A secret memorandum sent out on February 9, 1965, said: It has been decided that in view of political trends in certain African States, the Bureau's Activists should be sent out immediately to take care of the internal situation there. The states concerned are: Ivory Coast Upper Volta Niger Togo 2. This decision is based on authentic information about projected manoeuvres and plans that are being hatched and about which Osagyefo The President has been informed.2 Another memorandum dated November 2, 1965, frankly urged that the struggle against independent African nationalist governments be given precedence over the so-called "liberation struggle:" If an early action is not taken towards the controlling of these states within the O.A.U. then there is every likelihood of these states ultimately wielding a great influence over the affairs of the O.A.U. It is therefore proposed that the S.A.S. should identify its activities and give priority to work on the O.C.A.M.3 front and to give secondary attention to work on the liberation struggle.” 4 Commenting on this situation, the Government of Ghana said in the introduction: Who can doubt the credentials of Jomo Kenyatta either as a freedom fighter or as the elected leader of a truly independent African Nation? Yet Nkrumah's off-centre view of African affairs permitted him to train dissident members of the Kamba tribe who were to form a guerilla cadre loyal to Oginga Odinga, Kenyatta's chief antagonist in Kenya.5 THE SECRET TRAINING CAMPS The facts about the secret training camps for African guerrillas and terrorists were confirmed beyond the possibility of any challenge when Nkrumah was overthrown and the Army seized the camps-complete with their foreign Communist instructors, bands of African trainees, manuals, and documents. The situation is described in the following paragraphs: The first course offered at Mankrong began on 3 December 1961, but little was accomplished until the arrival of two Russian instructors who came from Moscow for this purpose. The first course was completed on 23 June, 1962 and the Russian instructors left for Accra, and then for Moscow on the following day. As organised by the Russians, the course of instruction ran for about 18 weeks for the first eight of which the trainees received Ranger (Commando) training and then went on to work with various weapons and explosives. For the second part of the course the trainees practised with Russian rifles, pistols, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and mortar. Although only two complete courses were given at Mankrong, each course contained several groups from different African countries. Among the earliest arrivals was a group of Nigerians who were in charge of Samuel G. Ikoku. This man had come to Accra in 1961 and was sent to Nigeria from time to time by the Bureau of African Affairs in order to recruit traitors in that country. After completing the first course the group was sent secretly to Nigeria to work for the overthrow of the government. (See appendix C2). The record of Chinese activity at this camp [the Half-Assini camp] follows: * The written agreement between the governments of Ghana and China, covering the assignment of guerilla warfare experts to Ghana, was not formalised and signed until August 1965, almost a year after the arrival of the first group of Chinese experts. The agreement was made effective, however, as from 30 September, 1964. The first group of five Chinese guerilla warfare experts led by a Chinese colonel arrived at Half-Assini Training Camp in late 1964. Prior to their arrival, conditions at Half-Assini had been steadily deteriorating and the students had become demoralized over the elementary training in guerilla warfare they were receiving from inexperienced instructors. It was then that Mr. A. K. Barden decided to have Chinese guerilla warfare experts assigned to the camp after Nkrumah's approval had been obtained. The Chinese listed as the objectives and requirements of the course: 1. Students are required to have primary understanding of the fundamental thinking in guiding revolutionary armed struggle, basic principles of building people's revolutionary army, strategic and tactical principles of guerilla warfare. 2. To master simple methods of manufacturing explosive materials, the basic techniques of explosion, uses of mines and how to organise and direct explosion. 3. To learn the properties, structure, assembly and disassembly of weapons; preparation for and conduct of shooting; general knowledge of communication and simple methods of using communication equipment. The trainees were told: They, as principal members of guerilla units, will be able to get a correct direction in their work and general principles of guerilla warfare. "Students are required to study with the highest spirit of learning and earnestly and 2 See page 111. 