[page 12]
GHANA AT THE CROSSROADS The general election in Ghana this summer was unique in coming two weeks after a coup d'etat and two days after the new military rulers had publicly executed the three former military heads of State.
But the seriousness of Armed Forces Revolutionary Council leader Flight-Lieutenant Rawling's promise to hand over the reins of power to a civilian government and withdraw his "house-cleaning Politics once the armed forces from against corruption is completed is more open to question.
The dramatic action taken by the junior officers and lower ranks of the armed forces undoubtedly diminished the importance of the election. They elected their own committees and turned a deaf impotent commands of the senior officers and have begun a process of cleansing the state machine of the most blatant abuses of power and privilege. The future of Ghana may well depend now more upon the degree of determination of the AFRC to carry through this process than upon the wishes of the politicians who have just been elected by default on a low vote amidst a mood of cynicism among the electorate. The coup itself succeeded because of a radicalisation of the army which overturned the hierarchy forces. At present of the armed nobody above the rank of captain has authority and the rank and file guarding their new are bent on power. It was a successful uprising within the forces and a coup d'etat at national level, but only when it came to bear directly on the organisation GHANA Al Awaso, British Aluminium Au SGMC Presteag Tarkwa Nauli Limestone ear to the of the Ghanaian state did its full implications appear. Those implications are clearly linked to class domination in Ghana.
officers because they had massively enriched themselves at the expense of the masses and of the armed forces' prestige. The rank and file only had been used in staging previous polished and guarded. Their anger and resentment have been nurtured years and their resolution to remove a rotten privileged elite is apparent. 10 By JONI BAKO-ONIPA Au. SGMC Kuması Konongo NyinahineAl Al Ashanti Gold Obuasi Bascol Kibi Dunk wa Au SGMC Au SGMC 9 Saltpond Cape Coast Sekondi already The ranks rose against the senior revolution.
coups, and hardly benefitted. They despised the corruption and repression of the officers whose shoes they whose houses they Already there is a strong feeling among them that too much time has • Ho Tema VALCO smelter ACCRA - Oil discovery been wasted and their revolution is being sabotaged at the unfolding top through bureaucracy. Flt. Lt. Rawlings has been warned that his life is in danger if he should slow down the Public reaction to the executions has been tremendous and in favour of more to be carried out. Opposition to the executions comes from the sections of society most threatened, directly or by implication, and from the large group of bureaucrats, businessmen and various local and foreign opportunists who also exploited the corruption of senior officers in the military administration to enrich themselves. Even though there was a low turnout at the elections, victory went to
[page 13]
the Peoples National Party, which claims to be a successor to Dr Nkrumah's Convention People's Party (CPP) which was overthrown in 1966 by a CIA master-minded coup. The PNP won 70 seats in the 140-seat assembly.
PNP win election
The NP is heading for a large majority in parliament. An analysis of its victory showed how it relied on the powerful memory of Nkrumah in the minds of the masses of Ghana, a form of 'politics of mythology. There were instances of loud speaker vans touring the rural areas and broadcasting Nkrumah's speeches, with the widespread use of his pictures and slogans which helped generate enthusiasm for the PNP. And since Nkrunah is still widely revered as the man who led the fight for independence from British imperialism, the Party which claims the closest attachment to the CPP automatically wins support. But considering the low turn-out and coupled with the lack of any workers" party, given the alternative from the rest of the bourgeois parties, the voters felt they had no choice than the PNP.
The present leadership of the PNP represents the right-wing bureaucratic faction of the CPP of the 1960s. Unfortunately PNP voters who have illusions in the CPP still maintained the same illusions in the PNP. Undoubtedly the defeat of the openly right-wing parties indicates an emerging class consciousness since the majority of the PNP's voters
were from the peasant farmers of the
northern region and the urbanized
proletariat.
The poor performance
openly bourgeois parties
surprising since they relied
their wealth to do the job
than going to the people.
