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... certain philosophical questions arise for the Free World
A NEW GHANA
(Continued from precedine p ae)
thd guerrillas, sometimes by the claim
that it supplies them with weapons,
sometimes with the claim that North
Vietnamese are actually in South Vietnam
fighting as guerrillas. This topic is a
second case of falsification by the U. S.
press.
One of the most startling things about
the situation is th'at Ho Chi Minh did
not want the guerrilla war in the south
to start in the first place. In 1957 and
for the next several years, Ho Chi Minh
was a dedicated follower of Khrushchev's
doctrine of "peaceful coexistence." Ho
Chi Minh saw that a successful guerrilla
war in the south would eventually bring
the United States into the fray, and,
sooner or later, this would bring the
United States into open conflict with
North Vietnam..
HE PREDICATES this claim upon his
"Descending Spiral Theory" of guer-
rilla war. He argues that the rulers and
their armies in South Vietnam will prove
no match for the guerrillas by themselves,,
so they will bring in Americans to help
out. This will cause more Vietnamese
to look upon their rulers as American
puppets and give their support to the
guerrillas. Increased guerrilla strength
will require the rulers to bring in more
Americans, which will lead more Viet-
namese to look upon the rulers as puppets
or the Americans, and so goes the spiral.
eventually, the United States will have to
bring in combat units and invade the
north while subjecting it to an utterly
devastating air attack, ruining the eco-
nomic advances that have been achieved
at such a large cost in labor and money.
In order to avoid this ultimate invasion,
Ho Chi Minh attempted to prevent the
resumption of guerrilla warfare in the
south. He has failed because the local
Communists, whose very lives were in
South Vietnam is a gaping hole in the
whole network. American military stra-
tegists have long wanted to have a base'
there to complete the encirclement of
Communist China. This fact alone can
explain why Eisenhower wanted to
"Koreanize" the First Indo China War,
employing United States combat troops
in such a- way as to give the United
States a military position in Indo China
as an occupying power. This fact alone
can explain why the United States was
so unhappy with the Geneva agreements
which forbade the use of either zone of
Vietnam as a military base of any for-
eign power. In the end the desire for a
military base in South Vietnam led the
United States to violate the Geneva agree-
ments.
THE SECOND CONSIDERATION is p0-
P litical and it involves President Ken-
nedy's policy 'toward Latin America. The
President was acutely aware-of how vital
Latin American raw materials are to the
mighty military-industrial machine of the
United States. It is widely known that
the United States does not have within
her own boundaries sufficient raw ma-
terials to maintain herself as the pre-
eminent military, economic and political
power in the world. If the United States
were to lose the mines owned by her
entrepreneurs in Latin America, she would
be appreciably weaker. If the mines were
to fall into the hands of the Communists,
the situation would be even worse for
America's pre-eminence.
When President Kennedy came into
power, he set about doing something to
reduce the danger of Castro-type guer-
rilla revolutions in Latin America. His
policy had two prongs. A positive prong
was the Alliance for Progress. A negative
one was the war in South Vietnam. By
participating in this war, President Ken-
nedy hoped to dissuade potential Castros
collapsed Many militia men hired by
the .government turned in their weapons
and refused to fight any longer, and
many defected to the Vietcong.
Between 1959 and late 1963, the war
had subtly changed from a peasant re-
bellion against Diem to a peasant war.
against the United States and its puppets
in Saigon. The war after Diem's down-
fall went on and is still going on. It-
does not matter who is put into power
-in Saigon; whoever it is will be branded-
a mere puppet of the Americans and
therefore as an enemy of the people. This
is Ho Chi Minh's "Descending Spiral
Theory."
NOT TO B.E DAUNTED by its failure to
explain the losing of the war in terms
of Diem's failings, the press turned next
to his successors in power, that is, the,
military junta headed by General Duong
Van Minh (which only lasted from No-
vember, 1963, to January, 1964). "The
junta is too unwieldy and indecisive," said
the press. "It is not getting anything
done." So the junta was overthrown at
the end of January, 1964. General Nguyen
Khanh assumed power. Again the guer-
rillas intensified their raids. The press
began then to split. Some segments of it
started blaming inadequate military
equipment (but Defense Secretary Mc-
Namara quickly squelched that theory).
Some segments began to blame the of-
ficers in Khanh's army and suggested
that American officers should be put in
command of South Vietnamese units.
Other segments allowed that General
Khanh had not "captured the public
imagination."
