Comment
Of Heroes And Traitors
And so Mr Sousoudis is on his triumphant way back to Ghana. These must be heady times for him as he returns to a hero's welcome and after almost five months of incarceration, he is undoubtedly glad to see the back of the country that had been home to him for much of his adult life.
While the hero (who helped Ghana achieve the status of the first Third World country to have penetrated a CIA network) on his return home can look forward to a generous welcome and the gratitude of his nation, it hardly marks the satisfactory end of this incident.
There have been no bridges, but the exchanges have taken place, not of Americans for Ghanaians, but of one Ghanaian for eight, nine or ten Ghanaians (the figure varies in various US sources) and their families. It is understood that such people are known as being 'US interests'. What is not clear to many people is whether these people have ceased to be Ghanaian citizens or not.
There are many thousands of Ghanaians who are trying to enter the United States and many other countries for various reasons - economic and political. Many have resorted to some rather desperate methods. It is not for nothing that Ghanaians now feature very prominently on every statistic about refugees or problem immigration and why Ghanaians have such a hard time at every airport in the world.
All the same it is still very doubtful that many Ghanaians would willingly elect the mode of "immigrating" that has been chosen for the eight and their families. And it certainly would do nothing to change the image of the CIA that must persist in the minds of many Ghanaians and other Africans.
At the time the CIA story broke, a US official was quoted as saying that great damage had been done to their image and that 'people would feel that we don't protect our people'.
It can be argued of course that any adult by electing to spy, work for the CIA or any foreign intelligence organ- isation has taken a deliberate decision to betray his own country and has therefore left himself at the mercy of his foreign masters. The professionals do point out that in countries like Ghana what used to be 'professional co- operation' can change to 'spying with a political change in the Castle or even with a change of leadership. Thus people who were co-operating with a friendly country say in 1965 would become 'spies for the enemy in 1966'.
Between the Americans and the Russians, or better still between the western bloc nations and the Eastern bloc ones the rules for the game appear to be quite well-defined and everybody understands if not his role, at least what the stakes are. Do the same rules apply when the other party is an impoverished country largely dependent on loans and aid from the other? It is possibly coincidental that the same week in which the negotiations for the spy swap went into its final details was the week in which Ghana's donor nations were meeting in Paris with the US playing a predominant role and Ghana needing the approval of those nations and their loans even more desperately. It is hardly the scenario for equal bargaining.
Nobody has suggested that there have been any ideo- logical motives on the part of the Ghanaian said to be involved in this and the prosecutor did not elaborate on 'the gifts and payments' given to them either. But did their CIA masters explain to them that they were likely to be transported to the US? Were they consulted in the negotiations and did their families have any say in deciding whether they wanted to live in Ghana or in the US? When Americans or Westerners talk about a 'family', it has a completely different meaning from what a Ghanaian or African considers a 'family'. Who decided what constitutes the family of any of the people being taken to the USA? Would any of these people -the eight and their families ever be allowed into Ghana again, more specifically, have they been deported or exiled from Ghana; do they remain citizens and do their descendants have the right to enter Ghana?
It is quite possible that many people had an exag- gerated idea about the CIA. Very few had imagined that the Agency could be responsible for such a monumental cock-up. The judge that tried Miss Scranage put it rather mildly when he said he had the impression that the CIA had been rather loose in its operations in Ghana. It was worse than that. The bungling led to many tragedies and the disruption of many lives and the CIA must bear full responsibility for it all.
When we first wrote on this subject, we stated that the CIA by announcing that the identities of their agents in Ghana had been revealed to the Ghanaian authorities had given them a blank cover under which to persecute their critics, we urged that the list be made public to clear the names of innocent people.
If the eight people said to have been released to the Americans is anything to go by, then it is obvious that either the Ghanaians never had any list to start with or that a witch-hunt of known critics had been undertaken indeed. The four famous names that were arrested in the wake of the scandal have not featured in the historic swap. Yet they remain in jail and since no formal charges have been preferred against them nor anything official having been said connecting them with the CIA, it is impossible to predict what their fate will be.
Those who have suffered as a result of the climate generated by the scandal, to whom should they turn for redress and who is responsible for their welfare?
Eight Ghanaians and 'their families' arrive in the US to an uncertain and unknown future, and there is Miss Scranage with all the signs of a silly but not criminal young lady also with a career and a future in ruins.
The CIA has not emerged from this episode with any credits.
