by Guy Arnold
The 1956 French Loi Cadre introduced universal suffrage in French West and Equatorial Africa. But the suffrage was applied to individual territories rather than the two main French blocs and some African politicians saw this as a deliberate move to divide and so enable France to maintain control over weak segments of a vast area. In a final attempt to prolong French control and delay full African independence, de Gaulle organized a referendum throughout the sub-Saharan French territories in 1958 to approve self-government within a French Community. This move was to be thwarted by Guinea’s leading nationalist, Sekou Touré, who persuaded the majority of Guineans to vote ‘no’. Sir Anthony Eden, Britain’s prime minister from 1955 to January 1957, could not adapt to the new anti-imperial age as his disastrous actions over Suez were to demonstrate. Harold Macmillan, who succeeded him, was the first British prime minister to come to terms with the new age and to realize that a multiracial Commonwealth of equals had to replace the British Commonwealth and Empire, yet even for this subtle politician the process was far from easy. Through his son-in-law, Julian Amery, Macmillan learnt of de Gaulle’s attitude towards Africa. ‘On one occasion, de Gaulle’s Prime Minister, Michel Debré, had observed to Amery that, in Africa, either the French and the British – as the two principal colonial powers – had to decide jointly to stay, or both to clear out. There could be no halfway house, or one future for the British and another for the French.’10 In September 1958 de Gaulle attempted to create a French African Community, while a year later he offered self-determination to the Algerians. These French moves had a big influence on Macmillan.
TOGO
Togo caused particular problems between Britain and France since the territory had been taken from Germany during World War I and divided between them as a mandate of the League of Nations. Then, after 1945, it became a Trusteeship Territory of the United Nations so that the two colonial powers did not exercise unrestricted jurisdiction over their portions of the territory. After Kwame Nkrumah had come to power in the Gold Coast in 1951 British policy was to support his claim to integrate British Togoland with the Gold Coast in a single independent state. This ended the possibility that Britain might sponsor a single united Ewe state or a reunification of the parts of former German Togoland. Britain, therefore, had to persuade the two British sections of Togoland – the lesser in extent – to accept integration in a greater Gold Coast under the Convention People’s Party (CPP) of Nkrumah. This British policy presented France with an opportunity to demonstrate that it was giving its mandate of Togo a better deal than Britain was to its mandate. France, therefore, made Togo the ‘shop window’ of the French Union. Between 1951 and 1954 France introduced reforms in Togo, sidelined the more radical nationalists and installed pro-French leaders in office. These developments were carried out under Robert Buron, Minister of France d’Outre-Mer, whose aim was to embarrass Britain and impress the United Nations. Following careful manipulation, France held elections on 12 June 1955 to a new Territorial Assembly in Togo. The Union des Chefs et des Populations du Nord (UCPN), which was a pro-French party that had merged with the Progress Party (PTP) of Nicolas Grunitzky, won 92 per cent of the votes in the north while the PTP won 95 per cent of the votes in the south. The radical nationalists boycotted the elections. Grunitzky became a hero – for France. Although Grunitzky demanded full autonomy and an end to UN Trusteeship, he favoured continued membership of the French Union. However, the results of this manipulated election were not going to endure. An article in Afrique Nouvelle, the Dakar missionary paper, showed that known supporters of the PTP in Lomé had been enabled to vote 20 or more times while their opponents were prevented from obtaining voting cards. 11 The result was to drive the opposition underground, not to destroy it. On 4 July 1955 Togo’s new Territorial Assembly gave its support to Grunitzky’s policy and called for full internal autonomy while ‘categorically rejecting any form of reunification (with British Togoland) which would result in a loosening of its ties with France’. The Assembly also asserted its intention of remaining ‘within the French system’. The opposition, consisting of the Comité d’Unité Togolaise (CUT) and its youth wing JUVENTO, was not prepared to accept this defeat. JUVENTO sent an able advocate, Maitre Anani Santos, to present their case before the United Nations. As a result a UN mission toured Togo in August and September 1955, collected 200,000 petitions and noted that public opinion remained divided. On the advice of this mission the UN General Assembly decided in December 1955 that Trusteeship status in both the British and French halves of Togo should not be ended before a plebiscite had been held. In the end the United Nations set 27 April 1960 as the date for French Togo to become independent under Sylvanus Olympio. Prior to 1960 Olympio had worked to make Togo economically independent although his earlier hopes of creating a pan-Ewe state had been defeated by Nkrumah, who had made the counter suggestion that the Ewe could only be united if French Togo joined Ghana. As a result of these manoeuvres relations between Ghana and Togo became strained and Nkrumah accused Olympio of fomenting discontent among the Ewe of Ghana. This defeat caused Olympio to draw closer to France and to suggest a ‘Commonwealth français’ though he refused to join the French Community.12
DE GAULLE IN AFRICA
Apart from the three Maghreb territories of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, Madagascar in the Indian Ocean and the Territory of the Afars and Issas (Djibouti) on the Red Sea coast, France had ruled its vast African empire as French West Africa from Dakar and French Equatorial Africa from Brazzaville. As the old system became untenable and the concept, first of a regional federation and then of a French Community, was advanced, France fragmented its empire into a number of colonies with the result that a French Community, inevitably, would mean a Community dominated by France – empire in another guise.