Finally, of course, there is the recurrent
charge of North Vietnamese military
operations proceding from a privileged
sanctuary in the north. This theory is
grotesquely implausible since, in the last
few years, almost all the fighting has
was at great pains to say that they were
merely "advisers" and "trainers" and
that, as such, they performed no actual
combat. Later on, Americans were told
that the advisers fired back when fired
upon. Now the line is that advisers on
the ground and pilots in the air can fire
at anything that looks as if it might be
an enemy or an enemy installation. This
last position comes down to saying that
there are no longer any restrictions on
American personnel. This has, in effect,
been the position from the very first and
almost all of the press has concurred in
lying to the American people-a fourth
case of downright falsification.
There is one notable exception. Richard
Dudman wrote a powerful series of ar-
ticles for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in
January of 1963. In it he pointed out
that Americans on the scene in South
Vietnam acknowledged that American
"advisers" and pilots had long been in-
volved as full-combatants who fired first
if an opportunity presented itself.
A fifth dhse of falsification concerns,
the press' long term denial that chemical
warfare was being used by the Americans
in South Vietnam. Then in January of.
1963, Richard Dudmon exposed the details
of "Operation Ronchhand," the name for
the inhuman use of chemical defoliants
on the rice crops in South Vietnam. It is
now fairly widely known that this kind
of warfare is being employed by Ameri-
cans.
THE AMERICAN PRESS repeatedly
claims that the main battle in South
Vietnam is political; it is a battle for
the minds of men. Only the Vietcong use
terror to win the minds of men; the
Americans and their South Vietnamese
allies use such intellectual persuasion as
explaining what freedom is and what
Communist slavery is.
In this connection, the New York Times
1957, Ghana was completely tied to the
West, primarily to Britain. Whereas at
that time an Englishman could join any
political party he wanted, travel where
he liked, read what he fancied and so on.
Ghanaians could not. It is hardly sur-
prising, therefore, that in the period im-
mediately following independence Ghana
turned away from the old colonial au-
thority and, sought to establish political,
economic and cultural ties with countries
other than Britain. The primary bene-
ficiaries of this less parochial attitude
have been American businessmen. The
previous colonial administration had
frowned upon relations with them, but,
since'independence, they have established
'considerable trading links between Ghana
and the U.S.
Similar links have been forged with
Israel, (who is helping with the man-
agement of Ghana's merchant shipping
ne Italy (one Italian company is build-
ing a large oil refinery; another has the
contract for the construction of the Volta
Dam) and Canada (the Canadian army
has undertaken the training and ad-
ministrat on of Ghana's army). Yet the
only new economic ties which have re-
verberated to us in the West are those
with the Soviet Union.
After a grand tour of Eastern Europe
and- China., Nkrumah managed to per-
suade the.Eastern bloc countries to in-
crease their purchases of cocoa from
30.000 tons per annum to 60,000 a year
over a five year period. This compares
with a total of400,000 tons per annum
being sold to the West. (The figures are
for 1962.) The fact remains that the over-
whelming majority of Ghana's trade is
with the West (35 per cent with Britain
20 per cent with the dollar area -and only
9 percent with the whole Eastern bloc),
and, as long as chocolate sundaes and
Hershey bars remain in vogue, is likely
to continue that way.
A THIRD ISSUE the Western press goes
to great lengths to examine is
Ghanaian education-and any possible
link between it and President Nkrumah's
increasingly dictatorial ways.
Since I was in Ghana myself as a
university teacher, I was primarily con-
cerned with the activities of the Ghana
government in improving the educational
facilities of the country. I was also con-
cerned lest. the government might seek
to interfere with that freedom of thought
and expression which we think of as be-
ing a vital concomitant of any worth-
while search for truth.
At the time I was in Ghana, fully 15
per cent of the country's budget was
appropriated for education.. All sides
agreed that tremendous progress had been
made in primary education since the
British had left. A nationwide program of
secondary education was delayed by the
shortage of trained teachers, a gap which
was filled to some extent by the arrival
of a large number of Peace Corps men
and women.
AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL, the gov-
ernment was spending $3 million a
year on the University of Ghana, which
boasted a student body of only 600. (The
great majority of Ghanaian students at
that time went to Britain for their
studies.)
The government eventually came to
feel, not unreasonably, that the number
of students at the university should be
increased. The initial refusal of the large-
ly British-staffed university to comply
with this request touched off a running
feud between the university and the gov-
ernment, in which it would be difficult
to maintain that the government was
wholly wrong.
The tragic outcome of this incident was
this year's government ouster of a group
of professors whose only crime, it ap-
peared, lay in being Americans at a time
when Americans were the scapegoats for
A GHANAIAN NEWSPAPER of this.
period, apropos of a trial for fraud,
enigmatically charged the accused civil
servants with "criminal inexperience."
While even that grievous and dangerous
condition can hardly have applied to
Professor Harvey and his colleagues, it
reveals something of the prevailing mood.
