Your Excellence:

A very serious inequity had plagued the electoral process in Togo for the past twelve years. The coup d’ état of February 5, 2005 and the unconstitutional installment of FAURE GNASSINGBE demonstrated if need be that the electoral practice as presently constituted will not only hamper free and fair elections, but will certainly be used as a subterfuge to install and legitimize an hereditary tyranny.

Sir, it is important to bring to your attention that this was a process authored and directed by the late president without the participation of the people of Togo. It hardly needs to be added that elections in Togo with the current constitution especially doctored by the late dictator to assure his automatic election, would be dangerously inadequate and counter productive to the efforts deployed by your leadership and others to ensure that Togo finally takes the path of democratization.

If the imbalance of the present electoral system is not rectify, it would certainly lead to chaos and lost of precious life. The only acceptable successful election is one that permits the sovereign people of Togo to choose their own leaders through free and fair elections. That now needs to become the aim of your involvement in Togo.

As Togolese students overseas, we are voicing our concerns over the prospect of a twisted and hastily organized elections that highjacked the very democracy that your country and others have rightly encouraged in our continent.

Togo is clearly a test case for African Union in general and ECOWAS in particular to demonstrate that power, the rule of laws and sovereignty reside with the people.

The democratic process in Africa will suffer a mortal wound if elections in Togo are not based on equal electoral competition that are open to all without artificial barriers designed especially to prevent some candidates from standing while giving undue advantages to other candidates. Let us not forget that many togolese opponents were forced to flee their country not because of political trickery but as a result of political violence especially Mr. Gilchrist Olympio who was seriously wounded on May 5, 1992 by a military group led by Colonel Ernest GNASSINGBE.

Mr. President, we would like to kindly remind you that it was this type of undemocratic and unconstitutional obstruction and manipulation that led to the civil war and chaos in the Ivory Coast, Burundi, RDC and others.

This scenario is a reality in our homeland if a political consensus on the process and procedure of the elections is not arrived at now.

Numerous examples in Africa attest to this reality. The real question is: are we learning from past mistakes? We strongly urge you to clearly articulate this aim to all the parties in Togo, and to turn your effort to implementing a strategy for real democratic elections in Togo. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts, and we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe African nations have the authority under recent AU resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military deployment, to prevent another Rwanda or Ivory Coast on African soil.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of civil war and ethnic cleansing in Togo, you will be acting in the most fundamental security interests of the United States and of the whole world. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we will put Africa’s future and development back to the Stone Age. The consequence of such inequity will by itself have a seriously aggravating effect, and from what I know, its impact could not be predicted.

USA, April 19, 2005
Lionel Akpabie
President-in-exile

Togolese Student Union For Democracy / Union des Étudiants Togolais Pour la Démocratie
Tel: 904-230-6971/904-502-0621
Fax: 904-230-6972