Press Release No. 1823 Issued by the Mission at the United Nations, New York, November 19, 1953, Regarding the Ewe and Togoland Unification Problem1
Mr. Chairman: The Ewe and Togoland unification question is completely new to me, and I have found our Discussion of it intensely interesting. I am particularly grateful to our African friends who have come such a long way to tell us what their people want. Their presence here has added a note of vitality to our discussion and, I am sure, has helped all of us to a better understanding of this important problem.
Mr. Chairman, the United States has consistently maintained that the wishes of the inhabitants themselves should be the most important element in determining whether or not all or parts of the two Togo-lands should be unified. For this reason we have supported the establishment of machinery to determine these wishes and to make recommendations upon political, economic, social and educational matters affecting the Territories. We hope and believe that the Joint Council for Togoland Affairs can be made to work. It has the great value of affording a democratic means for a mutual exchange of views by the principal political parties in the two territories. If democracy is to [Page 1337] work, people with conflicting interests must learn to meet together, to reach decisions on points of disagreement, and to respect those decisions. For this reason my Government considers that the General Assembly and the Trusteeship Council can do most to help the peoples concerned by concentrating on the development of satisfactory machinery for the discussion of Togoland problems.
Mr. Chairman, the main issues of the problem have already been thoroughly elaborated in this Committee. I do wish, however, to take a few moments to explain the two major factors which have led my Government to take the position I have described.
Foremost of these factors is the complexity of the problem. For more than six years we have continually examined and reexamined the requests of hundreds of Togoland petitioners. As a member of the Trusteeship Council and the Council’s various Committees on Petitions, the United States has carefully and sympathetically studied the wishes of the inhabitants as expressed in these petitions. One of my United States colleagues, moreover, was a member of the Council’s first Visiting Mission to the Ewe area. In the course of this intensive study we have analyzed a number of alternative solutions which seem theoretically possible. Thus far, however, we have found each of these theoretical solutions impractical, primarily because it would be opposed by large numbers of the peoples concerned.
The second important factor which has influenced my Government, Mr. Chairman, is that Togoland opinion is clearly in a stage of evolution. In the beginning, a relatively small number of Ewe leaders asked us to recommend the unification of the Ewe-speaking people who live in British Togoland, French Togoland, and the Gold Coast. As time passed, however, a constructive development of major significance occurred. More and more Togolanders began to take keen interest in their political future. This new political activity, inspired by the United Nations, has already done much to accelerate the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the area. In the short run, however, the repercussions of this wider popular interest have made the task of the General Assembly infinitely more difficult. We soon learned, for example, that a number of leaders had decided to take up the banner of Togoland unification as opposed to Eweland unification.
Mr. Olympio has informed us that the All-Ewe-Conference now fully supports the idea of Togoland unification. It is nonetheless clear that the advocates of Togoland unification do not agree on exactly what kind of unification they desire. It is the feeling of my Delegation, moreover, that the tenor of our discussion this year has been somewhat misleading because we have not had an opportunity to hear representatives of the two groups which oppose Togoland unification. In the northern section of British Togoland, as the Second Visiting Mission [Page 1338] pointed out, live many people who oppose Togoland unification and who, quite understandably, want to put an end to the boundary which separates them from their fellow tribesmen in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast. Members of the Mission met with considerable numbers of the chiefs, elders, and peoples of this area, and I understand that the spokesmen of the Dagomba people stressed their hope that the 1952 Mission would be the last to visit them since they want to become part of the Gold Coast.
The second group which has no representatives here is of course the Togoland branch of the Convention People’s Party. Their reasons for opposing Togoland unification, which have been expressed in written petitions to the United Nations, are also quite understandable. They want to participate in a political development which many representatives in this Committee consider to be one of the most promising in the continent of Africa. I speak, of course, of the impending self-government which the people of the Gold Coast are to enjoy. I am sorry to have to express at this point the regret of my Delegation at the gratuitous personal attack made by one of the petitioners on the African leaders of the Gold Coast and on its distinguished British Governor. The impatience and depth of emotion of our petitioners are readily understandable, but such intemperate allegations do their cause a disservice in this Committee and do injustice to the intelligence of their own people.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, it is clear to my Delegation that the conflicting and evolving opinions of the peoples of the two Togolands make it inappropriate for the General Assembly at this time to recommend any change in the international status of the two territories. We therefore believe that the Assembly at this session should urge the two administering authorities and the political groups concerned to cooperate in making the Joint Council for Togoland Affairs an effective organization for the discussion of Togoland problems.
We are also concerned over the emotional political atmosphere in the territories lest it jeopardize the orderly development of democratic institutions. My Delegation was disappointed to find that although the second Visiting Mission attended four mass meetings organized by political parties in British Togoland, it did not take part in such meetings in French Togoland. We hope that all possible steps will be taken, both by the administering authorities and by the rival political parties, to insure that the next Visiting Mission will be able to carry out its task in a calmer political atmosphere. We also hope that the administering authorities will take appropirate steps to disseminate throughout the two territories the full texts of any resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and the Trusteeship Council on the Ewe and Togoland Unification Problem.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
- Source: ODA files, lot 62 D 225, “Speeches/Statements 1953”. This statement was made by Mrs. Bolton in Committee 4 on Nov. 19, 1953.↩