In spite of this, however, many Ameri-
can and British staff remain at the uni-
versity, with the government attempting
little or no interference with their ac-
tivities. I myself experienced absolutely
no attempt whatever by the government
to control my activities or my classes-
and I was for a while engaged in teach-
ing the sensitive subject of constitutional
law.
The future is not altogether bright, for
signs do appear that the government,
which provides each student with a'
scholarship, is seeking to exercise some
political control over the student, with the
threat of withdrawal of scholarship funds
if anyone should be refractory.
ALL IN ALL, therefore, while the situa-
tion is far from satisfactory, it is by
no means as bad as is often made out; the
government is vitally interested in edu-
cation. It may be that many of the
troubles which have occurred can be put
down to the fact that the government
has to rely upon foreigners, not always
from nations which have the best rela-
danger during Diem's regime, disregarded,
his advice and formed into armed bands
to resist Diem's raids.
As Edgar Snow in "The Other Side of
the River" says: "It was not North Viet-
nam or even local Communists but Ngo
Dinh Diem who finally drove the whole
countryside into rebellion." The war in
South Vietnam started as a peasant up-
rising against -.Diem's ruthless dictator-
ship; at first it was a civil war. It was
not until 1961 when America entered to
save the tottering Diem that any foreign
power became involved. The United States
backed Diem and lost the peasantry, turn-
ing the war in South Vietnam into a
war against a foreign power, the United
States..
THE PRESS in this country is at great
pains to argue that, while the First Indo
China War was an imperialist war in-
volving the French versus the people of
Vietnam, the Second Indo China War is
not, for, after all, the United States has
no significant economic interests in Viet-
nam. Indeed, the press contends, America
is in Indo China to preserve the people
from slavery. This is a third case of
downright falsification by the press. As
the press does not give Americans any
very plausible explanation for America's
military intervention, it may be desirable
to consider why this country is involved
in South Vietnam.
America may have many reasons for
fighting in South Vietnam, but the two
most vital seem to be questions of mili-
tary strategy and political considerations.
The military consideration has to do
with America's policy of containment of
Chinese Communism. In order to execute
this policy, the United States has main-
tained wrvfmi l mitar has e arnmd
in Latin America by showing just how
bloody revolutionary warfare can be when
it runs up against the gigantic military
machine of the United States. Mao Tse-
Tung says that guerrillas with peasant
support are invincible. President Kennedy
set out to prove him wrong in the hopes
of preventing Communist expropriation
of American mines in Latin America and
elsewhere.
AS AMERICANS now know, it looks as
if Mao is right. This is precisely why
the situation in . South Vietnam is so
dangerous. American prestige is com--
mitted to the hilt and if the United
States does not carry the war to a higher
level-at least to a limited war such as
was fought in Korea-then President
Kennedy -will have been refuted and Maos
vindicated. America cannot allow that to
happen.
The press has no one answer for the
fact that the counter-insurgency war is
being lost. From time to. time it has been
fashionable to blame North Vietnam for
causing and carrying on the war from
a privileged sanctuary. However, by the
early 1960's it was obvious to reporters
on the scene that there was a massive
peasant rebellion against Diem under way
and then it become no longer fashionable
to blame the north. The press started to
blame Diem's "unpopularity" and his
"unwillingness to take American advice."
It engaged in a ferocious (and wholly
justified) campaign against Diem. Finally.
President Kennedy joined the campaign
and Diem was overthrown.
Had the press been right in blaming
Diem for the fact that the war against
the guerrillas was being slost, then it
logically would have ended after his over-
throw. Instead of ending in November
gone on in the Mekong Delta. The press
in so saying is overlooking the fact that
it takes five to seven weeks to walk from
North Vietnam to the Mekong Delta.
ONE WONDERS if there is not a more
plausible explanation for the fact that
the American-backed forces are losing the,
war than any of those that the press
gives. It is clear that Americans are in-
timately involved in and responsible for
the destruction of Vietnamese villages
and the killing of the Vietnamese people.
The more killing; the more enemies. The
more enemies; the more recruits for the
guerrillas. The more recruits for the
guerrillas; the stronger their armies.
It is precisely because the war has be-
come essentially a war against the United
States, against a foreign power, that it
is being fought so vigorously by the guer-
rillas and so weakly by the government
troops. The press often acknowledges
that the guerrillas are strongly motivated.
What it does not acknowledge is that they
are motivated by a hatred of the for-
eigners who kill their relatives and fellow
citizens. What else could one expect than
that events of the last few years should
have turned the people of South Vietnam
against the United States?
