were in a galloping
state.

The insurrection of June 4, 1979 came close to a very violent
explosion. It was an enraged call by the officers and ranks to purge
the armed forces. Containing this rage within the barracks, in other
words, preventing it from spilling into the civilian populace was
indeed a herculean task because the civilian populace kept demanding
for more executions and the blood of their perceived oppressors too.
The shock and rage of June 4 appeared lost on some of the civilian
politicians and their corrupt collaborators who took refuge in a state
of self-denial.

When I became head of state again in December 1981, it was a desire
for a revolutionary transformation by the people. The regime that we
handed over to after the revolt of June 4 1979 had embarked on a
punitive behaviour towards the armed forces and civil population. Our
country had once again sunk into a political and economic quagmire
that had little respect for the masses. The economy was in shambles;
state institutions had become all but insignificant, corruption was on
the rise again and the hope and expectation that had been ignited by
the spirit of June 4 was virtually being undermined by the civilian
regime.

Ladies and Gentlemen, what is democracy if there is no clear
developmental order? People’s very existence hangs on good
governance and if successive elected governments have failed miserably
in defending the will of the people, it manifests itself in
revolutions.

Ghana underwent political and economic metamorphoses that every true
proponent of democracy has to concede, laid the fertile framework for
what we regard today as a stable democracy.

The social sense of responsibility and natural justice in a
non-constitutional era was so high that the judiciary were not needed
to do justice to the people. The self-empowerment had led to a higher
quality of justice at no cost – the courts had become irrelevant.
The spontaneity towards natural justice gave true meaning to
democracy.#

Ladies and Gentlemen, as the ten-year tenure of the Provisional
National Defence Council drew to a close it became clear that economic
development had taken seed. The infrastructural development that went
with it was there to be seen. Electrification around the country had
been vigorously pursued rising from about 25 per cent to over 80 per
cent by the time we left office in 2000. In 2001 I handed over power
to John Kufuor after serving a two-term presidency since 1992. I
handed over gracefully even though the candidate of my party lost. The
people’s will had decided that John Mills was not the man to lead
Ghana at the time. I respected that decision and did not dream of
taking power by force or passing a decree to entrench my stay in
power. Need I mention the number of times it has happened elsewhere on
the continent and beyond? In a lecture I gave at the University of
Science and Technology, Kumasi on April 25, 2009 I stated that:

The stability and smooth transitions recorded within the first eight
years of the Fourth Republic was a true manifestation of the will of
the people and a belief in the leadership they had elected. No
government is without its negatives and I am convinced that my
government had some flaws but what was important was the fact that we
were never alienated from the ordinary folk who elected us into power
to move this country forward…

Crucially important for the successful management of any democracy is
the need for leadership to allow institutions of governance to work
effectively without interference. The Commission on Human Rights
(CHRAJ), The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and all the institutions of
government played their roles effectively. Indeed some members of the
NDC government were affected by adverse findings by some of these
institutions. Embarrassing, as these may have been it sent a strong
message to all that democracy was really at work and elected leaders
were not above the law.#

ANOTHER DARK ERA

Early this year, Professor Mills of the National Democratic Congress
was elected as President of Ghana. Eight out of ten regions voted for
him. Our electoral system requires perfection, but it is significant
to note that several firsts have been chalked since 2001 when Ghana
first experienced one elected leader taking over from another. In 2009
we did it for the second time.

The election of Mills was preceded by an era of that I described in my
April 25 lecture as follows: The election of the New Patriotic
Party’s John Kufuor in 2000 gave further boost to the development of
our democracy. Many had serious doubts about the intention of Rawlings
to hand over power and respect the will of the people, particularly if
his party’s candidate lost the election. Little needs to be said
about the smoothness of the transition…

Contrary to the assertion that their tradition was truly democratic
the NPP government was an excellent example of an undemocratic regime.
Once you belonged to the party you did no wrong. Every effort was made
to obliterate the P/NDC legacy and the institutions of government were
so politicised that even when they took decisions against government
officials such decisions were disregarded with impunity.

Ghana once again sunk into a democracy of nepotism,
non-accountability, power to the rich and a complete disregard for the
feelings of the electorate.

More dangerous was the abuse of the security services structure, the
hounding and persecution of some services personnel, refusal to follow
laid down promotion procedure and a complete politicisation of the
military. The NPP could not co-exist with institutions with forceful
integrity. The security services were not spared and the judiciary
took a serious beating as well. Seeing shadows and recognising the
fact that some of us were aware of the deepening crises in the
barracks, a blanket ban was placed on respectable senior officers not
to visit military installations including the police and military
hospitals.

Fortunately Ghanaians knew better and did not hesitate to vote out the
ruling party when it mattered most despite the clear doctoring of
figures and tinkering that took place in a desperate bid to stay in
power.

…the general populace was privy to the fraud that was taking place
and a refusal to allow that to persist meant threats of a state of
emergency and a culture of fear designed to compel the electoral
commission to announce the incumbent as the winner. What was a better
recipe for chaos than this?... The NPP took us to the abyss as far as
democracy was concerned and such methods do nothing to deepen or
entrench democracy. It allows for chaos, lack of confidence in the
electoral process and political apathy.#

It is insightful to note that the previous government left a huge
national debt of GHC 47 trillion when Ghana’s combined debt from
Independence was GHC 44 trillion! Never before in our country’s
history had there been such blatant dissipation of national resources.
There was absolutely no significant infrastructural development to
show for it!

Significantly, Ghana managed to stay stable because of the culture of
tolerance that had been created between 1981 and 2000. These
achievements are not due to pressures imposed by the West but a desire
by a people to prove that peoples’ power is most sacrosanct.

