Libya’s Long Arm to Ghana

by Sue Rakoczy · April 7, 2011

With Libya in the news for weeks now, �memories of my Ghana years (1982-1988) resurfaced since those were the “early Rawlings years” �when Jerry Rawlings was attempting to mold Ghana into a clone of Libya.

When I arrived in Ghana in September, 1982 Rawlings had been in power after his second coup in December, 1981 for nine months. He was enamored of the Libyan Revolution under Gaddafi and the country was rapidly being restructured according to the Gaddafi vision.

The usual local government offices of mayor, councils, etc had been abolished and the country had been organised into “People’s Defense Committees” and larger councils to run the country. The PDCs on paper sounded like Neighbourhood Watch Committees but �as “agents of the revolution” were anything but. Their job was to make sure that the people learned the principles of the Revolution through indoctrination with Gaddafi’s Green Book, stamp out corruption by confiscating goods in the markets (which were then taken to their homes of PDC members) and generally causing havoc.

Freedom of press, speech and assembly had been abolished, although churches and mosques were allowed to hold services. In 1982 I was living in the small town of Navrongo in the north and even in that isolated town the PDC was active and often violent (one of the other IHMs told me that it was filled with ex-prisoners who had been let out of prison after the coup). The press was strictly controlled and even in private conversations one had to be careful because spies were everywhere.

Rawlings executed a great number of “enemies of the revolution”. After his first coup in 1979, he ordered the execution of three former heads of state. The executions continued after his 1981 coup, including generals and a woman who was a former Constitutional Court judge. I was a member of the National Justice and Peace Commission and we wrote a very strong position paper on the evil of capital punishment. We knew we were taking a great chance, but wrote it with courage. We heard that at the annual Christmas reception for the diplomatic corps, Rawlings shoved a copy of the document in the face of the Apostolic Nuncio and shouted, “How dare you”.

In the 90s Rawlings moderated his love for Libya and turned toward the West, accepting help from the World Bank and the IMF.

But in the early 80s, as the “long arm of Libya” reached to West Africa, it was not pleasant to live under Rawlings and his friend Brother Gaddafi.

What I experienced was very mild oppression compared to what the people of Libya have suffered for 42 years. May they soon be free!