Bawku Conflict: �He�s Mamprusi; Kill Him�

The guerilla tactics Adopted by the Kusasis in the organization of a sustained pogrom of the Mamprusis took another turn last Saturday when Shiraj Abdulai Amandi, a Mamprusi was attacked in a purported armed robbery. The clear guerilla attack used armed robbery as a tactic but ended up in the shooting of a target. That tactic appears to be working as the Police have in their reaction so far tried to claim the action as a pure crime. Usually reliable sources in Bawku told GO that at about 6.30am last Saturday, a group of traders travelling from Bawku to Garu were stopped by four young men riding two motorbikes. Initially, all the traders on board assumed it was an armed robbery operation when the attackers robbed the traders of several thousands of Ghana cedis. This perception of an armed robber attack was soon to change when one of the robbers pointed out to the deceased and shouted in the local dialect �He�s Mamprusi� let�s kill him,� following which sporadic and sustained shooting ensued, resulting in the death of Shiraj Amandi and serious injuries to an unidentified Mamprusi. According to Bashiru Abdulai Amandi, elder brother of the deceased who spoke to us from the cemetery during the burial of the deceased last Saturday, his late brother, his (Bashiru�s) wife Barikisu and younger sister Lela Abdulai left Bawku at dawn last Saturday to attend the funeral rites of a deceased uncle at Nalerigu. Amandi told GO that �our mother left for Nelerigu three days ago so my brother and the rest were traveling to join her for the A�dua of our late uncle. Just as they got to a point where a bridge has been washed away on the way to Garu the vehicle was stopped.� Quoting eyewitnesses Amandi told GO �the attackers who spoke the Kusaal dialect, charged at my brother saying, �you people are in the Bawku township disturbing our Kusasi people. You do not even want them to come to town. We�ll kill you today.� �They then ordered my brother to come down from the vehicle and shot him in the head. They destroyed his head completely. I am speaking to you from the cemetery� Amandi told GO last Saturday. He said in the course of the attack, the victims were ordered to divide themselves according to whether they are Kusasi or Mamprusi; ostensibly for purposes of wiping out the Mamprusis. �The attackers also identified one Mamprusi youth called Sule but he took to his heels and managed to survive flying bullets from the attackers,� Amandi told GO. He said in the course of the attack, four policemen from Garu arrived at the scene resulting in a shoot out between the attackers and the Police; in the course of which the four attackers fled into the bushes leaving their two motorbikes behind. Amandi told The Ghanaian Observer that one of the attack called a conductor in the Bawku township to inform him that the cargo truck on which they were traveling and its passengers had come under attack. As usual, the Police have been quick in reacting but in doing so have created a more than reasonable doubt as to its commitment together with the other security agencies on the ground to stamp out the guerilla activities going on in that municipality. On 31st December, 2009, two persons were killed by the Bawku guerillas whilst two others were injured in the said attack at North Natinga, a suburb of Bawku. The state-owned Daily Graphic in a report attributed the deaths and injuries to sniper fire. The paper went on to identify the dead as Rober Alingar and Hamid Rahman, of the Yanga ethnic group and the injured as Issah Bonaba, a Mamprusi and Musah Bukari. In August last year, GO broke the story of guerilla style killings at Bawku but instead of the security agencies confronting the reality of that story, they adopted an all out attack on GO. The Bawku killing s being spearheaded by some Kusasis have ethno-political bases, as the Kusasis have nailed their mast to the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), having started off with the Convention People�s Party (CPP) under Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah. The Mamprusis on the other than are known allies of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and its forbears. Later events have proven that indeed the guerillas are in effect at Bawku.