3OCAM is the organization of independent French-speaking African states. 4 See page 125. seriously help each other in understanding the techniques and problems and to observe strictly operational rules so as to ensure safety." TECHNICAL UNIT 3: SURVEILLANCE ON THE SOVIET MODE It was the Soviet Union that provided the training and equipment for Nhrumah's internal surveillance apparatus-and the information gleaned from this part of the documentation is doubly significant because of what it tells us about the apparatus of surveillance in the Soviet Union itself. Here are a few key paragraphs from the documentation. TECHNICAL UNIT 3 Technical Unit 3 was a Top Secret element of Nkrumah's intelligence service charged with the conduct of audio-surveillance or "overhearing" operations amongst the citizens of Ghana and foreign residents and official visitors. * A Russian-trained specialist in electronic listening devices, was acting head of TU 3. Technical Unit 3 came into being in the latter part of 1965 as a result of recommendations made earlier to Nkrumah by Russian Security Experts, Robert I. Akhmerov and "Sweskov" on the reorganisation of the entire security services of Ghana. Robert Akhmerov, a senior KGB officer, was in Ghana from 1962 until 5 November, 1965, under diplomatic cover as First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy. The man identified as "Sweskov" was Col. Vladimir Sverchkov who was widely experienced in V.I.P. protection and a deputy of the Kremlin Guards. Documents in the TU 3 files reveal a thoroughness of approach to carrying out operations. TU 3 staff were advised that, after a task was received, operational technical intelligence was to be collected on: 1. Location and surroundings of the house. 2. External and internal structure of the building and the position of furniture in the room or flat of object and electronic equipment and telephone in the flat. 3. Social structure of occupants of room/flat and neighbours (the loyalty to the Government of the neighbours should be considered). * Having collected this information a plan was to be drawn up which would take into consideration: 1. Where to organise control post. 2. Exact point of microphone of transmitter and how it is to be placed. 3. The connection of the cable. 4. The cover story. 5. Time for operational installation. 6. Movements of occupants of the room at time of installation. Any uncertainty in the movement of the occupants should be eliminated. The plan having been drawn was to be discussed with the leader of the group and installation "should be carried out only when the plan has been approved and signed by the leader of the operation group and the security officer." The plan is then "fulfilled step by step" with the information being recorded at the Control Point by tape recorder, shorthand and listening. The most ambitious operation carried out by TU 3 and its Russian adviser was directed against seven hotels in Ghana: the Ambassador (Accra); Star (Accra); Atlantic (Takoradi); City (Kumasi); Continental (Accra); Meridian (Tema) and Akosombo (Volta Dam)." THE EAST GERMAN CONTRIBUTION: TRAINING IN ESPIONAGE AND SUBVERSION The specific East German contribution consisted of training in espionage and subversion. For this, the East German Government sent to Ghana two members of the G.D.R. State Security, a top-ranking security officer by the name of Major Jurgen Kruger, and an assistant by the name of Stollmeyer. Following are some of the key paragraphs from the section dealing with the activities of Major Kruger: Major Kruger immediately drew up a programme for training and began the instruction based on his own hand-written notes. Seven members of the B.A.A. [Bureau of African Affairs] started the course. Classes were held in a converted dormitory at the African Affairs Centre. Lectures were given from 0900 to 1200 hours Monday to Friday and students used the afternoons and Saturday mornings to compile their notes, do written exercises and discuss points they had not fully understood from the lectures. A second course-"Intelligence Work Under Diplomatic Cover"-was given by Kruger from May to July 1965 for six B.A.A. staff members who were to be assigned to various African countries, including Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone; Tanzania and Burundi. Kruger's courses covered all aspects of intelligence work from the rudiments of how to recruit and run agents to such subjects as sabotage and terror. The following excerpts from student notebooks give an insight into the type of instruction Kruger gave: "Our informants must be educated in such a way as to be able to meet new and dangerous situations; e.g. there is a sudden outbreak of war started by Nigeria against Ghana. We must have informants ready in Nigeria who know how to blast to start blasting certain