Togo History

Togo National Flag

Togo National Flag, The flag was officially introduced in 1960. The green color symbolizes hope and agriculture, the yellow shows that the people have faith in the work as the basis for the material and spiritual well-being of the country, the red represents the blood shed in the freedom struggle, for mercy., faithfulness and love, and the white symbolize purity and must remind the citizens of the country that they must prove themselves worthy of the nation's independence. The five stripes represent the country's five regions.

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Togo history

Togo History, The area was early inhabited by a large number of ethnic groups, many of whom had fled from war and slave hunting from the Ashanti kingdom in the west or Abomey (Dahomey) in the east. The dominant group in the south since 1500-h., Ewe, was organized in urban states and is believed to have immigrated from the west in the 1100-1300-h. The largest ethnic group in the north was kabyé. Portuguese sailors sailed the coast from 1471; as part of the slave coast, the area played an important role in the transatlantic slave trade of the following centuries. The most important shipping port on the Togo coast was Petit Popo (now Aného).

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In 1847, the first German missionaries came to the Ewe area, and German traders settled in Aného, ​​from where exported palm oil. In 1884, the German envoy Gustav Nachtigal signed a patronage agreement with the ewe king Mlapa 3rd in the village of Togo. At the Berlin Conference the following year, the agreement was ratified and the boundaries of the British Gold Coast (now Ghana) to the west and the French Dahomey (now Benin) to the east. The Germans expanded the colony to the north and built roads, railways, port facilities at the colony's new capital, Lomé, and a large number of schools; the Germans themselves considered Togo to be a pattern colony.

In 1914, French and British troops captured Togo, which was divided into a western British and an eastern French part. The division was ratified in 1919 and the two parts were formally recognized in 1922 as mandate areas under the League of Nations; in 1946 they became mandate areas under the UN.

The division divided several peoples, including even. Work for reunification failed when British Togoland, after a 1956 referendum, was incorporated into the Gold Coast, which the following year became independent under the name Ghana.

French Togo gained partial autonomy in 1956 under the leadership of Prime Minister Nicolas Grunitzky. In the 1958 elections, ewe leader Sylvanus Olympio came to power; at the same time a majority for independence was obtained, which was achieved in 1960.

In 1963, President Olympio was assassinated by a military coup; the leader of the dome, Étienne Gnassingbé Eyadéma, a Kabyé officer from North Togo, inaugurated Grunitzky as president, but in 1967 conducted a new military coup and this time took over the presidential office himself. In 1969, he made Togo a one-party state with its own newly formed RPT, Rassemblement du peuple togolais, as the only permitted party. Eyadéma's popularity grew rapidly and reached cult status when he, as the only one, survived a plane crash in 1974. That same year he launched an "authenticity campaign", which included, among other things. implied that ewe and kabyé became the language of instruction in schools, and at the same time phosphate production was nationalized. After a period of prosperity, the economy stagnated in the 1980's, and especiallyewe population demand for democratization grew. After pressure, Eyadéma agreed in 1992 to reintroduce democracy, but in the 1990's there were violent clashes between opposition and military as well as arrests and murders of political opponents. The leader of the opposition, Sylvanus Olympio's son Gilchrist (b. 1936), has spoken of electoral fraud in all elections, most recently in the 1998 presidential election, prompting the opposition to boycott the 1999 National Assembly elections.

The August 2001 imprisonment by opposition leader Yawovi Agboyibo triggered demonstrations; in October, the planned parliamentary elections were postponed, which was repeated in March 2002. At the same time, Agboyibo was released. Despite the promises to the contrary, a constitutional amendment was implemented in 2002 which allowed Gnassingbé Eyadéma another term in office, and in 2003 he was re-elected. In 2005, Gnassingbé Eyadéma died and the military appointed his son Faure Gnassingbéto new president. This coup-like takeover of power triggered heavy criticism both from the opposition and from international teams. The pressure led to elections being printed. It was won by Gnassingbé during the opposition's charges of electoral fraud. The riots in the elections cost up to 500 people and 40,000 fled to neighboring countries. Gnassingbé regained the presidential post at the 2010 election; the opposition objected to the progress of the elections and did not want to acknowledge the outcome, and this again led to unrest in the country. The political opposition is under pressure from the government and the security forces.