SOLDIERS RUN RIOT

*Subject galamsey operators to severe beating

STORY: FROM JAMES APPIAKORANG JR., KUMASI, A/R

Illegal miners in Esaase-Bontefufuo, a farming community in the Amansie West District of the Ashanti Region, received the shock of their lives when military personnel stormed the area and subjected them to very severe beating.
According to one of the victims, who reported from a hideout, the military personnel stormed the area on the orders of the Queenmother, Nana Serwaa Akenteng, and elders of the town in reaction to pressures from a mining company interested in mining in the town.
The victim, who only gave his name as Sam, alleged that a foreign mining firm, Keegan Mines, had paid GH¢100,000.00 to the queenmother and the elders of the town as compensation to gain license to operate in the area.
Keegan Resources Incorporated, a Canadian mining firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is alleged to have paid the said amount at the request of the leaders of the town.
According to the website of the Canadian firm with two mining projects in Ghana (Asumura and Esaase), the firm expressed interest in the Esaase mines after discovering the “Esaase gold deposit has become world class as confirmed by the pre-feasibility study that was released in September 2011.”
According to reports, the Queen mother, Nana Serwaa Akenteng on receiving the money started launching attacks on galamsey operators in the area to force them to abdicate their operations in the area.
Reported to have dressed in full military gear and driving in Mercedes Zetros Military trucks, the military men numbering about 600 pounced on the miners on arrival at the mining site.
In a typical Hollywood movie scenario, the military officers were said to have rounded the galamsey operators making them unable to escape the attack.
They then subjected them to severe beatings amidst threats for them to quit their trade.
The miners were later conveyed into waiting empty military trucks which drove off after loading, heading to an unknown destination.
According to reports, the military men returned to the town after some of the arrested galamseyers escaped from the truck when the locked truck opened upon hitting a pothole.
The second coming, reports claim, witnessed the beating of every adult sighted within the vicinity.
While most of the mining equipment belonging to the illegal miners were either seized or vandalized by the angry soldiers, parked vehicles of the miners were also driven to unknown destinations.
According to Sam, the queen mother had betrayed them since she is also a party to the galamsey activities in the area.
“She has betrayed us all, because she also has a mining hole and a grinding machine here and we all know that.
…But since the money was given to them she has smartly denied us and is rather bringing soldiers to molest us,” he stated.
All efforts to get to Nana Serwaa Akenteng or any elder of the town for a reaction had proven futile as at the time of going to press.