The Second Indo China War has be--
come an anti-American war comparable
to the way in which the First Indo China
War was, an anti-French war. There are
differences, of course. France wanted
Indo China for economic reasons; the
United States wants it primarily for
military reasons. The most dramatic and
relevant similarity is that both powers
ran aground against the peasantry and
the revolutionary movement based upon
it. The press has misinformed us about
this similarity.
published an interesting unsigned report
on August 9, 1964, called "Saigon is
Losing the Propaganda War." One hardly
wonders why after reading the article.
Speaking of the people in the Vietcong
"base areas" the article reads:
"For these people," a United States
specialist said, "we can use only one
basic propaganda theme-surrender
or die. We drop photographs of
mangled Vietcong bodies and captur-
ed Vietcong equipment. We tell Viet-
cong villages that in the last year
20 per cent of their men, have been
killed and that next year 20 per cent
more will die. That's about.all we can
do."
The article is an out-and-out admission
that American propagandists use sheer
terror to influence Vietnamese. The same
American source quoted above goes on to
say: "Wha.t's really needed is the per-
sonal touh and that's where the Vietcong
are beating us so badly.",
This makes it sound very much as if
the tables were ^ turned. The Vietcong
give their propaganda a "personal touch"
and Americans use sheer terror. That is
not-the story that the press in the United
States has been purveying for the last
three years.-
WHY IS the press coverage of South
Vietnam so bad? The answer is al-'
ready obvious. America is engaging in a
dirty, Igrisly, bloody war, and many,
American people would not support it
so freely if they kn6w how grisly it really
is. The American people have so far been
given no say in whether they want such
a war as is being fought in South Viet -
nam. Even if they were to be asked to
endorse or condemn the war, Americ ins
would have only a vast array of mis-
information and deception on- which to
stitution under which he assumed power
and rules more or less by personal de-
cree (thereby emulating the example, it
should be added, of many a free world
bastion). The charge is false, and here
it is necessary to make a point which,
although it may appear a technicality,
has certain important implications.
Great care has been taken by the
Ghana government at all times to follow
constitutional procedures. This is not to
deny that the government can still do
things which are-profoundly disturbing
while acting under the constitution.
The Ghana constitution empowers the
president to name one of the judges of
the High Court as chief justice. By the
same token, he may withdraw this ap-
pointment by executive instrument. He
might not, under the constitution which
was in force at the relevant time, dismiss
any member of the High Court from the
bench.
When the High Court incurred the
president's displeasure late last year, the
president dismissed the chief justice from
his position as chief justice, but not from
the court. Sir Arku Korsah, the judge
involved, promptly resigned from the
bench.
HOWEVER REGRETTABLE these mel-
ancholy events may be, at no stage
did the president exceed his constitutional
powers. He has subsequently sought from
the electorate, and been granted, the-
power to dismiss members of the court,
and to upset verdicts with which he dis-
agrees. So, for those who see the rule
of law as meaning the adherence by the
government to certain, clear procedural
standards, democratically agreed to, there
is little of which to complain in-these
distressing developments. -
Again, it _should perhaps be pointed
out with some force that the principal
jurisprudential underpinning of the con-
stitutional legality of these actions comes
directly from British doctrines on the
subject--doctrines which, as has been
hinted, may have been arrived at in order
to justify the everyday actions of Brtish
colonial administrations.
ANSWER to the original question
about the presentflack of understand-
ing between Ghana and the West should
now appear evident: Although it is im-
possible to look with favor upon all the
actions of the Ghana government, the
background against which the difficul-
ties confronting the government arise is
imperfectly understood because it is sel-
dom reported. Further, those actions of
the government which might merit our
approval are ignored by the Western
press. It may be that the definition of
'news' with which a journalist must work
excludes extensive comment about such
matters;' however, the inadequacies of
the press in this regard have two, equally
unfortunate, consequences.
In the first place, we in this country
remain uninformed, or rather, misin-
formed about the situation in Ghana.
This in turn causes certain irrational
elements to creep into our relations with
Ghana. But even more important (since
we, at the expense of considerable effort,
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tions with Ghana, for more advanced
education.
Some eighteen months ago, a prominent
American magazine attempted to dem-
onstrate the extent to which Ghana had
become a Communist satellite in Africa.
As evidence, it offered a picture showing
a group of Ghanaian- students about to
take off for Friendship University in
Moscow. The implication was clear that
the Muscovites had taken over Ghanaian
university education.;
However, as a matter of fact, the num-
ber of Ghanaian students in Russia never
exceeded a few hundred-partly because
of the language barrier (English is the
official language of Ghana), partly be-
cause of the extreme cold, which causes
acute despondency to swell within the
Ghanian breast, and partly because the
whole venture seemed a token gesture;
there are more than four thousand
Ghanaian students in Great Britain,
about 800 in -the U.S. and Canada and
several hundred more in France and
West Germany.