“I can assure you when you call the military in, don’t expect normal procedures so the best thing is, don’t do things that will bring the military there.”
These are the words of caution from the Director-General of the Public Affairs of the Ghana Armed Forces to persons who may want to foment trouble.
Brigadier General Eric Aggrey Quarshie wants citizens to abide by the laws of the country in order to prevent a recurrent of the Ashaiman incident where military officers allegedly arrested and brutalised some residents following the killing of soldier there.
He was a panel member of National Public Relations and Communication Summit organised by the Institute of Public Relations,Ghana at Kwahu-Nkwatia in the Eastern Region.
It was under the theme: ‘Staying Credible Through Rough Patches’.
According to him, the main objective of the military when it is deployed to trouble inflicted areas, is to subdue the cause of the incident.
“The military is not now coming to ask you ‘oh please why didn’t you respect the police’. If you wanted to respect you would have respected the police and so when I come in issue of respect doesn’t come in anymore because we want to subdue whatever issues that are coming up.
“And most times getting people to lie down-and unfortunately that is what happened – is a way of segregating hardcore troublesome people from innocent ones. The idea is that the people who are causing the trouble will not lie down. They will not because they won’t take that instruction. In the case of Ashaiman because it had rained once you go down, you are going inside water. It was bad but it was one of the ways to separate the innocent ones from them,” he stated.
