Missteps, Miscues and Misunderstandings Mark U.S.-Ghana Relations

The sudden decision to ban advertisements for contraceptives here, reported recently under a bold headline in the local newspapers, was not very startling news in a country where such ads are rare.

But it was rather bewildering news for the United States. The only people here with any interest at all in contraceptives are in the U.S. government. Washington has a $3-million contraceptive distribution program here, one of its largest assistance projects in Ghana.

The U.S. conclusion: Ghana was once again thumbing its nose at the United States.

U.S.-Ghanaian relations in the past year have been characterized by miscues, missteps and misunderstandings--as well as CIA operations, expelled diplomats and violent anti-U.S. demonstrations.

What has happened in Ghana is a case study of what is happening in other small Third World countries that spew out anti-U.S. rhetoric, often at forums such as the recent summit conference of the Nonaligned Movement, and pay the price in deteriorating relations with the United States.

Carter Walked Out

When a government minister in Zimbabwe mounted an anti-American diatribe at a Fourth of July celebration this year, former President Jimmy Carter and U.S. officials walked out--and the United States later cut off all aid to the Harare government.

In Ghana, the relationship with the United States has come to resemble a stormy marriage. America and Ghana have a long history of friendship, dating at least to 1961, when the first group of Peace Corps volunteers arrived here. Shirley Temple Black, a popular U.S. ambassador here from 1974 to 1976, is still remembered fondly, and thousands of Ghanaians have degrees from American universities. Ghana has even embraced a Western-style economic recovery program that has made it the prize student of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

This kinship with the West has sustained the U.S.-Ghana marriage, but Ghana’s political rhetoric and America’s angry reaction to it have slowly undermined the relationship.

Officials of Ghana’s revolutionary government, led by Flight Lt. Jerry J. Rawlings, regularly say things that rankle the State Department, both in speeches here in Black Star Square and at the United Nations. Meanwhile, Ghana has plenty of nice things to say about Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

U.S. Aid Cut Back

As a result, America’s promised $23 million in aid this year has been whittled down to $14 million, even as most other Western governments have increased their assistance.

“That’s the price Ghana paid for kicking us in the shins and spitting on us,” one U.S. analyst said.

The U.S. contribution is a relatively small share of the foreign aid Ghana receives. But keeping the United States happy is important because Washington has a large say in World Bank decisions. And the World Bank has a large say in Ghana’s economy.

Many Ghanaians and even Western diplomats cannot understand why the United States is so sensitive to what Ghana says about it. After all, this West African country has virtually no strategic importance to either East or West.

A U.S. diplomat here jokes that Ghana’s strategic position in the world could be summed up as “a dagger pointed at the very heart . . . of Antarctica.”

‘It’s Just Rhetoric’

Another diplomat said: “The U.S. takes all that stuff personally. And it shouldn’t. If it could rise above that, and carry on business as usual, it’d be in a lot better shape. After all, it’s just rhetoric. People here don’t believe that stuff.”

Rhetoric, perhaps, but it accumulates quickly. A recent front-page story in the People’s Daily Graphic carried the headline: “Be Guided by Nicaraguan, Cuban Revolutions.” It was quoting a member of the ruling Provisional National Defense Council as urging Ghanaians to follow the example of Nicaragua’s Sandinistas and Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

This month a Soviet delegation arrived here for talks on “bilateral relations,” saying Ghana and the Soviet Union had been brought closer by their “common goals.” Meanwhile, a member of Ghana’s ruling council is in Moscow on an official visit, and his next stop is North Korea.

It is Ghana’s friendship with Libya, however, that seems to most upset the Reagan Administration. On a Friday in April, Rawlings gave everyone the day off and urged them to attend a rally outside the U.S. Embassy to protest the U.S. bombing raid on Libya. About 2,000 Ghanaians showed up, and an unarmed policeman trying to control the crowd was shot to death. A government security man was arrested for the shooting.

