Arms & the Man

Is Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah deliberately edging his nation toward Communism, or is he just flirting harmlessly and neutrally at a safe distance outside the Soviet orbit? With considerable fanfare, he has added six Ilyushin planes to his little national airline, approved a new technical-aid pact with Moscow, and contracted for Soviet surveyors on the Volta River. But no publicity at all has been given to the last, most dangerous commodity just in from Russia: guns and ammunition by the thousands of tons.

They began to come one night in late March. Just after dark, a Soviet freighter arrived off Takoradi, Ghana's principal port--where all operations normally are in the daylight hours--and advised the harbor authorities that it was ready to discharge its cargo immediately. Although the harbor pilots usually go off duty at 4:30 p.m., the ship was quickly berthed.

Dead of Night. For the sake of secrecy, the area had been cleared of all workers, but to the consternation of the police official who hurried on board, the Soviet captain could not or would not use his ship's cranes to unload his cargo, meaning that scores of local stevedores had to be awakened and rushed down to do the job by hand. For five hours, until well after dawn, the sweating workers lugged thousands of cases of small arms and ammunition down to waiting police trucks. Finally, the heavily laden vehicles headed off in convoy up the coastal highway to Elmina Castle, which now serves as Ghana's top-secret arsenal for Moscow's guns.

At least six other Soviet ships docked in darkness at Takoradi in the same week, suggesting that Nkrumah is building up supplies to expand his gunrunning activities all along Africa's west coast, for Nkrumah's own army already has all the arms it can use (supplied largely by Britain). One likely intended recipient is the Congo's Antoine Gizenga, the Red-lining rebel in Stanleyville, who as Lumumba's Vice Premier is recognized by the Communist bloc (and Ghana) as the Congo's legitimate ruler. Only last month, Nkrumah talked publicly of restoring the "balance of armaments" in the Congo if the Belgians continued to aid Katanga's Moise Tshombe. Nkrumah and his vigorous aides in Accra's African Affairs Bureau may also have plans to pump guns into explosive Angola, perhaps into white-led states such as Northern and Southern Rhodesia and South Africa as well.

Secret Aims. Nkrumah's goal is to see his own banner waving over an entire continent. Circulating among Nkrumah's Cabinet last week was a secret policy paper drafted by one of his highest-ranking colleagues announcing a new and violent stage in Africa's struggle, fashioned on the model of Algeria's F.L.N. rebels. For the moment, declared the remarkable document, Ghana would have to share leadership of the new Africa with such ambitious states as the U.A.R., Guinea and Mali, but their influence is destined to wane, in the long run, as Ghana's star rises. The new phase of the liberation movement, the paper went on, will receive its "inspiration" and "arms" from the Soviet Union--flowing through Accra to the rest of Africa.

Whether the document's contents had Nkrumah's personal approval was hard to say, but at last report the author had not been fired. Nkrumah's close friend, Minister of State Kofi Baako, a few weeks ago ran a long series of articles defining "Nkrumahism" in the government party's paper. Nkrumahism. he explained, is "African in context, but Marxist in form." and its objective is the formation of a "union of socialist republics of Africa."

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