Rawlings defends attacks on Mills

Former President Rawlings Email Print Have Your Say ( 36 ) Former President Jerry Rawlings has defended the scathing attacks he he has been launching on President Mills. Addressing cadres a week ago in Kumasi, Mr Rawlings criticized the president for being too slow in ordering investigations into heinous crimes committed under former President Kufuor. He warned if President Mills does not sit up, he might end up being a one-term president. Mr Rawlings’ comments have been criticized widely, including some sympathizers of the NDC who think the former president is getting out of hand with his constant attacks on the government. He previously made similar remarks about the president when he hosted a delegation of National Democratic Congress leadership from the Volta Region, and on another occasion chiefs from the same region. But those comments, Mr Rawlings, has defended. “What we’ve gone through... (which) is something I have been trying to get across to our colleagues for a long time now, is that you cannot defend freedom and justice and for that matter democracy if people don’t have the capacity to define what is wrong,” he said. He added; “we have very glaring examples of misdeeds that took place with human rights abuses, killings, and yet we give priority to materialistic things like investigating Ghana@50. Does that mean that human life can be treated like chicken?” Speaking on Adom 106.3 FM in Tema, Mr Rawlings said the sacrilegious killing of Issa Mobila in an army barracks, while soldiers who have been trained to defend justice watched, should have been given priority attention by the government. “Here is a man who was picked up, tied upside down and whipped to death. Would you know if it took hours or days,” before he died?” He said he wondered what became of an institution as disciplined as the military to have carried out such an act, wondering also whether others just stood by to watch the heinous crime. The former president has also previously criticised the Mills administration of making a politically incorrect move in asking certain political appointees of the Kufuor administration to stay in office while he completed processes to replace them. By so doing, Mr. Rawlings believes President Mills had allowed 'criminals' in the former government to continue to operate with imputnity. Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana