Nigeria

Ouagadougou (Upper Volta)

Algeria

Togo

Bamako (Mali)

Brazzaville (Congo).

Mr. Barden concludes with a request for £6,300 for these operations and adds that "whether this exercise will be a permanent affairs will be determined by the results we shall achieve during the initial stages."

Considering the depth of Nkrumah's involvement with the dissident Sawaba and their leader Bakary Djibo, one cannot help but feel that Niger President Diori was ill-rewarded for his gentlemanly conduct towards Nkrumah, nor can one help but be shocked that Nkrumah's Government could so blandly and unabashedly deny President President Diori's accusations. Yet Nkrumah's official denial of involvement in subversive activities against Niger came less than six months after he had given Djibo Bakary £6,300 to send his agents to various independent African nations including Niger. And it came at

a time when hundreds of Niger dissidents were awaiting guerilla training in Ghana or being reinfiltrated into Niger from Ghana after completing such training in Ghana or Communist China.

It should be noted, again, that nowhere in this record of duplicity is there any suggestion that President Diori was considered a "noncolonialist" even in Nkrumah's rarefied lexicon. In fact, he is described in a letter written to him by Barden in the following terms:*

"If I am not presuming too much, I would like to say how deeply impressed I was with your personal charm, influence and deep understanding of the problems confronting the African continent on one hand, and Niger and Ghana on the other; and I dare say that these great qualities of you together with the general kindness of your people will always be remembered by me."

This letter was written to thank President Diori for his hospitality on a recent visit. The record cited here of how this hospitality was repaid is a shameful one.

Appendix, Exhibit F.

be interpreted to be a calculated attempt to encourage opposition to an indigenous and friendly African Government, and an implied suggestion that Nigeria is not yet free and independent.

"There are numerous incidents of Nigerians who have been invited or otherwise persuaded by the Ghana authorities to travel to various parts of the world for courses and training in subversive methods with a view to their returning to Nigeria to engage in subversion..."

Suffice to say, Nkrumah's reply to this letter was a ten-page exercise in obfuscation, studded with such insincere assurances as:

"I am very surprised that you should entertain the idea that the Government of Ghana is planning to subvert the Government of Nigeria or is in any way encouraging activities which might lead to this end.

"You referred to instances where Nigerians had been invited or persuaded by Ghanaian authorities to travel to various parts of the world for courses of training in subversive methods. I do not know of any such instances as you refer to."

This reply to the Nigerian Foreign Minister was dated June 29, 1962. Six days earlier, on June 23, 1962, Nkrumah's first guerilla warfare training course, given at Mankrong Camp by Russian instructors, was completed. The second course at Mankrong which began two months later was made up entirely of dissident Nigerians.

Lest one wonder whether all these complaints did not eventually induce Nkrumah to adopt other methods for achieving his purposes, it is necessary only to point out that as late as November 1965, three months before his ouster, Nkrumah was engaged in the same sort of exercise against Sierra Leone. Early that month Sir Albert Margai, then Prime Minister of Sierra Leone, had complained that the local Ghana High Commission was using its diplomatic bag to transmit subversive material into Sierra Leone.

In this case, Nkrumah evidenced outward concern by sending a high level delegation to Sierra Leone to personally convey his denials.

Members of the delegation, which included Defence Minister Kofi Baako and Convention People's Party (C.P.P.) leader Nathaniel Welbeck, met on November 23, 1965, with Prime Minister Margai who verbally outlined his complaint. The instantaneous reaction of Nkrumah's henchmen was to categorically deny the charges.

Prime Minister Margai then confronted them with irrefutable documentary evidence of his complaint. Faced with immutable evidence that the charges were true, Nkrumah's spokesman promptly and equally categorically adopted an entirely new position which was that the diplomatic bag had been used without the knowledge of responsible Ghanaian officials. To assuage Prime Minister Margai, they promised an investigation. Needless to say, the investigation never took place as there was nothing to investigate. Nkrumah's delegation had known from the beginning that the charges were true and its only mission was to deny them in the most convincing possible way.

Prime Minister Margai graciously decided not to publish the facts of the case in the interest of African Unity but warned that the incident should not be repeated.

Obviously then the official complaints Nkrumah received from various African governments did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for interfering in the internal affairs of independent African nations. In fact, Nkrumah was so inured to pursuing his personal political schemes by violence and subversion that this way of thinking quickly permeated all levels of his government.

So we discover that the instinctive reaction of the Ghana Embassy in Bujumbura, Burundi, on hearing that the King had dismissed his Foreign Minister for being "anti-imperialist” was to cable Accra* suggesting:

"You may please to consider putting this case before the Old Man if operation half assini (Half Assini was Nkrumah's guerilla warfare training camp at this time) is to be applied by the Bureau (B.A.A.) in conjunction with local progressive leaders."

Appendix, Exhibit J.

9

Ev

VENTUALLY, Nkrumah's proliferating denials that he was engaged in subversion against his neighbours failed to be entirely convincing in the face of the indisputable evidence to the contrary. As a result, various independent African nations refused to attend the October 1965 O.A.U. Summit Conference in Accra without assurances from Nkrumah that he would discontinue his subversion operations against them.

It will surprise no one who has absorbed the record of cynicism already presented here to learn of the devious method Nkrumah employed before the O.A.U. meeting to satisfy the complaints of other African heads of state while at the same time cleaving to his immutable penchant for politics by subversion. Even Nkrumah was sensitive to his extraordinary duplicity here; for, instead of dealing with the matter in his routinely secret way, documents concerning it were stamped TOP SECRET.

The files reveal that early in 1965 Nkrumah was moving to temporarily disembai rass himself of some of the more vocal freedom fighters whom he was supporting in Ghana. On February 20, 1965, the Accra Commissioner of Police is informed by the B.A.A. that "Osagyefo has commanded" that three Sanwi nationals (Ivory Coast dissidents) be sent away from Ghana immediately. The memorandum* explains this command as follows:

"This decision has been necessitated by the fact that some of the Heads of State including President Felix Houphouet Boigny of the

Appendix, Exhibit K

Ivory Coast have categorically stated that they would not attend the Summit Conference scheduled for September in Accra if their freedom fighters remained in this country. The President has decided that the three vociferous persons among the Sanwis whose actions here have led to open protests by the Ivory Coast Government should leave Ghana immediately".

The document then requests the Police Commissioner to let the Half Assini Police arrest the men in question. From this it might appear that Nkrumah actually intended to comply both in letter and in spirit with the requests made by other African chiefs of state that he rid his country once and for all of subversive elements. A second document**, however, shows that Nkrumah intended no such genuine co-cperation and was prepared to remove freedom fighters from Ghana only for the duration of the O.A.U. conference. This document, sent in "Cypher" on March 19, 1965, to the Ghana Embassy, Cairo, announced the imminent arrival in Cairo of the aforementioned Sanwi freedom fighters and stated:

"They are refugees who are to remain in Cairo on the instructions of Osagyefo until after the Summit Conference in September."

The most incriminating document concerning this episode was sent to Nkrumah on April 23, 1965, by Barden. It was stamped TOP SECRET as well it might have been, since the entire contents were as follows:

**Appendix, Exhibit L.

Osagyefo:

In our recent African Affairs Committee meeting at Flagstaff House, we suggested that some of the Freedom Fighters seeking political asylum in Ghana here should be sent to other friendly African countries until the African heads of state conference to be held in Accra is ended.

Osagyefo, as you are aware of the recent abortive attempt on the life of President Hamani Diori and the press statement issued in Lagos by the President of Upper Volta, Diori of Niger, I should be grateful if Osagyefo take immediate action on my suggestions:

1. that Djibo Bakary, the oppositon to the regime of Diori should be sent to Algeria together with his party residing in Ghana;

2. all financial help to him should be sent through our Ambassador in Algeria;

3. travel documents should be issued to his cadres who wish to pursue further military training in Peking by the Government of Ghana or the Algerian authorities;

4. Mr. W. Massaga also of Cameroons who is the leader of the Union des Populations du Cameroun should be sent to the United Arab Republic and some of Party cadres should also accompany him to Cairo.

Osagyefo, I should be grateful to inform you that the man who tried to assassinate President Diori was the first party cadres to be trained in Ghana until he and other comrades were sent to China for further military training. He was arrested in their first major offensive and jailed until released.

Osagyefo, I should be grateful if financial help of Ghana £8,000 should be given to Djibo Bakari and party cadres to set up their office at Algeria and Ghana £5,000 also should be given to the comrades from Cameroons for their upkeep while in Cairo.

All arrangements will be promptly made by this office to return the freedom fighter cadres to their training here once the Summit Conference is over.'

Thus we see the fraudulence of Nkrumah's solemn undertaking to brother African heads. of state that he would desist from supporting freedom fighters from independent African nations. Given Nkrumah's determination to dominate Africa by whatever means, it is small wonder that he refused to relinquish permanently his control over subversive remnants from other African countries when such men willingly undertook assassination assignments on his orders. (It will be recalled, in this connection, that Nkrumah's arrangement with Djibo Bakari governing activities within Niger were that: "Absolute secrecy should characterise all activities, each of which should be sanctioned by Osagyefo."

Appendix, Exhibit M.

11