The Popular Front Party (PFP)
which polled 42 seats is an offshoot
of the conservative, elitist Progress
Party, led by Dr Busia in the second
republic, overthrown in a coup d'etat
in 1972. Their supporters blamed
their defeat on too many reactionary
intellectuals and businessmen who
ran the campaign through armchair
directives as opposed to grass roots
of the was not more on for them
t. Lt. Rawlings.
oliticians in the broad PNP. The ast majority of its 42 seats were won n the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo egions with their rich semi-feudal andowners and wealthy cocoa armers.
The third bourgeois party, the Jnited National Convention (UNC), in offshoot alliance of the Progress Party and the then opposition party National Alliance of Liberals, also ost miserably because of the same disease' that affected the PFP. They von only 13 seats, mainly in the Volta region where their campaign was mostly centred. However, they had relied on the help of the deposed Supreme Military Council to rig the elections in their favour, hence their limited campaign in the country. And this is backed by strong rumours of vast quantities of ballot papers with UNC votes found in the homes of the executed General Aluffo, the former head of the junta.
It is interesting to note however, that the Ghana Trade Union Congress sponsored party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF) featured as the worst off, since they only managed to get 3 seats. That is due to the reactionary role of the government-backed TUC bureaucrats in collaborating with the junta to suppress the workers. A point which must echo in the ears of the PNP is that the new strength and growing consciousness of the masses and especially the workers will not be manipulated and shaped by parliamentary manoeuvres
11
Undoubtedly, one of the main attractions of the PNP in collecting votes from the workers and peasants was the 'socialist' face presented by its left wing since Johny Hanson led the People's Revolutionary Party into its ranks earlier this year. How more enthusiastic would the support of the workers have been if the PRP had maintained its independence from the corrupt, conservative politicians of yesterday and campaigned openly on a socialist programme!
Ghana now stands at the crossroads. All the insoluble problems of economic development that have plagued the country since independence are now worsening and will be compounded by the increased cost of importing oil and the coming world recession. Will Ghana go round another cycle of bourgeois democratic civilian government followed by yet another capitalist Bonapartist military regime; both incapable of solving the problems of an effete capitalism, or will the stark conclusion be drawn that on a capitalist basis there is no way forward for
the country and a decisive break
made with capitalism and imperial-
ism?
It is the heritage of British
imperialist rule and the subsequent
domination of the economy by
foreign monopolies and the capitalist
world market that is responsible for
the chronic inability of successive
governments to modernise society
and overcome the problems of back-
wardness as a look at Ghana's history
will show.
Independence
Struggle
During the colonial period the traditional patterns of economic relationship in Ghana (Gold Coast) were largely destroyed and in their place was created a satellite economy whose primary function was the production of a few cash crops and raw materials for export to the colonial mother country. The economy of Ghana was structured principally around the production of cocoa for the confectionary industry in Britain. Other raw materials produced were timber and minerals like gold, manganese and diamonds. The importance of cocoa in the
[page 14]
economy is however underscored by the fact that since the 1920s it has accounted for about 60% of export by value.
Ghana therefore represented a classical colonial development. Apart from being the producer of raw materials for Britain there was a total monopoly of the commercial trading and banking sectors of the colony by European firms. The VAC, UTC, SCOA, CFAO, Barclays and Standard banks, prevented the possibilities of participation of an indigenous bourgeoisie in the vital sectors of the economy.
Imperialist Bloodsuckers
The class structure which emerged during the colonial period as a result of capitalist penetration into the rural sectors consisted of a ruling class of European colonial officials and businessmen, a petty bourgeoisie of non-European functionaries, professionals, merchants and kulaks (rich peasants); a small proletariat of dockworkers, railway workers, miners, etc; and a huge army of peasants.
The militant role played by the small proletariat of railwayworkers and dockworkers, was decisive in the movement for independence. The general strikes of the 8th and 10th January 1954, were the work of the trade unions alone, in the face of vacillation by Nkrumah. Largely confined to the role of commercial middlemen or minor functionaries in the colonial administration, the petty bourgeoisie also mobilised against colonial rule because its members found that their material and status aspirations were blocked by the exclusively European ruling class.
