U.K. Denounces African Document As Forgery

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29344, 25 October 1960, Page 20

U.K. Denounces African Document As Forgery

IBy ARNOLD BEICHMAN, Special Correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor”!

ACCRA. A mysterious document of unknown origin alleging to be a secret British “annex to a cabinet paper on policy in Africa” has received such wide circulation m Africa that the British High Commission here has just issued a denial, charging the document to be forgery “of Communist or at least Marxist origin.” The paper, which bears the letterhead of an unknown organisation calling itself the “United Africa Association,” asserts there is a conspiracy by the British Government, Labour Party, and British labour leaders focused on Africa “for the preelection of British interests.” The letterhead shows no address.

A copy of the 19-page document, which—judging by its vocabulary, composition, and content—is obviously alien to British temperament and normal intelligence, was given to this writer by one of President Nkrumah’s closest confidants. He is John K. Tettegah, general secretary of the Ghana Trades Union Congress and recently appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Mr Tettegah sits in the Ghana Cabinet, although he holds no formal portfolio. Basis for Policy

He told me that the document had been obtained “by our secret agents’’ and added, pointing to the paper, “On this I can base my policy.”

The remarkable nature of the document is that its contents dovetail perfectly with the present Government policy for establishing a pan-African labour movement unaffiliated with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). For the last two years the Ghana and Guinea labour movements, closely allied with Mr Nkrumah and President Toure, have been campaigning against such African labour leaders as Kenya’s Tom Miboya and others Whose organisations belong to the ICFTU. Britain’s Trade Union Congress and America’s AFL-CIO are among the 100 organisations throughout the free world which belong to the ICFTU.

Americans Hit Under Ghana and Guinea sponsorship, an organisation has been set up, called the All-African Trade Union Federation, which insists on “neutralism” for the African labour organisation. Thus far the ATUF has made little dent in Africa, although Ghana has appropriated almost 30,000 dollars to carry on the organising work. Additionally, Ghana is appointing labour attaches to Tunisia, Morocco, the Sudan, and Nigeria to help organise the ATUF. ’ The alleged British Cabinet paper says that “Americans are

not interested in the creation of Africa (sic) genuine trade unions as we know them • • . Its trade union movement has been built from above by highly paid union bosses and not from below as in Great Britain and in Europe . . . As a result, such American trade union leaders as [George) Meany [president of the AFL-CIO] [Walter P.) Reuther [vice-presi-dent of the AFL-CIO), and [David] Dubinsky [president of the International Ladies Garment workers Union], can afford directly and openly to carry out governmental and particularly State Department and Central Intelligence Agency policy.” The purported official British paper emphasises the existence of deep-seated disagreement between the British Trade Unions Congress and the AFL-CIO, over anti-colonial policies in Africa. The document itself has admittedly remarkable inside knowledge of internal affairs of the ICFTU, but alleges that Mr Mboya has secret relationdiips with the British Foreign Office. An official British refutation, believed to have been prepared at the higest levels in Whitehall, declares: “So long as this document is allowed to circulate unchallenged and undenounced there is very real danger it will prejudice the good relations that have been built up between the governments of Ghana and the United Kingdom. It is therefore requested that the attention of those who are likely to have seen the document be drawn at the first possible opportunity to the fact that it is a fake and that it deliberately misrepresents the United Kingdom Government policy in a number of material respects.”