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Nkrumah, Nationalism, and Pan-Africanism: The Bureau of African Affairs Collection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2017

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Abstract:

The article describes the Bureau of African Affairs Collection. First it introduces the history of the archive by examining the crucial events that influenced its state and accessibility. Then, it describes the contents of the collection, underlying its importance for the study of Kwame Nkrumah’s domestic and foreign policies and African nationalism at a continental level. The documents included in the Bureau of African Affairs Collection provide unique insights into both Nkrumah’s foreign and domestic policies. In particular, they include invaluable information on his Pan-African policy. Moreover, the documents shed new light on the presence of African liberation movements in Ghana in the period 1957 to 1966. Thus, this Collection can attract scholars interested in both Ghanaian history as well as the history of Pan-Africanism and African nationalism at a continental level.

Résumé:

Cet article présente les archives du Bureau of African Affairs du Ghana. Il introduit tout d’abord l’histoire de ces archives en examinant les événements cruciaux qui ont influencé son état et accessibilité actuels. L’article se penche ensuite sur le contenu de la collection et montre son importance pour l’étude des politiques nationales et étrangères de Kwame Nkrumah et le nationalisme africain au niveau continental. Les documents inclus dans les archives du Bureau of African Affairs fournissent un point de vue unique sur les politiques nationales et étrangères de Nkrumah. En particulier, ils contiennent des informations précieuses sur sa politique panafricaine. De plus, les documents apportent une nouvelle lumière sur la présence des mouvements de libération de l’Afrique au Ghana entre 1957 et 1966. Ainsi, ces archives peuvent attirer des chercheurs intéressés à la fois par l’histoire ghanéenne mais aussi par l’histoire du panafricanisme et du nationalisme africain au niveau continental.

Type
Archival Reports
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2017 

Introduction Footnote 1

Fifty years after its overthrow on 24 February 1966, the government of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana is still construed in the African collective imagination as one of the most controversial, yet influential political experiments, in the modern history of the continent. This is mainly due to its progressive Pan-African policy, built on the idea of liberating the continent from colonial or neo-colonial influences and uniting it under the flag of a one continental government. Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanism borrowed elements from Marxism, Ghandism, and the whole tradition of black radical and Pan-Africanist thoughts, and the ideology of Nkrumahism envisaged the revolutionary transformation of Ghana as well as the liberation and unification of a socialist Africa. Footnote 2 Nkrumah was aided and influenced until 1959 by the Trinidadian Pan-Africanist George Padmore, and he sought to attain his goals by devising specific political strategies and inaugurating three separate institutions: the Bureau of African Affairs (BAA), the African Affairs Centre (AAC), and the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute of Winneba (KNII). Even though Nkrumah ambitious objectives proved beyond his reach, he undoubtedly played a critical role in the development of African nationalism. Nkrumah supported, directly or indirectly, liberation movements from all over the continent, all the while trying to influence them politically.

Alongside Padmore, Nkrumah transformed Accra into a “chief meeting site for anti-colonial nationalists seeking to internationalize their own national struggles.” Footnote 3 Thus, to work on Nkrumah’s Ghana, and particularly its Pan-African institutions, is also to consider the trans-national dimension of African liberation and nationalist movements, a topic to which several scholars have been drawn in recent years. Footnote 4 For decades, historians have come up against a dearth of material on the activities of the BAA, the AAC, and the KNII, as their archives were thought to have completely disappeared after the coup of 1966. Footnote 5 During the last twenty-five years, however, a fundamental repository has reemerged to light: the Bureau of African Affairs Collection, now kept at the George Padmore Research Library on African Affairs, in Accra. This archive includes most of the papers of the BAA, and also some documents relating to the activities of the AAC and the KNII. Footnote 6 Only in recent times did scholars begin to employ this invaluable body of records for the history of Ghana, as well as that of African nationalism at the continental level. Footnote 7 Few other documents about the BAA, AAC, and KNII can be found outside this collection. Footnote 8 Drawing on the author’s familiarity with the Bureau of African Affairs records, this article briefly describes the history of the collection and provides an overview of its contents. Footnote 9

A Brief History of the Collection

Before describing the contents of the Bureau of African Affairs collection, it is important quickly to survey the history of the archive itself, since elements of this history help to account for the present shape of the collection itself. In the turbulent days of Nkrumah’s overthrow, the military authorities of the National Liberation Council (NLC) raided Accra and the other major Ghanaian cities for documents concerning Nkrumah’s Convention People’s Party (CPP) and his government. One of the main goals of this operation was to bring to light evidence of the crimes of the former regime, thereby justifying the coup itself and cleaning up Ghana’s international image. In this regard, the documents of the BAA were considered to be of major importance, as they held information on some of the most secret and controversial African operations carried out by Nkrumah’s government. While Flagstaff House and other ministers were raided by the military or even by common people, the Bureau of African Affairs was shut down, its staff arrested and its papers seized by the authorities for further examination of the materials. The papers of the Bureau, the AAC, the KNII, and other Nkrumahist institutions were impounded and deposited in the Trade Union Congress (TUC) headquarters building, in Accra. Footnote 10 Then, the military authorities set up a committee of officers who had the task of examining the documents, selecting those considered important to build a case against the former government and taking them to Burma Camp, a military base also in Accra. Footnote 11 In the months following the coup, the new military government published some of its findings in the two booklets: Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa and Nkrumah’s Deception of Africa. Footnote 12 Both of these publications reproduced a selection of the documents confiscated from the BAA. The fate of these documents is unknown. Footnote 13 Their disappearance explains why the Bureau of African Affairs Collection includes few documents concerning the most secret activities undertaken by the Bureau. After the appearance of the NLC publications, the remaining records of the BAA were kept in Burma Camp for a few years until the National Archival and Library Authorities moved them. A small part of the papers was sent to the National Archives, but the rest were moved to its present location under the control of the Ghana Library Board. Footnote 14 The survival of part at least of the Bureau of African Affairs papers is fortunate, especially when it is set against the fate of other archives, such as those of the KNII and the AAC, which were completely lost after the coup.

The turning point in the history of the archive can be located in the late 1980s, when Jan-Bart Gewald and Joseph Justice Torton Mensah re-discovered the collection. Footnote 15 At the time, the boxes of the BAA had been stored in the basement of the George Padmore Research Library on African Affairs, established by Nkrumah himself in 1961 to preserve Padmore’s personal library and to house Padmore’s own grave. Interestingly, the library was, and still is, a mere 500 meters away from the original address of the Bureau of African Affairs, in today’s Gabel Abdul Nasser Avenue, known as Maxwell Road in Nkrumah’s times. Since the library is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, the then Minister, K.B. Asante, had to grant special permission to survey the documents. Joseph Mensah, at the time a masters’ student in African Studies at the University of Ghana and later Western Regional Director of the Public Records and Archive Administration Department of Ghana, proceeded to examine the papers of the Bureau of African Affairs kept at the National Archives as well as those kept at the George Padmore Library (the Bureau of African Affairs Collection). Since the latter were still un-catalogued, he then created a numbered list. A first survey of the documents of the Bureau was later produced by Mensah himself as his own thesis. Footnote 16 By producing a catalogue of the BAA papers at the George Padmore Library, Mensah tried to rationalize a body of records which was “terribly disorganized” because of the “rough handling by soldiers” after the Bureau was closed down on 24 February 1966. Footnote 17

The Contents of the Collection

In 2008, almost twenty years after Mensah had produced a first catalogue, Jeffrey Ahlman, then a PhD student of the University of lllinois-Urbana Champaign, prepared a list of the collection with the aid of several members of the library’s staff. Since then, the library retains a copy of Ahlman’s catalogue, which references 966 files. These are either placed into boxes – which are also listed in the catalogue – or sit loose on the shelves. Most of the folders are numbered progressively (from 1 to 1,128 with at least 181 numbered files missing from the catalogue). Some others included in the catalogue are not numbered, and they are listed with only the name on the cover to identify them. During the research leading to my PhD thesis, I had the chance to examine the materials listed in Ahlman’s catalogue. Stored in the basement of the western wing of the library, the records are in a poor state of preservation, being kept in a very confined and humid space. Footnote 18 Some additional records, not listed in Ahlman’s catalogue, are kept in a separate section of the library. Researchers are allowed to read these documents but, without a catalogue, the personnel of the library can only provide them with randomly selected files. After insistent requests, I was able to examine the room where the files are stored. Footnote 19 I estimate them to be grouped into about one hundred unnumbered folders. Footnote 20 Should this estimate be correct, then the entire Bureau of African Affairs Collection might consist of about 1,066 files. Besides archival material sensu stricto, the library also includes bibliographical and photographical materials relating to the work of the BAA or to African affairs more in general, including Padmore’s own library. A series of picture of Padmore’s funeral and burial can be also found in the library.

The Bureau of African Affairs Collection consists of the papers of the BAA and its predecessor, the Office of the Adviser to the Prime Minister on African Affairs. The latter was established in 1957 and began its activities upon the arrival of Padmore in Accra on 5 December of the same year. Footnote 21 The Office was designed to act as an “investigative body, as a propaganda forum and as a center for exchanging views with other African leaders.” Footnote 22 Moreover, the new institution had to provide political and financial aid to African liberation movements, and it was also entrusted with the promotion of African unity and socialism. As Leslie James has put it: “It would supplement, not duplicate, the work of the Ministry of External Affairs,” at the time held by Nkrumah himself. Footnote 23 Padmore’s office was de jure under the control of the Ministry of Defence and External Affairs; de facto, however, it was autonomous from it and answerable only to Nkrumah. Footnote 24 Between 1957 and 1959, Padmore’s office cooperated with the Ministry of Defence and External Affairs (renamed Ministry of External Affairs in July 1958) as well as with the CPP, in organizing the two important Pan-Africanist conferences held in Ghana: the first Conference of Independent African States (CIAS), held in April 1958, and the All-African People’s Conference (AAPC), held in December 1958. During the same period, Padmore took part in various trips abroad, such as the meeting between Nkrumah, Sekou Touré, and William V.S. Tubman held in Sanniquellie on 19 July 1959, when the famous Declaration was also issued. Footnote 25 Until Padmore’s death in September 1959, the office was also at the heart of Ghana’s Pan-African propaganda through radio and press, worked towards inaugurating a system of scholarships, and it also begun to provide African liberation movements with offices of representation as well as shelter. Footnote 26 A specific institution, directly dependent from the Office, was created to provide housing to African freedom fighters and political refugees: the African Affairs Centre. This hostel, consisting of a series of houses and bungalows built close to Accra’s airport, was first proposed by the Guyanese T. Ras Makonnen in August 1958 and then made fully operational in December 1958 under the management of Makonnen himself. Footnote 27 The AAC hosted important African leaders such as Kaunda, Lumumba, Mboya, and Roberto. Footnote 28

Although the documents of the AAC were lost after the coup, some of its correspondence with Padmore’s Office and its successor, the BAA, can be found in the archive. In general, records hailing from Padmore’s days abound in the collection. These include newspaper clippings concerning mainly African affairs, reports, personnel files, circulars, and correspondence both within Ghana (Padmore communicating with other ministers, with the Convention People’s Party headquarters, with Nkrumah or with the AAC) and outside Ghana.

After Padmore’s death, the Office ceased to exist as such and changed its name. In early October 1959, Kwame Nkrumah announced in a press release the establishment of the Bureau of African Affairs “in order to put the work begun by the late Mr. George Padmore on a permanent basis.” Footnote 29 Baako was nominated director, Nkrumah himself took the post of acting director, while Aloysius K. Barden, Padmore’s selected and trusted assistant, became secretary. Footnote 30 Until its formal establishment as an independent institution on 28 April 1960, the BAA, along with the AAC, was administered by the African Affairs Committee, an advisory body created by Nkrumah and Padmore a few months earlier with the view to coordinating Ghana’s African policy. Footnote 31 The collection includes some of the papers of the African Affairs Committee, although not all of them, as well as some of the papers of the All-African People’s Conference, the permanent organization born after the 1958 All-African People’s Conference. Footnote 32 Indeed, by late 1959, the BAA had “virtually absorbed what was left of the AAPC.” Footnote 33

Similarly to Padmore’s Office, the BAA was established as a body dependent only on Nkrumah. Soon, Barden became the new director. Under his management, the Bureau became an effective instrument for the pursuit of Ghana’s Pan-African policy, being responsible for providing African liberation movements with funds, documents, political support and the other resources they required, including political and military training. Specific departments were created to deal with the specific tasks of the Bureau. The last and final re-organization of these departments took place in October 1965. Footnote 34 One of the departments, the Press Branch, took care of the production and distribution of Ghanaian Pan-Africanist and socialist press both in Ghana and abroad. Among the various publications edited by the Bureau or by its editing subsidiaries were: Voice of Africa, The Spark (and its French version, L’Enticelle), The African Chronicler, Freedom Fighter, and The Information Bulletin on African Affairs. Documents concerning all the departments, including the Press Branch, form part of the collection. Footnote 35

