Joyce Aryee ends visit to US, Europe
A report on the U.S. visit published in the New York Amsterdam News noted that although strongman Jerry Rawlings has suspended the constittion of Ghana and rules by edicts, Miss Aryee insisted to her audience that the country does not have a military government.
Thirty eight year old Miss Aryee was reported by the paper to have toured the U.S. on a specific mission to dispel anti-Rawlings sentiments and also dispel fright among potential U.S. investors who are reluctant to do business in a chaotic military setting.
Miss Aryee extended an open invitation on behalf of Flt-Lt. Rawlings during a press conference to Black Americans to help rejuvenate the ailing economy.
The PNDC Secretary's four day visit, according to the paper was however marred by a series of protest demonstrations by anti-Rawlings elements. At the Ghana U.N. Mission, 19 East 47th St., the site of one of the biggest protest rallies, dissidents displayed huge banners as they chanted anti-government slogans.
STATEMENT
The U.S.-based United Front for the Liberation of Ghana viewed the Secretary's trip as a 'propaganda mission' to counter charges of misdeeds by the Ghana government. In a statement the Front wondered why at this time in the economic life of Ghana, when most Ghanaians have not had a cake of soap to bathe, couldn't the thousands of dollars being wasted on such useless trips be used for better purposes, such as ordering of drugs for the care of the sick.From West Germany, Edward Osei-Ampadu a staffer on a German Daily, Hamburg Abendblatt reports that when Miss Joyce Aryee, the Information Secretary of the Rawl- ings government arrived in Hamburg on 7 July this year, her uncertainty to meet Ghanaian residents in Hamburg was too great. This was evident in the way her organisers got things hidden till the eleventh hour and also the sudden change of the original venue from Berliner Tor to the University
The only interpretation according to this reporter was that these changes. were calculated to avoid any demonstration by many Ghanaians resident in Hamburg who are dissatisfied with the Rawlings Administration. Aryee's address began 90 minutes behind schedule and centered mainly on Rawlings revolutionary ideas and the economic programme of the government. She discussed the devaluation of the Cedi and also the modalities for the loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
She could however not explain how a government which had previously condemned the Fund turned round to borrow from it.
"Ghana's Foreign Policy of positive Non-Alignment remains unchanged" said the Information Secretary. But on the question of Cuba and Libyan involvement in Ghanaian politics she referred to Libya's help of 97 million Dollars to Ghana soon after the Rawlings coup. Confronted on the education of 600 Ghanaian youth in Cuba Miss Aryee argued that even though 151,000 took the Common Entrance examinations the real number of vacancies in the Secondary Schools in Ghana is 28,000. She could however not explain why only Cuba should be selected by the PNDC for the training of 600 Ghanaian pupils.
