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Ghana The United States
Ghana has in general enjoyed good relations with the United
States since independence, except for a period of strained
relations during the later years of the Nkrumah regime. Ghana was
the first country to which United States Peace Corps volunteers
were sent in 1961. Ghana and the United States are signatories to
twenty agreements and treaties covering such matters as
agricultural commodities, aviation, defense, economic and technical
cooperation, education, extradition, postal matters,
telecommunications, and treaty obligations. The refusal of the
United States to join the International Cocoa Agreement, given
Ghana's heavy dependence on cocoa exports to earn hard currency, is
the most serious bilateral issue between the two countries.
Relations between the United States and Ghana were particularly
rocky in the early 1980s, apparently because of Ghana's relations
with Libya. The PNDC government restored diplomatic relations with
Libya shortly after coming to power. Libya came to the aid of Ghana
soon afterward by providing much-needed economic assistance. Libya
also has extensive financial holdings in Ghana. Rawlings has
supported Libya's position that two Libyans accused of bombing a
Pan American Airlines flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988
should be tried in a neutral country rather than in Britain or the
United States.
Relations between the United States and Ghana were further
strained by a series of diplomatic incidents in the mid-1980s. In
July 1985, a distant relative of Rawlings, Michael Soussoudis, was
arrested in the United States and charged with espionage. Despite
Soussoudis's conviction, he was exchanged the following December
for several known United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
agents in Accra, but not before diplomats had been expelled in both
Accra and Washington. In March 1986, a Panamanian-registered ship
carrying arms and a number of mercenaries and United States
veterans of the Vietnam War was seized off the coast of Brazil. The
PNDC charged that the arms and soldiers were destined for Ghana and
that they had been financed by a Ghanaian dissident with links to
the CIA. During their trial, several crew members admitted that the
charges were substantially true. Although they were convicted and
imprisoned, three subsequently escaped with what the PNDC alleged
was CIA assistance.
In spite of these incidents, relations between the United
States and Ghana had improved markedly by the late 1980s. Former
United States president Jimmy Carter visited Ghana in 1986 and
again in 1988 and was warmly received by the PNDC. His
Global 2000
agricultural program (see Glossary), which is quite popular with
Ghanaian farmers, is helping promote good relations with the United
States. In 1989 the United States forgave US$114 million of Ghana's
foreign debt, part of a larger debt relief effort by Western
nations. The United States has strongly favored Ghana's economic
and political reform policies, and since the birth of the Fourth
Republic and Ghana's return to constitutional rule, has offered
assistance to help Ghana institutionalize and consolidate its steps
toward democratic governance
(see Future Democratic Prospects
, this
ch.). In FY 1994, United States development aid totaled about $38
million; in addition, the United States supplied more than $16
million in food aid.
Data as of November 1994
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