By I.K. Gyasi ON SUNDAY, June 17, 1977, the most bizarre and incomprehensible event happened in the referees Dressing Room of Stade du Bamako, in the Republic of Mali. Without the least provocation, Malian soldiers, led by one Lt. Col. Tiecoro Bagayoko, Head of National Security, and one Captain Sylla, Chairman of the Referees Committee of Mali, mercilessly beat up four innocent Ghanaians. The Ghanaian victims of the totally unprovoked attack were Referee Major D. S. K. Amengor (as he then was before his promotion to Lt. Col.), his assistants, Mr. Osei Tutu of Kumasi (now deceased) and Mr. J. O. Odai of Accra. The fourth victim was Mr. G. C. Kpodo, who was then the First Secretary at the Ghanaian Embassy in Mali. What was the crime of the three referees and the diplomat? The story is told by Mr. Frank Apeagyei, Managing Proprietor of the Beverly Hill Hotel at Asylum Down. Mr. Apeagyei is also a trained journalist, football administrator and Public Relations consultant. Mr. Apeagyei has this to say about Lt. Col. Amengor: "Divine Senanu Kwasi Amengor, from Peki in the Volta Region, a grandson of Dr. Ephraim Amu, had chosen match officiating as a vocation for two reasons." He continues, "First was his intrinsic love for football, right from adolescence. The second was his natural intuition for fair play, energised by military training and discipline that induced in him a tendency to want to be part of the effort to dispense justice and equity in the game he loved so much." Col. Amengor was no run-of-the-mill football enthusiast. Writes Mr. Apeagyei, "Still on the right side of 40 at the time, he (Col. Amengor) combined an astute knowledge of the laws of the game with the courage and conviction of taking decisions promptly and firmly, as a worthy member of the Knights of the Whistle." Mr. Apeagyei further describes Col. Amengor as "an honest, unassuming, self-effacing introvert, whose diminutive stature often hid him from many, a remarkable quality of a strong-willed, resilient and intrepid character that had aided him to become a respected officer in the Ghana Armed Forces." On the day in question, Col. Amengor and his two Ghanaian assistants had refereed an international match played in Mali, between Mali and La Cote d'Ivoire. The match had ended with a one-nil victory in favour of Mali. Mr. Apeagyei allows Col. Amengor to take up the story, which I have abridged, and partly rendered in indirect reported speech. Because Mali had won the match, no Malian soccer fan attacked the three men as they made their way to the dressing room. Their pleasure was, however, cut short, when a pack of Malian soldiers, led by Col Bagayoko and Captain Sylla, burst in on them, and started beating them mercilessly. The Malian Colonel was angry because, according to him, since two Malian players were injured, the referee should have awarded two penalty kicks to the Mali team. Let Col. Amengor speak: "Not interested in an answer, he (Col. Bagayoko) pounced on me and two hefty slaps instantly fattened me to the floor. He lifted me up and like a school teacher, caned me all over my body with a walking stick. I rushed to the next door, which was a toilet, to seek refuge. He caught me up there, and ordered his soldiers to join him in the beating." As Col. Amengor tells it, these soldiers were armed with guns, sticks and belts. Let Col. Amengor continues, "These gendarmes were merciless as they hit me with the butt of their guns, kicked me on the floor, and stamped me with their boots. Blood oozed freely from all over my face. They then dragged me back to the dressing room. As I groaned in pain, I lifted up my eyes and beheld my colleagues suffering the same ordeal." Col. Bagayoko's walking stick got broken into pieces as a result of the beating he used the stick to give to Col. Amengor. Ghana's Ambassador to Mali, who had waited for the referees in his car, wondered why they were not coming out of the dressing. He therefore asked his First Secretary, Mr. Kpodo, to find out. As soon as Mr. Kpodo set foot in the dressing room, he was also set upon and severely beaten. The beating of the four Ghanaians was so bad that Col. Amengor despaired of any rescue, and said a silent prayer to commit his soul in the hands of God. He lost his wristwatch in the encounter. By the Grace of God, the Ghanaians managed to leave the dressing room and headed for the Ambassador's waiting car. Once again Col. Amengor speaks: "The assailants made attempts to stop the car, and when that failed, they gave us a chase, stoned the car, and smashed the rear screen into pieces, the diplomatic tag, the flag, the number plate and all, not meaning anything to them." Let Col Amengor also describe how he looked and felt after the beastly attack: "I had sustained multiple injuries, bruises and abrasions on my head, face, left shoulder, back, buttocks, right forefinger and thumb." The Ambassador called a doctor who came to treat the men. The doctor pleaded that his identity should not be disclosed, because he feared the consequences of disclosure. For their safety, the three men abandoned their hotel and took refuge in the Ambassador's residence. Through the help of a facilitator, the three men managed to meet the Match Commissioner, Mr. Godfred Ekue from Togo at his hotel, Hotel L'Amitie, at the ungodly hour of 12:15 a.m., so that Mr. Ekue could present a true report of what happened. Col. Amengor also sent a report to CAF with a piece of Col. Bagayoko's walking stick as evidence. The stick had broken into pieces as a result of his use of it to beat the Ghanaians. Following the reports by the Match Commissioner and Col. Amengor, the Republic of Mali was banned from all CAF and FIFA matches for two years. Secondly, the Malian Football Federation replaced Col. Amengor's "Lanco" brand wristwatch which was lost during the infamous beating. Thirdly, not too long after the event in the dressing room of Stade du Bamako, Col. Bagayoko was accused of being involved in an attempted coup d'etat. Col Bagayoko was tried, found guilty and executed. Col. Amengor's comment: "Nemesis has it own way of catching up with wrongdoers." PS:- Thirty two years ago, Malian soldiers beat up a diplomat and three fellow Ghanaians for no offence committed. Thirty two years later, Guinean soldiers attack, beat up and rob our Ambassador. At one time, Mali and Guinea formed part of the Nkrumah-inspired Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union. Ghana once bailed out Guinea with 10 million British pounds. Is life not full of ironies? Source: The Ghanaian Chronicle