Ghana Govt. Recognised

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31002, 7 March 1966, Page 15

Ghana Govt. Recognised

(N Z.P A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, March 5. The Commonwealth Relations Secretary, Mr Arthur Bottomley has welcomed the Ghana Government’s wish to resume diplomatic relations with Britain. Ghana broke off diplomatic relations with Britain in mid-

December when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was President, in protest against Britain’s handling of the Rhodesia crisis. In Accra yesterday Ghana’s new Government officially announced it had resumed diplomatic relations with Britain.

A spokesman for the Commonwealth Relations Office said in London last night: “The Commonwealth Secretary, Mr Arthur Bottomley, welcomes this wish of the Government of Ghana that diplomatic relations between us should be resumed.” An official announcement in Accra said that General Ankrah, chairman of the National Libertaion Council—which ousted Nkrumah from power last week—received the Australian High Commissioner yesterday to inform him of the decision to resume diplomatic relations with Britain. U.K. Recognition

Britain announced yesterday that she had granted formal recognition to the new military regime of General Ankrah as the legal government of Ghana. Britain was followed swiftly by the United States.

In a broadcast over Radio Guinea today, marking the ninth anniversary of Ghana’s independence. Dr. Nkrumah told Ghanaians he knew they would crush their new regime “at the appropriate time” and repeated his pledge to return home soon. Dr. Nkrumah accused the coup leaders of insane acts of robbery, violence and assassination, saying they had added brutality to their treason.

“Never before have Ghanaians been shot down in their homes because of their political convictions,” he said. “This is a tragedy of monstrous proportions. I know that at the appropriate time you will take the initiative to crush it. “I know that you, the people of Ghana, are always loyal to me, the party and Government. I expect you in this hour of trial to remain firm in determination and resistance despite intimidation,” Dr. Nkrumah said. Soviet Reaction In Moscow, the Soviet Government newspaper, “Izvestia.” said last night the military coup in Ghana which unseated Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was directed against the whole of independent Africa. “Izvestia’s commentator, Viktor, Kudryavtsev, compared the Accra takeover with the Rhodesian unilateral declaration of independence, and said both were aimed against the African liberation movement. This was the first authoritative statement from a Soviet source on the coup, although Soviet press reports have hinted at Western intelligence service involvement in it.

Kudryavtsev made no mention in his long article on the

brief visit of Dr. Nkrumah to Moscow earlier this week during which he was believed to have conferred with Soviet leaders. Kudryavtsev rejected contensions that the Ghanaian coup was an internal affair. “Even in the African countries which have not yet freed themselves from the neo-col-onialist hypnosis, broad sections of public opinion are disturbed by the events in Ghana,” he wrote. Kudryavtsev said that the announcement by the new Accra regime of economic reforms and the reintroduction of private enterprise into industry had particularly disturbed the Soviet Government. The Accra authorities “are opening the doors to imperialist monopolies, and within the country are creating a stimulus for private capital,” he wrote. “Torn Up Agreement” At the same time Peking’s New China News Agency said today that Ghana had “unilaterally torn up” an economic agreement with China and demanded the immediate withdrawal of all Chinese technicians from the country, the Associated Press reported. The Agency also said the African nation demanded that the Chinese Embassy cut its staff to 18. A protest note lodged by the Chinese Embassy in Accra with the Ghanaian Foreign Ministry on March 3 and made public today the N.C,N.A. said.