CIA Activities Charged

The present U.S.-Ghana troubles have their roots in the early 1980s, when Ghanaians frequently accused the CIA of backing attempts to overthrow Rawlings. The United States called the allegations “baseless” and speculated that they were designed to whip up anti-American sentiment here and divert attention from the poor job that Rawlings was doing in running the country.

But last year, to the embarrassment of the United States, Ghana uncovered a CIA operation in its midst and, it was said, one of the Ghanaian operatives was murdered. Ghana was tipped off when a low-level American clerk for the CIA station here passed details of the operation, including names of informants, to her Ghanaian lover, who happened to be Rawlings’ cousin.

Eight Ghanaians were arrested in Accra on charges of spying for the CIA. The clerk, Sharon M. Scranage, and her lover, Michael Agbotui Soussoudis, were arrested while in the United States. Scranage pleaded guilty to charges of transmitting classified information on CIA operations to Soussoudis, and he pleaded no contest to seeking such information from her. Both were sentenced to prison.

Deal Was Arranged

But a deal was worked out between the two countries. Ghana agreed to allow the eight accused spies to leave the country and the United States agreed to allow Rawlings’ cousin, Soussoudis, to return to Ghana, although Scranage remained in prison. It was further agreed that Ghana would be allowed to announce the swap.

But on Thanksgiving Day, the announcement was made instead by the U.S. Justice Department. A U.S. official here says it was an honest mistake, “but to this day Ghana thinks we did it on purpose just to get them.”

Ghana promptly booted four U.S. diplomats out of the country, in what became known around here as the Thanksgiving Day Massacre. The United States responded in kind, expelling four Ghanaian diplomats. Still, the prisoner exchange went through.

More recently, Ghanaian fears about U.S. attempts to overthrow the Rawlings government were fueled when eight Americans were convicted in Brazil of trying to smuggle six tons of ammunition to rebels in Ghana.

Relationship ‘Strained’

U.S. Ambassador Robert E. Fritts, who ended his tour in Ghana a few months ago, acknowledged in his farewell speech that the relationship between the United States and Ghana was “once again strained.” He said “the style used to express differences” between the two countries had “exacerbated the substance of disagreement.”

Another U.S. official says that “realistically, they’re not causing us any harm by calling us dirty names, but we Americans care about these things.”

Rawlings’ attempts to balance the dueling factions in his government account for Ghana’s seemingly contradictory policies, Western political analysts say. The anti-Western foreign policy satisfies the Marxist political thinkers in his ruling party and his pro-Western economic policy satisfies his financial advisers, who believe that the best way to rebuild the country is by allowing market forces more influence.

“There’s this extensive left-wing element in the country,” one analyst said, that is left over from the era when Kwame Nkrumah, a prominent figure in the African black-consciousness movement, led Ghana to independence in 1957.

“It has to be satisfied,” the analyst went on, “and it gets satisfied with political rhetoric. Hence the government is getting money from the West and is managing to survive politically at the same time.”

Competing Views Seen

A World Bank analyst familiar with the country suggests that U.S. policy toward Ghana is also the result of competing factions--the U.S. Treasury, which likes what it sees going on in Ghana economically, and the State Department, which dislikes what it sees going on politically.

“I hope the U.S. policy can be a little more subtle, discerning between the economic (progress) and the (anti-U.S.) rhetoric,” the World Bank official says.

Ghana’s wish is simply to be unaligned with any world power, members of the ruling party here said recently. It just happens that Ghana disapproves of the U.S. actions in Libya, South Africa, Nicaragua and Cuba.

So far, Rawlings has been able to pull off his balancing act and stay in power, mostly because he is a genuinely popular figure in Ghana. Stories abound of his common touch.

While many African leaders order their picture displayed in every public place, Rawlings ordered all his photos taken down. During a recent period of flooding, he got out of his four-wheel vehicle and waded into the street to help direct traffic.

But Ghana has a long history of successful coups, an average of one almost every four years, and no one is willing to predict that the 39-year-old Rawlings, now in his fifth year as head of state, is here to stay.

“We don’t see any visible threats to his regime,” one Western observer says. “But would I be surprised if there were a coup tomorrow? No.”