THE Swiss Press Review and News Report, published in Berne, Switserland reported some strange goings-on- in Eastern Germany, where it says Ghanaians are being trained in special camps to bring the former President back to Ghana. The article which appears below is a literal text of their findings. 

Editor.

SPR. There is no doubt that of all African events the fall of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana came as a real shock to the Communist countries. For these it meant important intelligence sources had failed, for even privately there had been no realisation at all of the almost incredible degree of unpopularity that the Nkrumah regime had succeeded in whipping up against itself during its years of repression.

Training centres There is evidence that the miasma brought about by this intelligence breakdown still ex- ists. For, utterly unrealistic as it may appear to those who know Ghana, the Communists are preparing for Nkrumah’s return. The spearhead of this role is East Germany, which in training centres in Potsdam and Magdeburg is training some 250 Ghanaians to return to fight for the deposed President’s cause. Important details of this have been given in a dispatch by the ‘Afro-Asian. News Service’, which seems to have aroused surprisingly little comment at the time of its publication.

The Ghanaians in East Germany are said to have been recruited by Mr. S. S. Magona, a Ghanaian Communist, who lives in Leipzig and heads the organisation known as the ‘Union of African Students and Workers in the German Demo- cratic Republic.’ Magona is said to be in constant touch with the fallen President in Guinea; and one of his main aims at present is to recruit more Ghanaians from other East Euro- pean Communist states. The first group of trainees”, says the report, “are expected to re- turn to their country this sum- mer.” These activities obviously re- present pipe-dreams of the Communists and have little basis in reality. Not so, however, some of the other activities directed against African countries from East Germany, which are described in this way in the same ‘Afro-Asian News Service’ report: “The East German authorities have also established, a special fund to encourage African youths, as well as social and political leaders, plus intellectuals, to gain experience of how Communism works.”