Word: olympio
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Four months after the assassination of President Sylvanus Olympio by a disgruntled army sergeant, the Togolese electorate went dutifully to the polls this week to choose a new government. There was little suspense about the outcome. The voters, handed a single list, could only rubber-stamp the military-backed regime that has succeeded Olympio in the tiny West African republic...
...Blow to Progress." Thus last week died the man who was ruler of a postage-stamp-sized republic (75 by 340 miles) on the sweltering West African coast. Chief architect of Togo's 1960 independence from French control, London-educated Olympio practiced stern austerity at home, rejected demagoguery, and sided openly with the West. President Kennedy, whom Olympio visited in Washington last March, mourned his death as "a blow to the progress of stable government in Africa...
Suspicion immediately focused on Ghana's Strongman Kwame Nkrumah, who has conducted a bitter feud with Olympio over control of the powerful, 700,000-member Ewe (pronounced Evvy) tribe, which was split between both countries by European boundary-setters. Twice before, assassins had tried to kill Olympio; each time Ghana's agents were accused. But this time it was Olympio's own zealous economies that brought disaster...
...part of his economic austerity program, Olympio had stubbornly refused to expand Togo's flyspeck army beyond its standing strength of 250 men-exactly one company. This angered both the "army" and the demobilized, hard-eyed Togolese veterans of French colonial wars, who had fought from Indo-China to Algeria but could find no place in their homeland's armed forces. Recently, a tough ex-sergeant, Emmanuel Bodjolle, 35, jobless and with a family to support, organized a conspiracy with 30 other noncoms. Last week, after Olympio tore up a final plea to take into the service...
...Olympio's successor is Nicolas Grunitzky, 49, his brother-in-law, who was swept out of office as territorial Premier for the French when Olympio took over five years ago. Grunitzky's first act was to announce that Togo would align itself with the Afro-Malagasy Union, the pro-French association of West Africa states. Then he declared free elections would soon follow. But, as so often happens in such circumstances, he decided it would be best to dissolve Parliament and rule alone until things settled down...