Army Coup In Togo Announced

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31223, 22 November 1966, Page 17

Army Coup In Togo Announced

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright)

COTONOU (Dahomey), November 21.

Radio Lome announced today that an Army backed coup against the Government of the Togo President, Mr Nicolas Grunitzky, was under way. “The revolution has just begun” an unidentified xoice proclaimed.

The radio said there was widespread popular support for the resignation of the Government and holding new democratic elections.

The people of Togo were regaining their rights, and putting an end to intrigues, the radio said.

President Grunitzky announced yesterday that he was dismissing all members of the Government, and, with Vice-President Antoine Meatchi, was taking over all executive power.

The radio gave no news of the fate of the President and Vice-President. And there was no official confirmation in Cotonou that the Army had taken over. The broadcast heard in Cotonou, asserted that the

Army could not sustain an unpopular Government. It ended with the call “long live nationalism, long live democracy, long live Togo.”

O.A.U. Favoured

A later broadcast added the slogan: “No foreign interference, down with imperialism, down with neocolonialism, long live the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations.”

\ President Grunitzky was first Premier of Togo when the French-mandated part of the former German West African colony became an autonomous republic within the French Union in 1956. The former German colony of Togoland had been split between Britain and France by League of Nations mandates after the First World War. The British-mandated part joined Ghana on independence in 1957.

The 1958 Togo elections

were won by independence candidates, led by Sylvanus Olympio, who became Premier. Togo became independent of France in 1960, and Olympio became president. Mr Grunitzky went to live

in Ghana but returned as President when Olympio was overthrown and assassinated in an Army coup in 1963. President Grunitzky revealed that since his return to Lome from Paris last Wednesday he had been confronted by a crisis between Mr Meatchi and the Interior Minister, Mr Foussenimama.

While attempts to settle the problem were under way, two other ministers—the Education Minister, Mr Benoit Maloti, and the Public Affairs Minister, Mr Pierre Adassama —had resigned.