The CPP under the leadership of Nkrumah in essence was a movement controlled by the petty bourgeois elements who were very successful in organising a mass opposition to colonial rule. Less than 10 years after its split from the elitist conservative and bureaucratic UGCC (United Gold Coast Convention) the CPP wrested political independence from Britain, thus making Ghana the first black African country to attain political independence, in 1957
British imperialism never 'gave independence to anyone. Control over the colonial economies was too lucrative. In 1940 Britain had set up the Cocoa Marketing Board as the sole buyer and exporter of Ghana's lifeblood. Huge surpluses were sucked out of the country as the CMB sold cocoa on the world market at double the price paid to the African producers. This surplus largely found its way to the City of London to support Sterling in the form of government bonds paying a tiny rate of interest.
The British ruling class only gave up direct control of its colonies because, weakened enormously by the war, it could not hold back the colonial revolution which swept across Africa and Asia once a national consciousness was awakened in the oppressed masses. It would have been impossible for the British ruling class to force the necessary economic sacrifices on the British workers to wage a full-scale war against hundreds of millions. It would also have been impossible to force British working class youth to go to war once again, this time not even with the illusion of 'fighting fascism' but in the face of striking trade unionists.
Learning this lesson ahead of the French, Portuguese and other rulers, British imperialism therefore replaced its direct military and administrative rule with continued econ-
2
omic domination through worsening terms of trade on the world market. A black capitalist government picked up the bill for running the state machine and enabled the foreign banks and monopolies, to which the native bourgeoisie was inextricably linked, to carry on extracting profits.
The newly independent Ghana was increasingly involved with the imperialist world system, The initial thrust of the Nkrumah regime's policies, following the advice of the international capitalistpropagandist Arthur Lewis, was a liberal open-door policy aimed at attracting Western capitalist investment and interests. This however led to increasing balance of payments deficits of approximately f53m in 1961 (representing 12% of the GNP) and dwindling foreign reserves as more capital lett the country than was brought in by foreign capitalists as a result of what was considered the most generous repatriation terms in the world. From 1957-61 there was a net outflow of private capital amounting to about £6.5m
Cocoa
Ghana s failure to industrialise and develop a modern capitalist society, at a time of unprecedented economic upswing in the metropolitan capitalist countries, is typical of
[page 15]
the impasse facing the underdeveloped countries so long as their economies remain on a capitalist basis. The weak native bourgeoisies of these countries have come onto the too late to carry society scene forward as their European counterparts did one or two centuries Whereas free trade and the free movement of capital allowed a huge expansion of advanced countries, in the backward countries this simply increased the domination by foreign monopolies. manufacturing produced goods of multinationals in Europe, America and Japan, and the foreign buyers of raw materials are not interested in developing local artificially imbalanced economy entirely dependent on the export of a single crop, Ghana lay prostrate before the world market. During the world economic upswing of the 1950s and 1960s, although living standards rose in the metropolitan countries, in the so-called "Third World' living standards fell in absolute terms, turning the clock back to starvation, unemployment and destitution for millions. One of the reasons was the 'scissors effect" of the world price of raw falling while the price of manufactured goods and capital goods from the advanced countries rose. Ghana strove to increase cocoa production, more than doubling exports between 1950 and 1962, but increased world production led to a disastrous drop in price.
Nkrumah's Left Turn Because the Ghanaian capitalists could not develop the economy, their attempt at governing society on the Westminster model of bourgeois democracy was also ill-fated. Having no basis substantial to guarantee increases in living standards to the masses the premise for reformism was absent. Even by 1958 strikes were made illegal. As was to follow in one African country after another, bourgeois democracy was soon to give way to a Bonapartist dictatorship as the state machine, balancing between the feeble bourgeoisie and the small proletariat rose above socicolliding in battle.
The dismal failure of the liberal economic policies were to drive the Nkrumah government to adopt a "socialistic' development strategy in 1961.
