Former President John Jerry Rawlings has called on the security services to remember the import and significance of June Four and uphold its principles.He said; “it is in the keeping to these principles and ideals that generations to come will learn and avoid the pitfalls that led to the uprising”.
The former President said this in a statement read on his behalf by Dr. Stephen Opuni, a member of the Ashanti Regional Executive of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the 29th anniversary celebration of the June Four Uprising in Kumasi on Wednesday.The occasion, which was under the theme; “Liberating the People through the Ballot Box – the Impetus of June Four Action” was also used to inaugurate the Ashanti Regional Branch of the Youth for Leadership, a youth wing of the NDC.
He said the June Four uprising was a day that cannot and must not be forgotten in the history of the country, stressing that, after almost three decades, much has been said about the events leading to, as well as the actual events of that day, and its aftermath.“Some have chosen to tell the truth about these events, whilst others have chosen to distort and fabricate the events that happened on that day. Still others, the truly dangerous ones, have chosen to attempt to eradicate the meaning and spirit of the June Four.”
He pointed out that, the true spirit of June Four was rooted in the concepts of truth, probity and accountability saying; “no amount of lip-service to democratic good governance as prescribed by our self-appointed Western mentors and executed by gentlemen in three-piece suits, can satisfy the dwindling hopes of the disadvantaged and suffering people. The only way to engage their trust and confidence is to be honest, open and transparent”.
Former President Rawlings indicated that, the patience of the suffering majority would sooner or later boil over, if government flaunts personal wealth, power and ambition in the face of the poor.He said; “it does not matter how nicely such governments cloak their actions under the external measurers of democratic practice, or secure the approval of world powers in their bid for respectability, the poor and deprived may be apparently apathetic and powerless for long periods, but sooner or later they will react”.“
If only the elite, the influential and the wealthy of our dear nation had absorbed, in all sincerity, the lessons of June Four, our dear country will be far ahead of the dismal situation which now prevails.”For all those, who were personally involved in the highest moral motivation of June Four, it is a cause for deep regret that in recent years, the ideal of true democracy has been crowded by a façade of procedural excuses by functionaries with fat allowances of the present government”, he added.Former President Rawlings emphasized that, “the spotlight of June Four must not be turned only on the government but also on ourselves; in our desire to seek power, we must look at ourselves in this light. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but losses his own soul.”
Source: GNA
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