The summer of 1958 was eventful for both France and French Africa. On 1 June General Charles de Gaulle was elected prime minister and one of his first concerns was to produce a new constitution that would allow autonomous ‘colonies’ to become members of a French Union or ‘Commonwealth’. A great deal of political manoeuvring followed as de Gaulle pushed his idea of a modern federal state that would include France’s African possessions. There was clear threat in his message to African leaders: ‘But what is inconceivable is an independent state which France continues to help. If the choice is for independence, the government will draw, with regret, the conclusions that follow from the expression of that choice.’ African leaders saw this as blackmail and objected to being forced to choose between independence and the Franco- African Community. 13 As it was finally envisaged, the Community would allow member states to change their status and become fully independent at a future date, but if they did so they would cease to be members of the Community.
The Constitution of this Community was to be submitted to the people of France and Africa on 28 September 1958. As it stood, the constitution failed to meet all the aspirations of the confederalists since full independence and membership of the Community were incompatible. De Gaulle considered that a ‘no’ vote by a colony would mean it would at once become a foreign country without any special relationship with France. Between 21 and 28 August 1958 de Gaulle toured much of French Africa to explain his concept of a Franco-African Community and the choice he was putting before Malagasies and Africans. He visited Tananarive (now Antanarivo) on 22 August, Brazzaville on 24 August, Abidjan and Conakry on 25 August and Dakar on 26 August. The leading question for Africans was whether they would preserve the right to independence if they voted ‘yes’; if not, then they would find it impossible to vote ‘yes’. At the same time, few wished to face the economic consequences of a ‘no’ vote. As Philibert Tsiranana, the head of the government in Madagascar, explained: ‘When I let my heart talk, I am a partisan of total and immediate independence; when I make my reason speak, I realize that it is impossible.’ 14 De Gaulle, employing his usual elliptical style, avoided giving any clear indication of what evolution, if any, would be possible for member stat
es within the Community. At Brazzaville he said: ‘If within this Community a given territory in the course of time, after a certain period which I do not specify, feels itself able to undertake all the burdens and duties of independence, that is its affair, for it to decide through its elected representatives. . . I guarantee in advance that in such a case metropolitan France will raise no obstacles.’ A study of de Gaulle’s language shows him as entirely paternalist in his attitudes to France’s African subjects – de haut en bas – and this had its impact, especially and crucially upon Sekou Touré of Guinea. Abbé Barthelemy Boganda of Oubangui-Chari (Central African Republic) apparently convinced de Gaulle that at least five territories (Oubangui-Chari, Guinea, Senegal, Dahomey and Niger) would vote ‘no’ if a ‘yes’ vote was taken to mean an irrevocable renunciation of independence.
