The Kusaug Youth Movement has given the government 10 working days to act on the alleged killing of a lecturer by soldiers in Bawku, warning that the Kusasi people will withdraw from all future peace engagements with security agencies if the demands are not met.
In a letter to President John Mahama as Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, the group alleged an unarmed lecturer at the Gbewaa College of Education, Pusiga, was beaten to death by soldiers of the Joint Task Force (JTF) on the night of 11 September, minutes after curfew began, while riding his motorcycle home from work.
“We condemn this act as state-sanctioned murder, cowardly, unlawful, and inhumane,” the statement read. “This is the deliberate killing of the very people you were sent to protect.”
According to them, the killing breached the Public Order Act, 1994 (Act 491), which requires curfew violators to be arrested rather than assaulted, as well as Articles 13 and 15 of the 1992 Constitution, which guarantee the right to life and protection from torture.
It accused the task force of abandoning its own rules of engagement, calling the killing part of a wider pattern of military brutality against Kusasi communities in Garu, Bugri, Binduri, Bawku, Ashaiman and Wa.
The Movement wants an independent probe led jointly by CHRAJ and the Military High Command, the prosecution of all soldiers involved for murder under the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), compensation for the family, retraining of JTF personnel in Bawku, and a public apology to the family and the people of Kusaug.
Read the full statement below:
