When Confronted By Hungry Bellies, Us Imperialists Reach For Their Guns
In 1965, Ghana’s Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah published a bold book, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. In this book, Nkrumah documented in great detail the way in which European and North American multinational firms – in close collaboration with their governments – continued to smother the aspirations of the new nations of Africa. As an example, Nkrumah took up his own country, Ghana, which had been known by the colonial name ‘the Gold Coast’ until 1957.
One of the old colonial companies, Ashanti Goldfields (a British company) continued to make fabulous profits from the hard labour of Ghana’s gold miners; when Nkrumah’s government tried to raise the taxes on the firm, London newspapers screamed in outrage.