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Sub Saharan Africa
Togo |
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Country information
HISTORY
Current day Togo was, from 1894, part of the German protectorate of Togoland. In 1919, the French took over the eastern part of Togoland under a league of Nations Mandate. The British took over the western part. In 1956, in a UN organised plebiscite, the majority of the population of British Togoland chose to merge with the neighbouring Gold Coast colony. The following year that region became part of the newly independent state of Ghana. French Togoland voted in 1956 to become part of the French Community. In 1960 the territory voted in favour of independence, which was granted in 1960. Sylvanus Olympio, the leader of the Comite d’Unite Togolaise, became President.
Olympio was killed in 1963 in a military coup led by then Sergeant Etienne Gnassingbe Eyadema. Eyadema invited Olympio's brother-in-law Nicolas Grunitzky to form a civilian government. However, the military refused to allow a multiparty political system to develop, and Eyadema eventually took full power in 1967, creating a one party state under a new political party, the Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais, (RPT) in 1969.
Eyadema's rule was dictatorial. All independent political activity was repressed. In 1977, Gilchrist Olympio, the son of the first President, was accused of being behind an attempted invasion from neighbouring Ghana. Plots to overthrow Eyadema throughout the 1970s and 80s, whether real or not, served as a pretext for further repression of opposition activity and purges within the army.