In the event, all the French territories except Guinea voted ‘yes’ to de Gaulle’s proposed community but this in fact was only to last for two years because Guinea’s vote for immediate full independence spelt the end of the Community before it began. Two years later it disintegrated when all those members who had voted ‘yes’ opted for full independence. With the exception of Guinea, the referendum throughout French West Africa obtained ‘yes’ votes in the high 90 per cent range except in Niger where the figure was 78 per cent. Similarly in French Equatorial Africa the vote was a resounding ‘yes’. In Oubangui-Chari, Boganda, who was then one of the most influential figures in French Black Africa, secured a ‘yes’ vote after de Gaulle had assured him that the door to independence would not be irreversibly closed.
THE ROLE OF SEKOU TOURÈ
Sekou Touré was born at a crucial time in Africa’s history. He led Guinea’s struggle for independence and rejected the idea of membership in a French Community, instead opting for immediate independence in 1958. He was an exponent of Marxism, the one-party state and the cult of personality – he himself had immense charisma, energy and dedication – and his action in rejecting France earned the plaudits of the developing world even if no one else followed his example. Later, sadly, he became a repressive tyrant. The West, at the height of the Cold War, and the former colonial powers in particular, reacted angrily to such rejection of their tutelage, for newly independent African states were expected to behave as grateful allies of the new Cold War order.
When in 1958 de Gaulle decided to hold a referendum throughout France’s black African territories, he offered the choice of autonomy within the French Community or total independence and, at first, Sekou Touré was prepared to accept regional federation. But he also wanted to show that he was the one African leader prepared to stand up to the French colonial master. In the negotiations that took place prior to the referendum, France made a number of concessions to the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA), which was the main African party representing all the colonies, so as to ensure a ‘yes’ vote. The relationship between de Gaulle and Touré was not unimportant. When de Gaulle visited Conakry on 25 August 1958, he gave an ambiguous speech in which he said Guinea could vote ‘no’, and in which case France would raise no obstacles to Guinea’s independence: ‘Naturally she [France] will draw the conclusions, but she will raise no obstacles…’ In his reply Touré, who regarded de Gaulle’s speech as a threat, failed to compliment de Gaulle or show gratitude for what France had done as a colonial power. Instead he made harsh criticisms of French colonial behaviour and referred to Africa’s united, independent future. Touré bitterly resented what he saw as de Gaulle’s haughty patronage and in September was to say: ‘We prefer poverty in liberty to riches in slavery.’ But he did not believe that de Gaulle would sever all relations between the two countries, and before the referendum said: ‘I shall say “no” to the constitution but “yes” to France.’
In the referendum, under the guidance of Sekou Touré, the voters rejected the idea of a community of self-governing overseas territories by a massive 95 per cent. Guinea ‘took’ independence on 2 October and as the leader of the Parti Démocratique de Guinée-Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (PDG-RDA), Sekou Touré became president. His action and the ‘no’ vote of one of the smallest countries of the French African Empire effectively undermined de Gaulle’s plan for France’s overseas territories and through 1960 all the other African territories demanded full independence, although most of them were to remain tied to France economically and militarily.
After the referendum and proclamation of Guinea’s independence, Touré tried to present the first government of the new state to the representative of the French government, Governor Jean Risterucci, as if to an acting head of state. De Gaulle, however, was determined to show that to vote against him earned retribution. Risterucci informed the Guinea government that France intended to transfer all French civil servants out of Guinea within two months and that Guinea would receive no further public investment or budgetary aid from France. The Guineans had not believed that de Gaulle would take such action. Alioune Drame, the Finance Minister, said shortly before the referendum of 28 September: ‘France will not dare. It’s not in her interests. It would cost her more than it would us.’ Neither Drame nor Touré believed that France could cut all its connections with Guinea but, as a French journalist told them, they did not know de Gaulle. On two occasions Touré sent cables to René Coty, the President of France, with copies to de Gaulle; the first was only answered briefly after five days, the second received a longer, more pointed reply to the effect that France’s attitude would depend on whether the government of Guinea could cope adequately as a government. This was a damning exposure of France’s attitude of superiority towards an ex-colony.