Under Nkrumah's 'socialism', the economy was divided into five major sectors: state sector, co-operative sector, joint state-private foreign private sector and small scale Ghanaian producers. The state and co-operative sectors were uitimately to phase out the other sectors and become the leading sectors of the economy, but in the interim they were to compete on an equal basis. Interestingly, the foreign private sector was considered a vital part of important role in building 'social- By 1965, there had emerged a large state role in the industrial and agricultural sector with the establishment of state industries and farms. The government budget was f40m invested into 32 state enterprises. Simultaneously the role of foreign enterprises greatly increased with the rapid promotion of import substiindustrialisation tution and the construction of the Volta hydroelectric scheme and Tema port. However, the basic structure of the economy remained unaltered as the country continued to rely heavily on a single export commodity. Over the 13 period 1958-65 while cocoa production increased by 12.6% annually, the price declined until it hit a low twelve cents a pound in 1965, almost half the average of the preceding year.
The impact of this was to increase the indebtedness of the country to Western capitalist countries, notably USA, Britain and West Germany, who artificially forced the price of cocoa down as part of their policy of preparing the economic ground for political action in the form of a 'coup'.
CIA feared another 'Cuba'
This policy was to end after February 1966 when the objective achieved. The price of cocoa was suddenly rose on the world market, and the IMF rushed to the aid of the National Liberation Council which organised the first coup of 1966 against Nkrumah.
The reason why Nkrumah was deposed by imperialism and the Ghanaian capitalists was the fear that the process of statification of the economy-the necessity of which indicates the weakness of capitalism -would get out of hand and threaten the very existence of capitalism and landlordism. This period had already factions seen within the state machinery in Cuba, Syria and Burma, (as their attempts to escape the backwardness and imperialist domination were frustrated by their own bourgeoisie) turn towards the elimination of private ownership as the only means of effective state planning. Leaning on the workers and peasants, they turned to the and Peking example of Moscow whose Stalinist bureaucracies offered a model for economic growth. In addition they became the dominant and leading layers in society. This inevitably with a dictatorial regime of proletarian Bonapartism engendered privileges and higher standards for the elite, creating new contradictions.
The right-wing military coup which was later revealed to have been financed at a cost of $5 million by the CIA was to place Ghana firmly back within the orbit of imperialism.
[page 16]
Under Nkrumah the country had shown signs of straying from the capitalist system; the military put an end to this tendency and the country was once again placed firmly in its tentacles. To understand this it will be appropriate to know the origins and nature of the military and its role in Ghana.
As the Royal West African Frontier Force, it had been created as an instrument for the colonisation of the country. During the period of the national struggle, it was used to suppress the " people's legitimate demands, e.g. the shooting of ex-servicemen petitioning the Governor-General in 1948, and the killing of striking workers in 1951 and 1961.
After independence the neocolonial state maintained the colonial army and even expanded it. The officer corps continued to train in Britain (Sandhurst) and later in the USA, and even when an officer training school was started at Teshi in Accra, it was under the control and guidance of British military personnel. The links between the Ghanaian Armed Forces and imperialism have therefore been very strong and binding.
Open door policies
The National Liberation Council (NLC) upon coming to power proceeded to reverse the policies of Nkrumah. A policy of denationalisation was introduced and a good number of state enterprises were sold to individuals-bureaucrats, rich merchants, compradors and military personnel. And also, for example, Firestone Rubber Company of America, a company known throughout the world for its oppressive labour policies.
The country once again reverted to open-door liberal capitalist policies and concessions made for foreign interests. The case of the Firestone agreement has been well documented, showing how a state project, which by all accounts had strong potential viability, was virtually handed over to a private foreign multinational.
These po. cies under the ideol
WE gic
:re al
carried tutelage
Busia and reactionary intellectuals who were to succeed the NLC in a bourgeois-democratic election to return to civilian rule in 1969. The Busia coalition represented an alliance of conservative intellectuals, protessionals, feudalists and pettybourgeois of the earlier UGCC, NLP-UP days during the struggle for independence. Reactionary, and collaborationist with imperialism, it was staunchly anti-working class, hence the dissolution of the TUC.
With this reactionary alliance in power, a programme of consolidation of capitalism was pursued. Special policies such as the Ghanaian Business Promotion Act, loan schemes and the expulsion of migrant labourers from neighbouring West African countries with a few Middle Eastern compradors, strengthened the growing Ghanaian petty-bourgeoisie.
