Odinga Lumumba: political prisoner seeks justice
Odinga Lumumba, born Wilhelm Buller in 1942, earned a place in Belizean history when he spearheaded the organised rioting against the Heads of Agreement in March of 1981. Lumumba hung around for a few years after independence before returning to the continent of Africa, a place where he had worked extensively during the 1970’s. In 1988, Ghana once again became his home where he worked closely with the country’s leader, Jerry Rawlings. That collaboration came to an abrupt end in 2001 when the activist was imprisoned. On Tuesday Lumumba arrived back home, following his surprise deportation from Ghana. This afternoon Lumumba described to News 5’s Stewart Krohn exactly what happened between his arrest and freedom.
Odinga Lumumba
“After we lost the election the party of Rawlings was defeated, so they started to harass those of us who were around Rawlings at the time. Several of the functionaries were also arrested before I was arrested. But me being very near to him in the capacity for many years as one of his chief…I did security work and I did political work in an advisory capacity. I was apprehended on the ninth of June, year 2001. And I was never taken to court. I was never given a charge. I was just kept in confinement. This present political administration in Ghana has the tendency to talk about democracy and human rights, that they are a party that subscribed to that philosophy and the rule of law. So when I was arrested, the rule of law was not applied to me, my rights as a human being was never respected.”
Stewart Krohn
“What was it like for a year and a half in solitary confinement?”
Odinga Lumumba
“It was mental torture. Physically I was not affected until the latter part of my castration when I became very ill with malaria and typhoid. I was placed in a dungeon that was build by the slave master, a place called James Fort. That was last September. I was removed from day and night solitary confinement, to this remand home, which was a dungeon, a slave castle built by the British, where they used to keep the slaves during the time of the slave trade. That was last September I was sent there the first time, so that was the first time I was out of solitary confinement. Twenty-seven of us were in there, so that when you lay, that is the space you have. So I developed malaria, typhoid, scabies, I couldn’t walk. I was backed out the prison, this dungeon rather, and taken to a hospital where I was given at least seven drips in two days, a series of injections. To be perfectly honest, I almost died.”
“But going back to what I’m saying, the questions that asked me, it could never come Ghana security. It was coming from outside of Ghana security.”
Stewart Krohn
“Who are you suggesting was…”
Odinga Lumumba
“I’m suggesting British intelligence and the CIA. You see, because the nature of the administration now is very pro-British. And it’s the type of administration which would do anything the British tell them to do. As I said, the whole process of trying to get to release me was always blocked, so the whole reason was to get at Jerry, because they make allegations and accusations saying like, we were deciding to make a coup, you were planning to take over the government again. The whole act was political. I was a political prisoner. I was not a criminal, I was never taken to court, I was never tried, you see.”
Stewart Krohn
“What are you going to try to do about that situation?”
Odinga Lumumba
“I have an arrangement with a lawyer in Ghana, we have been doing it together; about four Ghanaian lawyers actually. We’re going to sue that administration for a violation of my rights as a human being, for detaining me unlawfully for the period of almost two years and a half.”
“Now I arrived in Belize yesterday and I’m very disappointed in this deportation law. I am a political prisoner, and I was made to go through this deportation law that I am told that I have to report to the police station every Friday because I was deported from Ghana. I was not deported for criminal reasons, I am a political prisoner and I expect this administration, the P.U.P. administration to give me back my rights, because I was not deported for criminal reasons. And that law that they have on deportation is for criminal reasons, and I am a political prisoner. I have consulted a lawyer already. It hurt me that some small boys at that police station was very rude to me in my own country with a law that has nothing to do with me. This administration should never have let me gone through that thing.”
Lumumba’s plans for the future are uncertain, but he told News 5 that it is his intention to seek justice from authorities in Ghana and hopefully to return to that country as soon as possible.