REGIONAL SECURITY AND DEMOCRACY

Several countries in Africa survive on fragile democracies and these
have led to several security threats some of which has spilled to
neighbouring countries.

African governance and security has faced major challenges because of
the imposition of conditions by certain western powers over the manner
our various countries should be governed.

In 1982 Nigeria deported more than one million Ghanaian economic
migrants in what was a major political and security threat to the very
stability of the then PNDC regime. Rather than panic and plead for
some understanding, we marshalled forces and received the Ghanaians
with open arms. Shiploads of Ghanaians were ferried to Tema where they
were transported by articulated trucks to their various towns, cities
and villages. It was a test of Ghana’s resolve and a ploy once again
plotted by Western vested interests to destabilise Ghana.

Indeed that singular event strengthened the power base of the PNDC as
a government of the people because the manner the repatriation was
managed confounded the harshest critics and sowed an atmosphere of
patriotism never before seen in Ghana. The spirit of positive defiance
was at its best. Many ‘Agege’# returnees with support from
government went into farming and other local industries and
contributed positively to the economy of Ghana. Security in the region
was again threatened when Liberia was plunged into confusion in 1989
following the outbreak of a civil war. Though there was an ECOWAS
Protocol on Mutual Defence Assistance some members developed cold feet
when attempts at deploying an intervention force was mooted.

In August 1990 at a meeting in Banjul, Gambia, some of us impressed on
our colleagues the need to establish a military intervention force,
ECOMOG (ECOWAS Monitoring Group). The initial composition involved
troops from a few countries from the West African region. The grounds
for the establishment of the force were based more on a political and
moral will, and the need to set a precedent than on a legal basis.

Under the leadership of General Arnold Quainoo of Ghana, ECOMOG had to
fight its way into parts of Monrovia to create a buffer zone. Its
intervention led to the United States and United Nations showing
subsequent interest. ECOMOG had its major issues like every military
intervention group but it served as a fillip to the international
community as the United Nations then intervened and helped broker
peace.

What was significant was that the political powers within the region
had grown to appreciate the need for a regional force to act with
dispatch when member states encountered situations that affected their
internal security particularly because of the spill over effect. The
war in Liberia was linked in so many ways to the war in Sierra Leone
and both countries traded accusations over what each other was doing
to destabilise her government. Regional stability is thus crucial and
a permanent machinery to either prevent or manage conflict hence the
initial idea for ECOMOG.

MEDIA, DEMOCRACY & SECURITY

The media has played both positive and negative roles in democracy and
security. With particular reference to the Western sponsored media,
bad news about Africa make the headlines all the time and even in
times of great achievements the negative aspect is highlighted.

Ghanaians could for instance not fathom why the Bloombergs, Al
Jazeeras and a host of others chose to call Ghana’s last elections
for the ruling party’s candidate when Professor Mills was leading
the poll by a respectable margin. Back home Kufuor had over the past
eight years sponsored a vociferous bunch of no-good journalists who
had sold their ethics and were practising what I will refer to as
stomach journalism. They aided in creating an atmosphere of fear and
turned the NPP leadership into a quasi-dictatorship with power
centralised within the presidency and all dissenting opinion snuffed
out with the full weight of the sponsored media.

I must admit that some media houses stayed neutral and made great
efforts to report the real situation on the ground. One station in
Accra was brave enough to call the election for Prof Mills eliciting
heavy abuse from the ruling party. The inevitable nevertheless
happened.

CONCLUSION

Africa’s security and political stability is key for real
socio-economic development. Security in effect relies on a genuine
democratic culture. Significantly, directions taken by countries such
as Ghana have served as a source of inspiration to many countries
within the region and beyond. As leaders of our countries, we have a
responsibility to gauge the mood of the people and always move the
political train in a direction that ensures that the electorate feel
their interests have been served. Democracy makes true meaning when it
is the kind of governance that advertises true people power. It is not
the absence of military interventions, which we seem to have achieved
that will restore democracy, freedom, justice and development. What is
required is the integrity of leadership and ability to empower the
people. Leadership should have confidence in our people and not feel
intimidated by empowering them.

Are we bold enough to empower the people? Are we prepared to be
accountable to the people?

Corruption has persisted because our leaders have used state machinery
to terrorise the people and silenced the opposition. Vested interests
from outside have also contributed to perpetuating this by
whitewashing such corrupt and autocratic governments.

In Ghana, the recent victory of the NDC is a strong indication that
people are ready to lay down their lives for freedom, and has sparked
hope that the opposition can stand up to the power of corrupt and
autocratic governments. The uni-polar nature of the Blair-Bush years
did little to improve the political situation in Africa. The growing
culture of democracy suffered a serious setback.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Barrack Obama offers hope for the world. His
victory is to some extent an indictment of the political immorality of
the past and the savagery of capitalism as Pope John Paul put it.
Obama’s leadership will now hopefully make it more difficult for
governments to get away with the corrupt and autocratic behaviour
since the fall of the bipolar world. Let us take advantage of the
redeemed political morality before we lose this opportunity again.

Interference by some Western powers in African political affairs where
corrupt and errant leaders are supported to consolidate their stay in
power should be denounced in no uncertain terms.

When students and academics like you make an assessment of Africa it
is important that you identify the underlying issues created by your
own leadership and make calls to them to revise their posture.
Democracy is democracy so long as it is propped by freedom and
justice, probity and accountability. Our problem is having to deal
with the Western double standards unknown to the public. We are
clothed in the form while they live the substance!

I take this opportunity to thank the Oxford Research Network on
Governance in Africa and the University of Oxford for the opportunity
to address this august audience. Thank you to all who helped in
facilitating this trip. Good evening.



| Source:
GHP

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