The Scranage-Sousoudis affair
Elizabeth Ohene
As the story of Sharon Scranage, the CIA employee and Michael Agbotui Sousoudis broke last week and fuelled speculation over the intriguing relationship ELIZABETH OHENE provides the background information and build- up to their arrest.If, as has been alleged in newspaper reports, Miss Sharon Scranage the CIA employee arrested last week in Washington has admitted to the FBI that she started passing on information to Ghana in December 1983, then this was either the worst self-inflicted wound on the CIA or the greatest coup for the Ghanaian Security bosses.
First, the outline of the news as announced by the Americans. Miss Sharon Scranage aged 29, a black American CIA employee was arrested in Washington D.C. on Wednesday July 10 with her Ghanaian lover Mr Michael Agbotui Sousoudis aged 39. They have been charged with espionage and were expected in court during the week.
Miss Scranage who worked as an operations support assistant in Accra is alleged to have provided Mr Sousoudis with the details of the CIA's Ghanaian intelligence gathering operations, including names and information about communications equipment.
According to the FBI, Miss Scranage is alleged to have compiled handwritten lists of the identities of Ghanaian informants to the CIA after lifting them from confidential records and reported them, accompanied by Sousoudis to Ghanaian officials. At that meeting, she was allegedly asked to obtain from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia the identities of three other Ghanaian informants said then to be travelling outside Ghana.
The CIA is reported to have been greatly embarrassed by these revelations and the exposure of the agency's network in Ghana is said to have been described as "a disaster" by the agency.
Mr Michael Agbotui is a cousin of Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings both their mothers are sisters The Agbotui sisters. Michael Agbotui Sousoudis, whose father is Greek, had been living in the United States of America for years and had not paid a visit to Ghana for a long time.
When his cousin shot his way back into power on December 31, 1981 and finding himself not particularly occupied with anything in particular in the US, Sousoudis decided to go and test the waters in Ghana.
On his way, he stopped in London, not at all sure of what kind of reception he will get from his mercurial cousin in Ghana. From London, he sent emissaries and still more emissaries. By the time he left for Ghana, he appeared to have been sure that a welcome awaited him because he had already passed the word around among the many Ghanaians in exile in London that he had an entree to Rawlings and could arrange the return of a select few for a fee.
Once in Ghana, Michael Sousoudis quickly fell into the routine of a privileged idle young man. He lived in the house of an absent relative and before long his parties by the pool-side had become famous. Beautiful young ladies clamoured to get invitations to the house, and Flt-Lt Rawlings himself was a frequent visitor.
It did not take long before word got around that if you wanted to see the Chairman, it would be useful to see Sousoudis. Equally quickly some members of the government had come to resent Sousoudis keenly and what they saw as the too close relationship between him and Rawlings.
It was around this time that he started his affair with Miss Scranage, then serving in the US Embassy in Accra. According to friends of Sousoudis, it was the Americans who made the first move - they 'planted' Miss Scranage on Sousoudis to get Ghana government information. Others claim that the two struck up an amorous relationship which both sides the CIA and Ghana Security then moved to exploit.
Early in 1984 an incident occurred which is significant. Armed soldiers stormed the Accra home of Miss Scranage and despite resistance from the American guards, managed to enter and search the house. It was said at that time that the action was taken by a faction within the army or PNDC which resented the relationship between Miss Scranage and Sousoudis. They were said to fear that Miss Scranage was using her friendship with Sousoudis to gather information for the Americans.
But it all appeared to have ended peacefully and the thinking now is that this was an attack deliberately instigated by ex-Capt Tsikata the Security boss to divert any suspicion from Miss Scranage her employers might be having. For by this time, Sousoudis was being fed with a lot of false information which Miss Scranage was passing on while she was passing vital information to the Ghanaians. Others say that the attack on Miss Scranage's house was genuine but was done without the knowledge and authority from Tsikata, who, as soon as he heard quickly put a stop to it, lest his very fertile source dried up.
In the meantime, Sousoudis grew from strength to strength in his influence on Rawlings within the PNDC. He was able to travel back and forth between Ghana and the US and told friends in London he was having a grand old time. American journalists who visited Ghana met him and he followed up the meetings especially with the women journalists, to New York. The last time he passed through London on his way to Accra he had far more than the normal amount of luggage he told friends that three hefty suitcases contained "documents"
Sousoudis had obviously moved into a higher gear for when he passed through London on his way to the US some two weeks before his arrest in Washington, he did not call his friends, some of whom used to be his regular hosts, thus the news of his arrest came as a total shock to them they did not know he was in the US.
In the meantime, Sousoudis grew from strength to strength in his influence on Rawlings within the PNDC. He was able to travel back and forth between Ghana and the US and told friends in London that he was having a grand old time.
The Scranage-Sousoudis affair spawned other by-products with sad consequences. Another cousin of Rawlings - a girl whose mother is also a Miss Agbotui - also struck up an affair with a US marine serving in the US embassy in Accra. The romance government. blossomed and by early 1984 the girl got pregnant. The marine felt compelled to do the honourable thing by the girl and went to ask permission from his bosses at the embassy to marry her. Permission was refused it is said, on the grounds that marrying her would be a security risk and to drive the point home, the marine was slipped out of Ghana on the very next flight. The girl tried to go to the USA and was refused a visa.