In 1960, the Bureau also created a network of agents to support Ghana’s Pan-African policy directly on the battlegrounds of the liberation struggle. Because of this, the collection houses the correspondence between the Bureau and several African liberation movements, such as the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), Basutoland Congress Party (BCP), and the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), both in Ghana (where the BAA provided them with offices of representation) and abroad, where the Bureau was in constant touch either directly with African nationalists or with its own agents amongst the latter. Footnote 36 The BAA was also regularly tracking the correspondence between the above-mentioned Ghana-based representatives of African liberation movements and their other offices and headquarters. Footnote 37 Thus, the collection also offers invaluable insights into the activities of the liberation movements themselves, besides those that it provides into their relations with Ghanaian authorities. Other interesting documents of the collection include reports, press statements and newspapers clippings concerning every major African political question of the period 1959–1966. The collection also comprises a substantial amount of documents pertaining to the daily running of the institution itself. Circulars, reports, personnel files and internal correspondence provide an exceptionally detailed picture of the workings of one of Nkrumah’s most controversial institutions. Footnote 38 As Ahlman rightly pointed out: “It is in the relatively mundane act of archival collection and preservation that the Bureau becomes exceptional in the histories of Nkrumah-era Ghana. No other of the Nkrumah institutions (…) created such a complete and informative archival record.” Footnote 39

The BAA’s activities went beyond the sphere of Ghana’s Pan-African policy, for the office also had an important role to play in the implementation of Nkrumah’s domestic policies. Particularly after the shift to the left operated by Nkrumah in 1961, the Bureau became directly involved in the transformation of Ghana into a socialist – and ultimately Nkrumahist – state. The collection houses the correspondence between the BAA and the various bodies entrusted with the task of working for the transformation of Ghanaian society, such as The Ghana Young Pioneers, the Workers Brigade and the ruling CPP. Footnote 40 After the Kulungugu life attempt on 2 August 1962, the Bureau also became to all intents and purposes an intelligence office, whose duties included “assisting the State apparatus in unearthing plans and exposing the wicked intentions of people both within the country and outside.” Footnote 41 The archive includes document of exceptional importance for understanding the tensions between the various parts that formed the Ghanaian state, including the party, the civil service, the government, the ministries and the secretariats.

Among the most interesting papers included in the BAA collection are those relating to the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute of Winneba, known after 1962 as Kwame Nkrumah Institute of Economics and Political Science. The KNII can be regarded both as a party school and an institution aimed at realizing the goals of Nkrumah’s Pan-African policy. First conceived in 1959, it was officially inaugurated in 1961. It had two main purposes. First, the KNII was meant to train CPP members and civil servants in ideology, economics and administration. Secondly, it provided a similar training to freedom fighters, in order to foster the emergence and development of a new revolutionary and Pan-Africanist African intelligentsia. At the opening ceremony of the KNII on 18 February 1961, Nkrumah himself explained: “When African freedom fighters from all over Africa have come into this institute and quenched their thirst for ideological knowledge, they will go back fortified in the same principle and beliefs, pursue the same objectives and aims, appreciate the same values and advocate the same themes. Footnote 42 Nkrumah requested the Bureau to organize courses on African liberation and unity for both Ghanaians and foreigners, whose identity and conduct were constantly monitored by the same BAA. The Bureau of African Affairs Collection includes the full texts of a number of lessons taught at Winneba, as well as other documents concerning the running of the Institute, including the selection of the teaching staff. Footnote 43

Finally, the archive includes papers relating to the most controversial missions delegated to the Bureau, that is, those relating to already independent African countries. The BAA, indeed, supported a number of African opposition groups by hosting them in Ghana as political refugees, and it also sent agents to the same countries. As already stated above, most of the papers concerning the “subversive” activities of the Bureau were confiscated after the coup, published and, later, either destroyed or kept in Burma camp. This is the reason why there are few documents marked as “secret” in the whole collection. Nevertheless, important information about Ghanaian polices towards other independent African independent can be found in the collection. For instance, several documents are available that concern such exiled political parties as the Union du Populations du Cameroun (UPC) or the Sanwi Liberation Movement. Footnote 44

