In a front-page story, the Ghana Palaver writes that the people of Ghana, in appreciation f the legacy of peace, stability, participatory democracy and national pride, which President Jerry Rawlings is leaving behind, will build an impregnable bulwark around him and protect him as long as he lives.

The Palaver quotes Mr Vincent Asiseh, the NDC Press Secretary as making this observation at the weekend in reaction to a statement made by the interim organiser of the National Reform Party, on a ?Voice of America? (VOA) programme. The paper says that the Reform Party was quoted as saying that President Rawlings endorsement of Prof. John Atta Mills, was probably because he is seen as the best person who can protect the President when he steps down from office, for the ills of his government for the past 20 years.

According to Mr Asiseh, the NDC?s position is that there were definitely ills in the past, but that these excesses were attributable more to the national euphoria of the time than to any personal wrong-doing on the part of President Rawlings, who tried to bring the eruption under control.

On the opposition?s call for the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission to probe the ills of the past, Mr Asiseh is reported as saying, ?we do not think this is necessary after nearly eight years of stable constitutional government?.

?We do not think there is the need to embark n an exercise that can only lead to the opening of wounds, some of which may have healed having regard to the fact that some of the wounds go back to the pre and immediate post-independence periods, when attempts were made to assassinate our first President, in which children and innocent bystanders were either killed or maimed?.