It seems probable therefore that the CIA must have thought that it had the upper hand in the Scranage Sousoudis affair and therefore allowed it to continue. Even though the first reactions in Ghana to the news was somewhat mute, it is obvious that the result will be a boost for ex-Capt Tsikata. It is not every day that a small country manages to penetrate so completely the CIA network.
The thinking is that ex-Capt Tsikata got greedy and wanted even bigger information which will be useful to countries like Libya, Nicaragua and the Soviet-bloc countries through Miss Scranage and Sousoudis had got quite careless.
It remains to be seen how vigorously the PNDC will work to get Sousoudis back or if he is going to be left out in the cold. At week's end, there were some rumours in Accra that Sousoudis had in fact been betrayed to the Americans by some of the enemies that he had made in the two years of being an unofficial member of his cousin's
In the meantime, the guessing game is intense in Accra to find who indeed are the CIA agents.
Reactions: Sousoudis
"The first Third World country to have broken an American spy network", that is one of the latest editions to the many first that Ghana claims and many Ghanaians, especially those resident in the USA, are basking in the glow of what they see as a big achievement of the Ghana Security Services in the wake of the Sousoudis/Scranage spy affair."We have beaten the CIA at their own game" is the sentiment being expressed, and the general consensus of opinion seems to be that Michael Sousoudis deserves a medal. After all, the man was only doing his patriotic duty, and it is difficult to see what crime he has committed. After all, if an American national found out that a foreign nation was operating a spy network in the USA and told the State Department or whatever about it, President Reagan will be singing that person's praises very loudly. That is why Michael Sousoudis has to be a hero. The PNDC has to insist that Sousoudis is released immediately.
Many people also feel that ex- Capt Kodjo Tsikata has lived up to all the mythology about him. Indeed, many see him now as ranking with all the legendary spy masters.
In the meantime, there are reports that quite a number of foreign service officials serving in Ghana's embassies abroad have not reported for work since the outbreak of the affair and many are believed to be on the run.
Ghana government reaction
On July 12, radio Ghana carried a government statement which noted that the reports of CIA activities in Ghana had come as no surprise, since the government had all along known of the involvement of the CIA in dissident activities in the country as well as attempts to destabilise the revolutionary course."The reported arrest of Miss Sharon Scranage, a female Afro- American officer of the CIA, and her close friend, Mr Michael Sousoudis calls to mind an incident on February 27, 1983, in which a group of dissident soldiers were surprised in the house of Dr Antwi, distributing weapons in the final stages of a plot against the government," the radio quoted the statement.
"Just at that moment, a US Embassy vehicle, CD 251, appeared on the scene and whisked away Dr Antwi's American wife who, together with Dr Antwi himself, were known to be CIA agents. The US Embassy denied any involvement. Again in March, 1983, the special adviser to the Provisional National Defence Council, PNDC, at a press conference, revealed information establishing the existence of a CIA office in Accra and the agency's activities in Ghana. The US Embassy once again denied these allegations," noted the statement.
The government said it considers the confirmation of the CIA presence and of CIA activities in Ghana as a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Ghana and that in the interest of the continued good relations which the two countries desire, Ghana should be assisted to address the crucial problems of development. The government said it holds the US government responsible for the safety of its national, Mr Sousoudis, and expressed the hope that both arres- ted persons will be accorded the due process of law to ensure that the full truth comes out, bearing in mind that the means exist for subverting justice by fabricating evidence.
The government has meanwhile appealed for maximum restraint from the public in the wake of the reports of clandestine CIA activities in Ghana. A statement issued by the Ministry of Interior said following numerous requests for permission to organise demonstrations, it has appealed to the public to avoid any act of harassment or violence against American nationals or property in Ghana.
What the State Department said
According to The Guardian of London, in a report by Victoria Brittain, "a senior Ghanaian navy official is among a number of prominent figures who have fled the country since the arrest of the CIA agent Miss Sharon Scranage". Other officials, including several from the Foreign Ministry, according to this report, have not reported for work since the arrest.The report did not name the senior navy official nor any of the several Foreign Ministry officials who have not reported for work.
A New York Times Service report in the International Herald Tribune of Monday, July 15, said that American officials believe that at least one CIA informant in Ghana was murdered after his identity was disclosed to the Ghanaian officials. The report said that Miss Scranage turned over the names of virtually everyone working for the CIA. An American official was quoted as saying: "There were some serious consequences, they had somebody caught and we believe they died as a result."
The American State Department is reported to have issued a state- ment that said relations with Ghana were good and "we assume they will continue to be".
The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is quoted as saying that the case raised serious questions about the security pre- cautions taken by the CIA. The vice-chairman said he was particularly disturbed that the agency had not investigated the relationship between Miss Scranage and Mr Sousoudis.
He added: "The CIA should have been more concerned about the type of relationship going on. I have been saying for years that our people in the military, CIA and the State Department are just not security conscious."