important places in Nigeria immediately." or "The refugees who stay in our country can be sent back to their countries and organise themselves into responsible positions so that they become our informants and sources in the future. We can also win drivers from enemy countries and send them to their respective countries to pave their way toward being used by very important persons in the government as drivers. Such drivers if they live with such persons will be our sources because they will be living within the object! For our purpose too we can organise Ghanaians to go abroad and work as teachers, drivers, nurses, etc. They have false passports, i.e. ‘false flag' Organisations like the Ghana Legion which can recommend to us very good cooks we can infiltrate into the enemies set-up, e.g. sending such a good cook to Nigeria to seek a job with any influential and important minister like foreign affairs to be the cook." The original agreement specified that Kruger would be: "liaison officer of the M.F.S. of the G.D.R. to the B.A.A. in Ghana. instructor on problems of intelligence and counter-intelligence on the basis of experiences and knowledge of the M.F.S. of the G.D.R. • adviser on problems of maintaining the security of the office of the B.A.A. and the establishment of secret offices, departments, etc., which are functioning under the B.A.A. adviser in security questions which are being put to him by the head or his deputies of the B.A.A." * * * The value placed on Kruger's services by the G.D.R. Ministry for State Security can be seen by the fact that East German authorities held 350 Ghanaian students and eight diplomats as hostages in order to arrange Kruger's release. On 25 May, 1966, the Ghana Government announced that it had released Kruger in exchange for the Ghanaians being held by the G.D.R. authorities * * * Prior to his release, Kruger confessed to the charges against him and further admitted that he had been living in Ghana under an assumed name and that his real name was Jurgen Rogalla. NKRUMAH'S IDEOLOGICAL TRAINING OF AFRICANS Nkrumah also borrowed from all sectors of the international Communist movement in preparing ideological manuals and organizing the ideological training of African "cadres." A book which he had prepared over his own name, titled "Guerrilla Warfare Manual," was copied, almost chapter for chapter, from the writings of Mao Tse-tung. His best known book, "Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism," was really written, as the documentation points out, by "a committee of non-African-non-Ghanaian ghost-writers," including two Englishmen, an American, and a Latvian-born Communist. Said the report: They include Geoffrey Bing, former special adviser to Nkrumah who drafted the notorious Preventive Detention Act; Herman Meyer Basner, Latvian-born citizen of South Africa and a well-known communist; Pat Sloan, member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former columnist for the Ghana Evening News; and Julian Mayfield, American editor of African Review. Wole Thomas, in an article entitled "The Ghosts who work for Nkrumah," has stated: "It is noteworthy that not a single member of the committee of 'ghosts' is Ghanaian or even African. Their only common denominator is adherence to Marxism-Leninism. "I will leave it to the Ghanaians to decide whether it satisfied their national pride to accept as the true voice of Ghana the work of an exclusively foreign band owing allegiance to a foreign ideology that very few Ghanaians have accepted of their own free will." Ideological training was carried out at the Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Economic and Political Science, commonly known as the Winneba Ideological Institute. In 1961 Nkrumah, having pronounced that "only socialists can build a socialist society," founded the Ideological Institute to indoctrinate people in socialism. Its mission was described by a staff member in the following unequivocal terms: "Since practically all the positions in the State machinery, all the executive positions, were occupied by high officials trained by the British and/or bourgeois mentality, it is quite obvious that in order to implement its programme of socialist construction, the C.P.P. has to train men and women who support the principles of socialism and who can occupy the key positions of the State machinery as well as those in industrial and agricultural enterprises." Nkrumah was influenced by his Russian security advisers to use the Winneba Institute as his sole selecting ground for future members of the Security Service. According to a high level official of the Nkrumah Security Service "the Russian security experts suggested to the ex-President, who readily accepted, that future recruitment into the security services should be through the Ideological Institute at Winneba. It was in