This era also witnessed the rapid penetration of capitalist relations into agriculture. The state farms which Nkrumah established were dismantled and passed to private hands, fostering the consolidation of the kulak class. Simultaneously, the adoption of the 'green revolution' strategy of mechanisation, application of agricultural inputs and insecticides resulted in the emergence of plantation style farms, especially in the North.
This period of consolidation of capitalism was also one of intensified working class opposition to their increased exploitation, in the form of national selective strikes starting with the railwaymen and dockworkers. The strike outbreak by workers against their intense exploitation and demands were typically met with brutal repression and violence. Between 1969-72 the Busia government mounted an onslaught against the workers' movement using the military and police and the ultimate repression and dissolution of the TUC in 1971.
The structural problems of the Ghanaian economy worsened. In the face of serious crises, the government continued to rely more on imperialist forces to bail it out. There were numerous consultations with the IMF which dictated the economic policies to be adopted. After a number of re-scheduling of agree-
sened the country's ments, which indebtedness, the IMF, as a precondition for further assistance advised a 50% devaluation of the currency which immediately threw the economy into chaos.
Austerity
and Corruption
Meanwhile the burden of austerity as under the Nkrumah regime began to affect not only the working class but also the politically sensitive petty-bourgeois who resented the 'sacrifices" they were called to make. This factor was predominant in the coup of 1972 by the National Redemption Council (NRC) led by Colonel Acheampong (later the Supreme Military Council).
The cornerstone of the junta's policies were the 'Operation Feed Yourself", the 'indigenisation' programmes. Rice production under their 'green revolution' in the north of Ghana has often been cited as the success of the OFY, but what is clear now in that part of the country is that the peasant farmers have been thrown out and their places have been taken by absentee landlords, bureaucrats, military officers and other petty-bourgeois elements who are able to obtain loans to purchase machinery and inputs beyond the reach of the mass of peasantry. This process has been implemented with the collaboration of the chiefs who have in return been given increased power and authority by the state.
The chiefs used this to acquire loans and non-traditional claims over land which they have utilised for personal ventures. Lacking a mass base and support, the junta relied heavily on the alleged influence of the chiefs over the rural masses for domination and control. The chiefs on the other hand relied on the junta for its use of state power, e.g. the embezzlement of Cedi 5m by five traditional subchiefs in the rich lands of Kumawu-Ashanti.
The unpopularity of the military Junta and the ill-feelings between the service commanders of the armed forces and NRC which was made up of middle ranking senior officers led to a palace coup in October 1976 which created the Supreme Military Council (SMC). However, with
[page 17]
ORENATION- ONEIPEOPLE • ONEDESTINY
SELF-RELATICE
Propaganda poster of former military dictatorship
rampant corruption and grave economic mismanagement, two service commanders, Air-Vice Marshall Beausoliel and Lt. Gen. Okai were honourably retired for their part in the RT Brisco scandal, a subsidiary of the East Asiatic Company owned by Denmark and West Germany.
Growing political tension heightened when in 1978 General Acheampong proposed the intolerable idea of 'Union-Government'a form of civilian-military powersharing dictatorship on an unwilling population which culminated in a selective national strike and demonstration led by students, workers, and professionals. General Acheampong's years saw grave economic mismanagement, most notably in staggering deficit-financing, which pushed inflation to over 100%, where it still remains, and the forced stagnation of living standards since 1966
AFRC Coup
July 1978 saw the removal of Acheampong through a palace coup which brought General Akcuffo and his reconstitued SMC (II) into power. In a last desperate attempt to save itself, the military pushed through a bourgeois democracy and economic reforms. The budget deficit was slashed, the producer
price of cocoa was Cedi (currency) was than 50%! A return 1979 was promised.
What the SMC hoped to achieve by this latest attempt to deceive the people of Ghana was time in which to prop up their own tottering edifice and to fabricate some facade of civilian rule behind which the junta could continue to operate. Meanwhile the constituent assembly has indemnified all the members of the NLC 1966, NRC 1972. SMC (I) 1977 and SMC (II) 1978.