Final considerations

In conclusion, the collection of the BAA has enormous potential for scholars interested in the study of Nkrumah’s era or the history of liberation movements. From many points of view, the collection provides unique insights into both Nkrumah’s foreign and domestic policies. It is even more precious when one considers that, in itself, the collection offers a snapshot of the shape and workings of a Nkrumahist institution at the time of the coup. Nevertheless, the accessibility and the overall state of the archive are still matters that need to be resolved, as they might affect the work of the future researchers. Some of the files are misplaced and, thus, very difficult to retrieve. Some other files are kept in mislabeled folders – that is, folders whose titles often have nothing to do with the actual contents of the documents included in them. Finally, some folders are not even catalogued and so virtually inaccessible.

Matteo Grilli obtained his PhD at the University of Pavia and the University of Leiden (joint-PhD programme) in 2015. He is currently part of the International Studies Group of the University of the Free State as a post-doctoral fellow. His research focuses on the history of the Pan-Africanist foreign policy of the government of Kwame Nkrumah and, more broadly, on the history of African nationalism and Pan-Africanism. E-mail:

Footnotes

1 I would like to thank Giacomo Macola, Ian Phimister, Jan-Bart Gewald, Jeffrey Ahlman, and Tom McCaskie for their comments and suggestions.

2 On Nkrumahism, see, for instance: Kofi D. Agyeman, Ideological Education and Nationalism in Ghana under Nkrumah and Busia (Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1988); Scott W. Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 1957–1966: Diplomacy, Ideology, and the New State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 257; Jitendra Mohan, “Nkrumah and Nkrumahism,” Socialist Register 4–4 (1967), 8–17; Ali Mazrui, “Nkrumah: The Leninist Czar,” Transition 26 (1966), 9–17; David E. Apter, Ghana in Transition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972); Jeffrey S. Ahlman, Living with Nkrumahism: Nation, State, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana(Athens OH: Ohio University Press, forthcoming).

3 Leslie James, George Padmore and Decolonization from Below: Pan-Africanism, the Cold War, and the End of Empire (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 178.

4 See, for instance: Matthew J. Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-cold War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Meredith Terretta, Nation of Outlaws, State of Violence: Nationalism, Grassfields Tradition, and State Building in Cameroon (Athens OH: Ohio University Press, 2013); Kwandiwe Kondlo, In the Twilight of the Revolution: The Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (South Africa) 1959–1994 (Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 2009); Stephen Ellis, External Mission: the ANC in Exile, 1960–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Jean Allman, “Nuclear Imperialism and the Pan-African Struggle for Peace and Freedom: Ghana, 1959–1962,” Souls 10–2 (2008), 83–102; Christian A. Williams, National Liberation in Post-Colonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile Camps (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

5 Even Thompson – the author of the most comprehensive study on Ghana’s foreign policy to this date – had to draw on information collected by the National Liberation Council after the coup for analyzing the functioning of BAA, AAC, and the Institute.

6 The George Padmore Library is part of the Ghana Library Authority, which is itself under the Ministry of Education. Thus, its management is in no way connected with the Public Records and Archive Administration Department of Ghana, which is responsible for the National Archives in Accra and in the main Ghanaian cities.

7 See, for instance: Jeffrey S. Ahlman, “The Algerian Question in Nkrumah’s Ghana, 1958–1960: Debating ‘Violence’ and ‘Nonviolence’ in African Decolonization,” Africa Today 57–2 (2010), 67–84; Jeffrey S. Ahlman, “Road to Ghana: Nkrumah, Southern Africa and the Eclipse of a Decolonizing Africa,” Kronos 37–1 (2011), 23–40; James, George Padmore; Matteo Grilli, “Support to African Nationalist Movements by Nkrumah’s Ghana,” in: African Dynamics in a Multipolar World – Conference Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on African Studies (Lisboa: CEI, 2014), 1018–1030; Frank Gerits, “The Ideological Scramble for Africa: The US, Ghanaian, French and British Competition for Africa’s Future, 1953–1963,” PhD thesis, European University Institute (Florence, 2014); Frank Gerits, “‘When the Bull Elephants Fight:’ Kwame Nkrumah, Non-Alignment, and Pan-Africanism as an Interventionist Ideology in the Global Cold War (1957–1966),” The International History Review 37–5 (2015), 951–969.

