Perpetrators of Hoax in Big Trouble

At the time of going to press, on Tuesday afternoon, The Accra Daily Mail was receiving information from a number of sources that one Mr. Awortwi of the Ghana Police Service and two others had been identified as having perpetrated the unauthorised "arrest" of Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chief Executive of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).

This will confirm The Accra Daily Mail's story of yesterday on the same subject that described it as a hoax intended to put the government in a bad light. According to the sources the suspects would be interdicted while the police authorities embark on an intensive and exhaustive investigation in why and how operatives from the civil wing of national security have been acting ultra vires of late.

Tsatsu Arrest a Hoax - Accra Mail

Tsatsu Tsikata is basking in the glow of his successes in the courts against the government. First the Supreme Court ruled that the Fast Track High Court trying him was unconstitutional and secondly, an Accra High Court ruled last week that the case brought against him could not be tried. Even before the import of these rulings have sunk in, it was reported in sections of the media yesterday that operatives of state security had attempted to arrest him last Sunday when he was attending church. The drama around the former GNPC boss seems to be getting curiouser and curiouser.

Smarting from its wounds at the Supreme Court and High Court, the government had to quickly set in motion its damage control mechanism to distance itself from this latest embarrassment. It has since categorically denied having anything to do with the attempted arrest. This alleged attempt to arrest the man who on the face of it had defeated the government twice within the space of one week, immediately sent tongues wagging and fingers pointing at the security apparatus.

The Accra Daily Mail in its independent inquiries can report that the arrest was a hoax intended to throw more rotten eggs in the face of the government. It was an orchestrated action hatched by the NDC network within the civil security agencies to sow seeds of disaffection against the government.

It falls in line with the story that was put out that an ex-bodyguard of ex-Flt. Lt. Rawlings, one ex-Warrant Office Kuntoh had been attacked by unknown assailants. This story was later discredited by police investigations and has since fizzled out.

The same tactics of public deception was used in the case of Mrs Mills, when some unauthorised security personnel found their way to her house to "arrest" her in connection with security number plates.

In Tsatsu's case, which took place on the premises of the Asbury Dunwell Church, two policemen, one of whom was too gaudily dressed for an undercover operation, went up to him and said they had been asked to arrest him.

That was enough to create the scene needed for this particular psy-ops. To compound things, one of the policemen detailed to "arrest" Tsatsu was overheard suggesting that their victim should call the radio stations so that once the story gets out, their "bosses" would be compelled to rescind their decision.

This is as cynical as the farce aspects of the opposition can get to. All the officers responsible for sanctioning arrests have said they did not give any orders to arrest Tsatsu. The orders could have come from only one source: the NDC.

The NDC is capable of doing that and for the avoidance of doubt we are republishing a working document put out by its operatives in the months leading up to Election 2000. This document which found its way into the editorial offices of sections of the media was first published in the Monday March 27 2000 edition of The Accra Mail.

This is the blueprint of NDC psy-ops strategy and so far, before and after the elections, they have been following it with single-minded determination. It was titled "Propaganda".

Propaganda is the art of making nonsense seem desirable. It is a very old art: The Greek sophists were already practicing it 2,500 years ago, and they were by no means its inventors.

However, the technique has been developed to such an extent during the past fifty years or so that it is easy to acquire.

No matter how big the lie that you observe a few elementary rules: firstly, tell your lie loudly; secondly, tell it in the simplest language, which even the mentally subnormal (they are your best allies) can grasp; tell it again and again at frequent intervals, confusing variations in the formula you use; fourthly, make sure that your propaganda involves hating someone (it does not matter particularly who but hate is a very pleasurable and a very binding emotion); fifthly, make sure that you enlist the support of the parasites of your society: pickpockets, sneak-thieves, pimps, bullies, blackmailers, extortioners and in fact, everybody who is too lazy to work and therefore prey on those who do so. Such people are very useful to you because they hate and are jealous of the intelligent and competent people, who are your chief danger. You can use them to intimidate and beat up your opponents among the latter.

