Letters
Arrests not the answer
Once again the sword of the Government has hit our intellectuals. The November 17, 1985 issue of the Talking Drums reported the mysterious arrest of an undergraduate of the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, a sixth- form student, a laboratory Technologist, a graduate in Law, Economics and Politics from the Buckingham University and an ex-serviceman.Up till now the reasons for their arrest and their whereabouts are not known. If the P.N.D.C government should continue to try to get rid of our few intellectuals on whose shoulders the future of the country rests, then where is the country heading towards.
The controversy of the sudden arrest and murder of our three high court judges and a retired army officer about three and a half years ago is still fresh in our memory, and history seems to be repeating itself. The final Special Investigations Board report on the case which was refuted by the Attorney General, George Aikins is also still on record.
This is a clear evidence of the fact that the unlawful arrest and detention of individuals still continues and only that of those who are prominent or are related to prominent people are published. If three of the arrested people did not happen to be relatives of Major Boakye Djan, chair- man of the Campaign for Democracy in Ghana, who would have heard of this case. In any case, we pray that the arrested people may still be alive.
It is high time Rawlings tried to achieve his objectives after four years and stop arresting innocent people for the mere reason that they are related to his political opponents.
Ebenezer Amoh, West Germany
Who are the traitors and heroes?
Your presentation of the CIA-Sousoudis espionage affair culminating in the ex- change of Sousoudis for eight Ghanaians as a victory for the PNDC is quite dis- tasteful, to say the least. The exchange involved no American national; it was between Ghanaians only: Sousoudis and the eight others.Sousoudis is half Greek, half Ghanaian. Is this man's life worth as much as eight true Ghanaian lives? No wonder Rawlings is killing Ghanaians with impunity.
Sousoudis spied for a regime which serves Libyan and other foreign interests, and the Ghanaians also spied for a foreign power in order to overthrow a regime whose hands are dripping with Ghanaian scholarships. blood and which is a monumental betrayal of Ghana's interests. Who are the traitors and who are the heroes in this affair?
Yaw Ameyaw, London
Annoying letter
Your paper is biased. You publish anything so far as it condemns a military government. Mr Asamoah-Awuah Dapaah's, "Inside Rawlings Ghana" (Letters, Talking Drums, October 7) is P.N.D.C. have been up to date.What you must understand is that there can never be a good government in the country if all you can do is to publish letters to mock and tarnish the image of the revolution going on now.
Support and constructive suggestions will make a better government if the people who make up the ruling body are as dedicated as some members of the P.N.D.C. have been up to date.
Your frenzied writer must remember that the revolution continues and all reactionary elements will be removed accordingly. Crimes such as bribery and corruption, Kalabule and currency trafficking have lived with Ghanaians even before independence and everyone knows these crimes are a heritage from the white thieves who colonised our country. The P.N.D.C. should not be blamed for their existence in the Ghana- ian society today. If after almost 25 years of self-rule Ghana's past regimes had encouraged the existence and growth of these crimes, the present revolutionary regime has done its best in these last few years to minimise them.
What is more annoying and insulting in Mr Dapaah's letter is his attack on class struggle and tribalism which was totally exaggerated. He must also understand a popular parlance, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. If Mr Dapaah has been brainwashed by his capitalist godfathers, he should please stop writing annoying nonsense letters because it will not bring him any good.
T. Fiamagbele, Accra, Ghana
Ghanaian children in Cuba
A total of 142 Ghanaian children reported by Talking Drums of September 16, 1985 have left for Havana to attend secondary schools under Cuban GovernmentThe children, 117 boys and 24 girls, between the ages of 12 and 15 will be taking the places of some of the 600 students already in Cuba who are moving into pre-university institutions.
The parents of these children may be happy because they would be relieved of the burden of the high cost of education in Ghana and it would be shouldered by the Cuban government.
Another aspect of the Cuban govern- ment's scholarship scheme is that Ghanaians were not told about the standard of education in Cuba. All the least developed countries, of which Cuba is not excluded, have the problem of financing qualitative education.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) and the National Council of Higher Education (NCHE) together with the Ministry of Education should have sent a delega- tion to Cuba to find out whether the Cuban Institutions are up to the normal standards which can offer better academic and professional training to the children.
Cuban institutions cannot be compared with institutions in the developed countries like Britain and the United States. The problems which the PNDC is facing in financing a child's formal education in Ghana also exist in Cuba.
It will be recalled that during the Nkrumah administration many Ghanaian children were given similar scholarship awards to study in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. When the Nkrumah government was toppled in February 1966 most of these students completed their courses and came home. The then military regime and some state organisations which employ graduates raised some doubts about the Soviet trained graduates. Even the medical doctors could not be employed by the Ministry of Health and demanded that they should go back to school before they could practise in the country.
Even the Soviet Union which is one of the highly developed nations in the world, and has all the basic modern facilities for professional and academic education could not train doctors to compare with our locally trained doctors let alone an economically weak country like Cuba.
Though the level of the child's formal education has fallen considerably under the PNDC regime, it is still better than what is prevailing in most of the developing countries like Cuba. The only proper thing the authorities responsible for the selection of the children for the Cuban government's scholarship awards should have done was to have advised the PNDC regime to allow the children to study in Ghana and the Cuban government pays the total cost of their education in Ghana.
All is not yet lost, the Ministry of Education should send educationists to Cuba to inspect the educational facilities which the Cuban government offers in their institutions. If they are found to be below normal standards then they should consider withdrawing the children.
K.S. Owusu-Appiah, Raubach, West Germany
