Ejura disturbances: 4BN Commander: “Kneeling soldier” did not fire at demonstrators
Lt. Col. Kwesi Ware Peprah, the 4th Infantry Battalion’s commanding officer, claims that the soldier who was apprehended while kneeling and pointing his gun at demonstrating teenagers in Ejura, Ashanti Region, did not fire live bullets at the demonstrators.
He said that the soldier was merely frightening the demonstrators by kneeling and aiming the gun.
According to him, the security agencies’ usual operating procedure for handling rallies like the one that took place in Ejura permits such a stance.
He acknowledged that kneeling is a sign that a soldier intends to fire, but he pointed out that none of the soldiers who knelt fired at the demonstrators.
Giving his testimony before the 3-member committee leading the public inquiry into the Ejura disturbances in the Ashanti Region on Wednesday, Lt. Col. Kwesi Ware Peprah said the soldiers as expected of them, gave verbal warnings and fired warning shots, but did not intend to shoot to kill any of the protestors.
“The first is a verbal warning, the second is to cock your weapons, to signal to the crowd that you are about to fire, the third is to fire warning shots, but the signal to scare them includes the kneeling, to aim. As a matter of fact, the direction of the man [soldier] who knelt was such that no casualty came from that side. He didn’t fire. He fired only warning shots, but when he went down, he didn’t fire,” he told the committee.
Two people died in the protest last week, with the visibly armed soldiers invited to the scene being held responsible by local residents, but the military commander said the soldiers did not aim to shoot to kill.
He described the deaths as unfortunate and suggested that the deceased persons could have also been hit by shots fired from some protestors.
Four others were injured, and one of them, a sixteen-year-old boy, has had one of his legs amputated.
