Page 207 - Afrika Must Unite

192 AFRICA MUST UNITE
dom inating powers joined in this organization - Britain, France,
the United States - are all influenced by financial, industrial and
military considerations in maintaining in Africa regimes that
will support their interests. The means used for doing so are, if the
evidence is to be believed, dubious in the extreme. It would be
difficult to convince most people of what can only be described as
the criminal intent behind certain actions that are employed to
upset the stability of states trying to sustain their national unity
and integrity against subversive forces. It has been left, however,
to a publication linked with N.A.T.O. to reveal the strategy of the
coup d'etat, which is recommended for use out of the ‘search for
alternative methods of violence’. This publication, the General
Military Review, published in its October 1957 issue an article by
a Captain Goodspeed, on this subject, in which he advised that:

Insurgent leaders should endeavour to ensure that public
opinion is inflam ed against the governm ent prior to the coup.
C arefully selected acts should be perform ed w hich w ill provoke
official reaction, and this reaction should be presented to the
public in the w orst possible light. There is probably no better
w ay of achieving this than by a judicious assassination or two.
T h e general public, from the very inception of the coup, should
be kept inform ed, not necessarily of w hat is actually going on,
but at least of w hat the rebels w ish them to believe.
T h e object of this is to influence the public in those courses of
action desired by the insurgents, and it is not necessary therefore
that the broadcasts correspond to the real situation.

This exposure must surely give credence to the publication of
plots that governments in Africa have uncovered from time to
time, aimed at assassinating the leaders and overturning the
state.
As we examine the multifarious dangers to which the new
states and the freedom fighters of Africa are exposed, the more it
becomes certain that our best, indeed our one, protection is in
unity. For it is that very unity which all the imperialist designs
and actions are intended to prevent. It should, therefore, be
glaringly obvious that these designs can only be circumvented by
achieving the end they are planned to frustrate. At present, an
apparent diversity of view among the leaders of some of the