8 Few documents of the BAA, AAC, and the KNII can be found in the collections of the Public Records and Archive Administration Department. Some of them are part of a series called “ex-Bureau of African Affairs files” (ex SC/BAA/-, now reorganized as RG/17/1/-). It is important to stress, however, that the name of the series is misleading, as most of the 516 files were not originally part of the Bureau of African Affairs papers and most of them don’t even relate directly to the BAA itself.

9 During the research leading to my PhD I spent several months in Ghana examining the BAA files, as well as other sources. See: Matteo Grilli, “African Liberation and Unity in Nkrumah’s Ghana: a Study of the Role of ‘Pan-African Institutions’ in the Making of Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 1957–1966,” PhD thesis, University of Leiden/University of Pavia (Leiden/Pavia, 2015).

10 Tom C. McCaskie, personal communication, September 2016.

11 According to the then Lt. Colonel Afrifa (NLC leader and Head of State of Ghana in 1969) and the former CPP Minister Ako Adjei, while the process of selection was still ongoing, the TUC building was raided by persons other than the military. Tom C. McCaskie, personal communication, September 2016. The identity of these persons and the fate of the many files that went missing are still open questions.

12 NLC [National Liberation Council], Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa, Documentary Evidences of Nkrumah’s Interference in the Affairs of Other African States (Accra: Ministry of Information, 1966); NLC [National Liberation Council], Nkrumah’s Deception of Africa (Accra: Ministry of Information, 1966).

13 At least until 2000 these files were still kept in the Commandant’s office of Burma Camp. Tom C. McCaskie, personal communication, September 2016.

14 The papers sent to the National Archives form the collection SC/BAA/-, now RG/17/1/-. See note 8.

15 Jan-Bart Gewald, personal communication, November 2015.

16 Joseph J.T. Mensah, “The Bureau of African Affairs in the Kwame Nkrumah Administration from 1951–1966 with a (Descriptive) Guide to its Archives,” MPhil thesis, University of Ghana at Legon (Accra, 1990).

17 Mensah, “The Bureau of African Affairs,” 148.

18 To my knowledge, a solution has not been found yet. In recent years, however, different institutions and individuals have tried to set up plans for the preservation and digitalization of the collection.

19 Normally, access to this room is severely restricted.

20 As far as I know, none of these approximately one hundred folders include the secret files used for compiling the two NLC booklets published in 1966. All of them seem to be integral part of the original BAA archive. The reason for their exclusion from Mensah’s catalogue seems rather obscure.

21 James, George Padmore, 169.

22 NLC, Nkrumah’s Subversion, 3.

23 James, George Padmore, 169.

24 Kwesi Armah, Peace Without Power: Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 1957–1966 (Accra: Ghana University Press, 2004), 27.

25 James, George Padmore, 183. Documents about the conference can be found in the BAA archive. See, for instance: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued “Gabon File.” Typescript entitled “The Principles of the Sanniquellie Declaration, 19 July 1959.” Another example of Padmore’s missions abroad was his trip to Nigeria with Nkrumah and the then Minister of External Affairs Kodjo Botsio in February 1959. See: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file “BC-All-African People’s Conference-African Affairs.” Letter from the AAPC conference secretariat to Botsio and Padmore, 9 February 1959.

26 Chapter 2 of Grilli, “African Liberation.” The BAA Collection includes interesting documents relating to the elaboration and execution of Ghana’s policy on political refugees. For instance, in February 1959, Padmore wrote to Botsio to express his ideas on these issues: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file “BK-General Correspondence with Ministry of External Affairs.” Letter from Padmore to Botsio, 27 February 1959.

27 Public Records and Archive Administration Department, RG/17/1/79 (ex SC/BAA/165), Letter from Padmore to Nkrumah, 19 August 1958.

28 Ras Makonnen and Kenneth King, Pan-Africanism from Within (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 212. In May 1959, the AAC was already hosting a dozen political refugees from French Cameroons, Ivory Coast, Belgian Congo, Angola, Nyasaland [Malawi], and Mauretania. Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file “BC-All-African People’s Conference.” Letter from Padmore to Adu, 19 May 1959.