response to this that the head of the Special Branch sent a number of Special Branch officers to the Ideological Institute." In other words, the Institute was in business to train cadres, politically loyal to Nkrumah and socialism, who would eventually replace established civil servants and key workers in every segment of the Ghana economy. The Institute's functions, however, were not limited to indoctrinating Ghanaians. Its publicly announced purview was: 1. "to train socialist Ghanaians capable of taking into their hands the key posts in all sectors of the apparatus of the State and the economy, and to take an active part in the socialist programme of the Convention People's Party; 2. "to train African Freedom Fighters in the spirit of the African revolution, pan-Africanism and socialism in such a way that when they return to their homelands they will be better armed to take an active part in liberating their countries from imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism; 3. "to train Africans in the spirit of pan-Africanism as a method of making progress toward African Union; 4. "to train Africans in the spirit of Nkrumaism which is considered like the development of Marxism in conditions and circumstances peculiar to Africa; and 5. "to train Africans in the spirit of proletarian internationalism." The syllabus for the Institute states its aims in the following terms: "to provide ideological education to activists and Freedom Fighters of the African struggle against imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism." THE SOVIET-CHINESE ROLE IN THE RENEWED EFFORT TO SUBVERT THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA Soviet and Chinese efforts to use Nkrumah for the subversion of Africa did not come to an end with his overthrow. After his deposition, the Ghanaian despot took refuge in Conakry, Guinea, where he was granted complete freedom for political operation by the leftist government of Sekou Toure. With financial support and weapons from his old allies, the Soviet and Chinese Communists, Nkrumah continued to operate against other independent governments in Africa-but now his prime target became the new government of Ghana. Details about this entire operation were made available by several important defectors from Nkrumah's entourage. The following paragraphs are excerpted from Chapter 11 of "Nkrumah's Deception of Africa." The decision was taken. Subversion was the last weapon left to Nkrumah and he was determined to use it. Here is the story of how Nkrumah has gone about using this weapon against Ghana. The story was recently outlined by the Deputy Chairman of the National Liberation Council, J. W. K. Harlley, on the first anniversary of Ghana's independence from Nkrumah's dictatorship. "The first example of Nkrumah's attempts to subvert Ghana is that of Adolphus Martei now a Senior Officer with the Department of Posts and Telecommunications. At the time of the coup, Martei was doing a course in the Soviet Union. He was flown against his wish from Moscow to Conakry. "On April 4, 1966, Kwame Nkrumah sent him from Conakry to Ghana with instructions to get in touch with Mr. Kofi Baako, former Minister of Defence, Mr. Kojo Botsio, former Chairman of the State Planning Commission and Mr. James Owusu, former Chairman of Kumasi City Council. Mr. Harlley has stated that "The Government of Ghana has information that a few weeks after the coup the Soviet Ambassador in Conakry, Guinea, gave to Nkrumah an amount of $200,000 on behalf of the Soviet Government. The Chinese Ambassador in Conakry, too, gave Nkrumah £500,000 in Bank of England notes soon afterward. These huge sums of money were to be used in subversive operations against Ghana, to restore Kwame Nkrumah as Head of State of Ghana.' * Mr. Harlley has revealed that "The Government of Ghana is aware that in June 1966, a Russian ship docked at Conakry Harbour with a cargo of arms and ammunition and plastic bombs to be unloaded somewhere in the Nzima area in the Western Region of Ghana . . . Kwame Nkrumah eventually got . . . a Frenchman and an Italian. owners of a fishing trawler, to convey the arms and ammunition and bombs to Ghana . . . The mission actually left Conakry Harbour with the weapons on board and I am happy to inform you that it was intercepted by the Ghana Air Force and the Ghana Navy." Full details of Nkrumah's subversion efforts against Ghana were originally provided to the National Liberation Council by Mr. Christian Appiah who was with Nkrumah in Conakry as his aide-de-camp but who defected from his entourage at the first opportunity when he was sent by Nkrumah on a trip to Freetown. These details have since been confirmed by Boye Moses, a recently captured Nkrumah intelligence agent. Both men reported that the Cubans and the Chinese Communists have been training members of Nkrumah's