However, in May this year resentment in the junior officer ranks and the rank and file of the army heightened agains the prospect of senior officers in the Armed Forces long associated with the mismanagement and corruption, retiring honourably with the return to civilian rule in June. to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth.
On June 4th, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council seized power from the SMC, led by Flt. Lt. Rawlings, who in his maiden broadcast called on the army units outside Accra to elect their own delegates for a revolutionary command meeting at army headquarters.
The general sentiment of the new regime's broadcast stressed the plunder carried out by senior military officers over the past years and the necessity of justice being done to both the masses of the people ind of the Armed Forces
doubled and the devalued by more to civilian rule in
whose prestige had suffered from the corruption at higher levels and also repression of the working class.
Unfolding events, however, reveal the growing pressure within the rank and file of the army and masses of the people for the new regime to carry out very radical measures aimed at transforming the situation or else face the opposition of the working class
'The Ethiopian Way?
The junior officers who have now overthrown the army chiefs, whose role is the defence of the ruling class, are now faced with the dilemma of whether to hand power over to the civilian bourgeois politicians and watch Ghana go through another run of one unstable regime after another, or to carry through their purge of corruption, which would inevitably lead to the entire leadership of the PNP being arrested or executed! Any far-reaching rooting out of corruption would point the guilty finger at capitalism itself. And it is possible, given the impasse of economic and political instability, that the lower officers will lean on the movement of the workers and peasants to eliminate capitalism as the only way of taking society forward
This process
would that
be has
similar to taken place
the
in
[page 18]
Ethiopia, where the junior army officers removed the semi-feudal Emperor Haile Sellassie in order to bring efficiency to the state administration to end mass starvation. Due to the resistance to progress by the parasitic bourgeoisie the officers were forced to execute 60 top members of the ruling class and were then forced by the momentum of the revolution to expropriate capitalism and landlordism itself.
Rawlings has said that 'more blood must be spilt" to "take the Ethiopian way". If such a social transformation were carried out, it would mean a tremendous step forward for the poverty-stricken workers, peasants and unemployed of Ghana. Genuine planning of the economy and society could then
begin. Living standards could be
raised, social reforms could be implemented.
Workers' Democracy
But without the conscious participation and democratic control by the working class such a revolution would take place in a distorted form, as in Ethiopia, bringing to power a privileged bureaucracy resting above what would be a deformed workers' state. Such a regime of proletarian bonapartism, like that of Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Syria, Burma and Ethiopia, would be incapable of an internationalist appeal to the workers of the other African states and of the advanced industrialised countries as the necessary basis for building socialism. It would have to be followed by a new, political revolution to institute workers' democracy.
The important industrial working class, well organised and with a tradition of struggle, must be the force to lead the other down trodden masses of Ghana to the establishment of a genuinely democratic workers' state. The bourgeoisie, incapable of carrying out the tasks posed to it by history, is economically paralysed and politically split. The peasants and petty-bourgeoisie can-
not lead society forward themselves
but have already in the past taken a
lead from the workers' movement.
The workers have demonstrated
through strikes their determination to use their increased strength and confidence. All that is required is a Marxist leadership with a revolutionary determination, a socialist programme to mobilise the masses and an internationalist perspective.
Already the seeds are sown for a split in the PNP. If the army officers decide to purge the right wing PNP leaders for corruption they are likely to be supported by the left wing. If power is handed over to the newly-elected PNP then the contradiction between the capitalist and radical elements within its ranks will open wide as it tries to tackle the economic chaos. The workers are in
no mood to accept attacks on their living standards. They will turn to their own trade union organisations to fight any government austerity measures. In the course of such struggles the pressure of the workers will force a split in the PNP and the formation of an independent, socialist workers' party. Armed with a Marxist understanding this will have the opportunity of mobilising the workers to nationalise the banks, monopolies and trading enterprises under workers' control and management. A workers' democracy would immediately show the way forward to the masses of West Africa and lead to a socialist federation.
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[page 19]