29 Press Release #757/59 quoted in: Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 107.

30 A Ghanaian ex-serviceman, Aloysius K. Barden became Padmore’s personal secretary and, de facto, his successor. Of him, Padmore wrote to Nkrumah in January 1959: “Besides enjoying his confidence and loyalty, he is painstaking, courteous and one who can always be relied upon to shoulder responsibilities.” Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file/BC-All-African People’s Conference, Letter from Padmore to Nkrumah, 21 January 1959. After the death of the latter, he became one of the protagonists of Ghana’s Pan-African policy acting as director of the BAA (1960–1965), seizing almost total power for himself with regard to the relationship with the liberation movements. Criticized in Ghana and outside Ghana (including by Mandela, see: Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 222) he was finally dismissed as director of the BAA in 1965 by Nkrumah himself.

31 On the African Affairs Committee, see: Grilli, “African Liberation,” chapter 3. The African Affairs Committee is mentioned for the first time during the last months of Padmore’s life, when it was chaired by the latter: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file “BN-African Affairs Committee.” Typescript: “African Affairs Committee.” Undated.

32 For the minutes of the meetings of the African Affairs Committee, see: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file “BN-African Affairs Committee Bulletin” and Public Records and Archive Administration Department, RG/17/1/465 (ex SC/BAA/251).

33 Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 107.

34 NLC, Nkrumah’s Subversion, 3.

35 See, for instance, the table regarding monthly production and distribution of The Spark between December 1962 and September 1963, in: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, BAA/RLAA/11.

36 On the MPLA, see, for instance: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, BAA/RLAA/378, Letter from Agostinho Neto (writing from the MPLA office in Brazzaville) to Kwame Nkrumah, 30 November 1963.

37 One example is the correspondence between the PAC offices in Lusaka and Accra. See, for instance: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, BAA/RLAA/408, Letter from Z.B. Molete (Secretary Publicity & Information Pan-Africanist Congress – Lusaka) to John Mokone, representative of PAC in Accra, 29 December 1965.

38 For an account of the Bureau as a Pan-African workplace and for a reflection on the importance of the archive of the Bureau of African Affairs, see: Jeffrey S. Ahlman, “Managing the Pan-African Workplace: Discipline, Ideology, and the Cultural Politics of the Ghanaian Bureau of African Affairs,” Ghana Studies 15 (2012), 337–371.

39 Ahlman, “Managing the Pan-African Workplace,” 366–367.

40 On 22 June 1961, for instance, the Bureau requested thirty Brigadiers to the Builders Brigade for a seminar to be held at Winneba, see: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, BAA/325, Letter from Bosumtwi-Sam (Administrative Secretary of the BAA) to the National Organiser of the Builders Brigadiers and Kwesi Armah, 22 June 1961.

41 Public Records and Archive Administration Department, RG/17/1/198 (ex SC/BAA/357), Letter from Barden to Nkrumah, 20 May 1964.

42 Kwame Nkrumah, “The Kwame Nkrumah Institute,” in: Kwame Nkrumah, Selected Speech of Kwame Nkrumah (compiled by S.Obeng), volume 1 (Accra: Afram Publication Ltd., 2009), 273–274.

43 See, in particular: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, BAA/RLAA/423, BAA/RLAA/437, and Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file “Bk-Ideological Course for Political Organisations of Dependent African States.” See also: Grilli, “African Liberation,” 114–115, 156–167, 209–214; Gerits, “The Ideological Scramble,” 274–275.

44 A resolution supporting UPC’s political requests drafted at the AAPC in December 1958 can be found among the BAA files: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file “BC-All-African People’s Conference.” Typescript entitled “Resolution on Cameroon Adopted by the First Committee on Imperialism and Colonialism of the All-African People’s Conference,” attached to “Report on African Affairs” from the AAPC secretariat to Botsio and Padmore, 9 February 1959. With regard to the Sanwi, the BAA archive holds several files of the Mouvement de Libération du Sanwi (MLS), including the programme of the party, first signed n Krinjabo on 10 May 1958 and then signed again by its leader Amand Kadio Attié in Accra on 11 July 1962: Archive of the George Padmore Research Library, un-catalogued file, un-named black loose-leaf notebook, signed typescript: “Programme du Mouvement de Libération du Sanwi,” 11 July 1962.

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