body-guard in guerilla warfare, that African freedom fighters trained in those countries (like the Nigerians mentioned previously) are being assembled as a terrorist arm to support Nkrumah's subversive drive to return to Ghana, that both China and the Soviet Union are heavily committed financially to returning Nkrumah to power and that the Soviet Union has installed a very high-powered radio in Nkrumah's Conakry residence which enables him to intercept Ghana Police and Army wireless messages. HAVE THE COMMUNISTS ABANDONED THEIR EFFORTS? The documentations here reproduced carry the record as far as 1967. There are skeptics who will argue that the Soviet Union and Red China have in recent years moderated their ways, that they are no longer engaged in the kind of global subversion described in this volume. All the evidence, regrettably, points to the opposite conclusion-to the conclusion that, in terms of the pattern it describes, the Ghana documentation is as pertinent for today as it was for the mid-'60's. Let us consider only a few items from the record of the past year: (1) Mexico.-On March 18, 1971, the Mexican Government ordered the expulsion of the Soviet Ambassador and four senior members of the embassy staff, after Mexican officials uncovered a plot by 19 Mexican guerrillas, who had been trained in Moscow and North Korea, to overthrow the Government. (2) The Congo (Zaire).-Following student manifestations at the University of Louvanium in June, 1971, the government of President Joseph Mobutu charged that foreign embassy attaches had inspired a plot to assassinate the President and incite the workers to revolt. Some 20 Communist diplomats were expelled from the country. (3) Sudan. After an attempted Communist coup d'etat on July 19, 1971, Prime Minister Al-Nimeiry recovered control, ordered all Communists seized, and expelled the Bulgarian Ambassador and the counsellor of the Soviet Embassy on the grounds that they were heavily involved in the coup. Over a hundred other Soviet personnel were also expelled or left the country. (4) Great Britain.-On September 24, 1971, the British Government ordered the expulsion of 105 Soviet diplomats, who were involved in a massive espionage operation, including the preparation of sabotage. (5) Bolivia.-At the end of March, 1972, the Bolivian Government ordered the expulsion of 49 Soviet Embassy personnel. According to a communique issued by the Interior Ministry, seized papers of the extremist National Liberation Army (ELN) established that ELN activities were being financed by Cuba and the USSR. Soviet First Secretary Igor Cholokhov and Third Secretary Aleksandr Smirnov were named as the prime intermediaries. (6) Persian Gulf.--We have already dealt with the critical importance of the Persian Gulf area. During the first part of April 1972, the insurgency in Oman came in for considerable attention in the United States press. We quote a few paragraphs from an article which appeared in the Baltimore Sun of April 17, underscoring the classic nature of this insurgency: In early 1968, the rebellion began to grow out of control. After the British withdrawal from Aden and the South Arabian Protectorate in 1967, the resulting new state of South Yemen fell under Maoist-style Communist control and quickly took up the Dhofari cause. The rebellion became a classic Chinese-type subversion operation against a neighboring state. The core of the guerrilla movement, estimated here as never numbering more than 2,000 was trained according to strict Maoist guerrilla doctrine and supplied at Chinese and Soviet Bloc expense. Its leaders were trained abroad in guerrilla tactics, and the few cadre leaders who have been captured or killed in an engagement have had a red book of Chairman Mao's sayings somewhere on their person. Operating like the Viet Cong in a country still more primitive than upland Indochina, the rebels cajoled, and in many cases terrorized, the Jabali nomads into co-operating with them. Sometimes they threatened to kill off the livestock the mountain Dhofaris live on, and in many reported cases kidnaped young boys and re-educated them at an indoctrination center in Hauf, a coastal town just across the South Yemen border. If this were all there was to the Communist record of global subversion over the past 12month period, it would still be mighty impressive. But there is much, much more. One can only stand in awe before the incredible success the Communist propaganda apparatus has had in persuading so many people that we live in a period of growing detente-while events such as those described above continue to occur on a monthly basis. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee hopes to throw additional light on Communist global subversion as it relates to American security, through the publication of further studies and documentations. |