A Chinese galamsey operator and a Ghanaian employee escaped death by a whisker when they were rescued from being lynched, for invading a cocoa farm at Manso Mpatasie, in the Amansie West District of the Ashanti region.Though they escaped death, D. WeiZhong, the Chinese, and Michael Effah were not Spared cutlass wounds before being rescued and rushed to the Agroyesum St. Martins' Hospital for treatment. The Manso District Police have meanwhile arrested and placed in custody the owner of the farm, Oti Amankwah, to assist in its investigations.Superintendent Stephen Kwakye, Commander of the Amansie West District Police confirmed the incident to the Times, adding that after the investigations, Mr. Amankwah would be charged with causing unlawful harm. He declined to give further evidence, but the Times gathered from a source that a native of the area, a licensed small-scale mining operator, Paa Kwasi, has employed some Ghanaians and Chinese in his small-scale mining business in the area.Paa Kwasi is alleged to be destroying farmlands for his mining activities and paying less compensation to the affected people. He was said to have contacted Amankwah to offer him some money in exchange for his land to continue his mining activities, but he turned it down.Last Saturday, Mr Amankwah was said to have left the town to a funeral and while there, Paa Kwasi and his men stormed his farm with an excavator to operate.According to the source, the farmer went home, armed himself with some implements and rushed to-the farm. Eye-witnesses told the Times that it was quite a scene when he arrived on the farm, as it turned into a bloody scuffle, resulting in the two sustaining serious injuries and had to be rushed to the hospital.The Assemblyman for the area, Akuako Kwarteng, accused Paa Kwasi and those with licenses to operate small scale mining of allegedly destroying various farmlands and water bodies in the area and refusing to pay compensation to affected farmers.He cited a case of an old woman who came to him with a complaint; whilst weeping that Paa Kwasi had destroyed all her farm lands and would not compensate her.Mr Kwarteng stressed that if care was not taken, farmlands and water bodies in the entire area would be destroyed beyond reclamation and appealed to the authorities concerned to monitor the small scale mining license holders as well as the illegal miners (galamsey operators).