To achieve quick results, make full use of radio-vans; send them around the town and countryside, each with its hoarse-voiced announcer shrieking your slogans in an urgent, excited voice. Intelligent people will think it is a running dogfight and not even look out of the window, but the mass of the people will be drawn.

Use the radio too; have gramophone records of people shouting short slogans in chorus; have songs with easily remembered words and tunes, which the children will pick up and sing in the streets: and have these songs and slogans repeated at least once an hour on the radio.

Organize mammoth rallies; be sure to provide the masses with free transport, free flags and banners and free refreshments (they themselves pay in the end, because the money comes from the public treasury, but they will think they are getting something for nothing, and come along for the ride and the refreshments).

Make violent, emotional speeches (remember that it is not to the people's reason but to their emotions that you are appealing; avoid reason; it is a dangerous, double-edged weapon, and can often get you mixed up with the truth, which is something you must avoid like the plague). Fill all the newspapers with your lies: It doesn't matter very much whether they are creditable or not: you will gradually build up an atmosphere of belief by sheer repetition. But to do this, you must suppress all opposition.

Newspapers that tell the truth about you must be banned as traitors to the people. Individuals you speak up against you must be imprisoned (if you have got yet got enough power to do this without trial, frame them: accuse them of corrupt practices, or of immortality, or anything else. You will be able to appoint plenty of 'witnesses' from among the parasites who support you). If you fail to get them imprisoned, see that some of your parasites beat them up so severely that they are unable to oppose you further.

It will be excused by the public as a playful excess of zeal in the cause of 'the people'.

Always speak in the sacred name of 'the people'.

No one will be able to prove that you do not in fact represent them, because the idea that 'the people' have a voice is myth. Provided you control the army (which, as you know, means having the Generals and Colonels in your pocket) you are 'the voice of the people' and woe to any of these 'people' who challenge you. It will be easy for you to prove that they are traitors to 'the people' (i.e. to themselves), that they are in the pay to foreign countries and that you are protecting 'the people' against them.

Take a few lessons in arithmetic (the amount you need to know will not be difficult to acquire): then you will know how to multiply a group of twenty students demonstrating outside a foreign embassy by ten, or perhaps a hundred, in the newspapers and on the radio. "A mob of 2,000 students staged a spontaneous demonstration against - outside the - Embassy yesterday morning" sounds much better than "twenty 'professional' students paid by the government and provided with military transport and rations demonstrated," etc.

Incidentally, a narrow-lens camera is invaluable for photographs of such 'mobs', because it is then possible to take a solid mass of people, however few, and make it look as if they are only a small part of a crowd. Also, if the photographs purport, for ex ample, to show students, see that they are slightly blurred so that inquisitive people cannot see that they are far too old and far too moronic looking to be genuine students.

Be careful about making speeches to university students: unless you have already managed to make University entry dependent on membership of your party, you will find that a considerable number of students are intelligent and will be able to swallow your usual line of talk.

This means that you will be able to use your brain for once. If (as is probable) you are not confident of your ability to do this, don't make speeches to University students: attack the problem in a different way, e.g. by seeing that students who are too intelligent for your purposes fail to pass their examinations and thus have to leave the University.

Become an expert in double-talk by reading the speech and writing of famous and successful propagandists. Language is a wonderfully imprecise tool that it is quite possible for you to claim that you are building up your country when you are, in fact, ruining it; or to make yourself out to be a great champion of liberty and independence while you are crushing the liberty of your people and the independence of minorities in your country. There is a vast and profitable field for you in such double-talk. It can get you out of any corner. For instance if your people are starving because you refuse foreign aid in building up industries in your country, nothing is easier than to blame the food-shortage on foreign interference.

Be bold and self confident! Don't pay any heed to people who warn you against rashness and recklessness! If you know how to play the propaganda game, you are safe. But remember the truth is disastrous. Once the white light of truth shines into your hates and your slogans, beware".