Although there was an obvious element of pique on de Gaulle’s part, he also had to demonstrate to those who had voted ‘yes’ that there was a clear advantage to them for doing so in the form of aid that was not available to those who had voted ‘no’. And de Gaulle had to placate his greatest African ally, Houphouët-Boigny, who felt humiliated and angered by Touré for breaking ranks, which action he saw as the beginning of the end of the federal Franco-African Community. De Gaulle believed that the only hope of holding the union together lay in a convincing demonstration of the advantages of being inside as opposed to outside and, therefore, that the sight of Guinea outside and in poverty and chaos would prove the point. Thus, de Gaulle was not prepared to allow an intransigent Guinea to receive the aid and investment open to the other Francophone territories. Although Houphouët-Boigny embarked upon an anti-Touré propaganda campaign, this was not welcomed by the other African leaders who, either secretly or openly, had favoured a ‘no’ vote but had not felt sufficiently secure to urge such a vote upon their people. These leaders included Abdoulaye Diallo of French Soudan (Mali) and Modibo Keita. Houphouët-Boigny’s anger was wasted for Guinea became wildly popular and Touré’s action marked the end, or rather the rapidly approaching end, as soon as it had come into being, of the French Community. De Gaulle shrugged off suggestions that his treatment of Guinea would simply drive it into the Soviet camp. By 30 November 1958 Risterucci had completed his task: everything possible had been removed from the country – the crockery had been smashed, the telephones removed, all portable government property taken. Where things were too big to be taken away, they were destroyed. Only 150 French personnel remained of whom 110 were voluntary teachers who lost their job security in France as a result. The French Government also tried to persuade, though mostly unsuccessfully, private firms to stop investing in Guinea.15 In March 1960 France excluded Guinea from the franc zone.
As a result of its independence the new state was boycotted by France for many years. Between 1958 and 1960 some attempts, mostly by Guinea, were made to heal the breach but they were unsuccessful. Touré moved the country to the political left, partly from conviction and partly as a response to the French reaction to its determination to be independent when the rest of Francophone West Africa opted for association. During 1959 he turned to the Communist countries for support, while urging members of the
Community to seek total independence.
Although other Francophone countries all voted ‘yes’ in the referendum and Touré was expelled from the RDA, it was Touré who became a hero both at home and throughout the colonial world as the man who had dared to say ‘no’ to de Gaulle, and who, with Kwame Nkrumah, became one of the leaders of the radical Casablanca Group of states.
FRANCOPHONE INDEPENDENCE 1960
Much changed during 1959. Once de Gaulle had offered independence to the FLN in Algeria he recognized the inevitable break-up of his Community. Thus the French Community in Africa lasted only from the time of the referendum of 28 September 1958 when all but Guinea voted ‘yes’ until the first breakaway in 1960 when Mali became independent on 26 June, to be followed by the rest over the next few months. These developments were probably hastened by the impact of Harold Macmillan’s ‘Wind of Change’ speech delivered at the beginning of February 1960 in South Africa. The end of the French Community, which had been achieved in the first place by France ‘balkanizing’ its territories of West and Equatorial Africa, came in 1960. The pro- and anti-politics of the French Community became highly complicated and in Niger, for example, the French engineered the fall of Bakary Djibo, who was opposed to the Community but wanted a West African Federation whose members could secede if they wished. It became obvious that with all its talk of autonomy within the Community, France in fact wanted to perpetuate its control and the more obvious this became the more irresistible were the demands for independence. The result, in 1960, was the year of independence. Cameroon became independent on 1 January 1960 and Togo on 27 April but these were Trusteeship Territories of the United Nations and so had escaped the ‘yes/no’ dilemma of the full colonies. Other territories which achieved independence during 1960 were: Mali and Madagascar on 26 June, Dahomey (Benin) on 1 August, Niger on 3 August, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) on 5 August, Côte d’Ivoire on 7 August, Chad on 11 August, the Central African Republic on 13 August, Congo (Brazzaville) on 15 August, Gabon on 17 August and Mauritania on 28 November. The final act in this brief story came in September 1960 when France sponsored the admission to the United Nations of 12 independent black African states (Côte d’Ivoire, Dahomey, Upper Volta, Niger, Senegal, Mali, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, Cameroon and Togo). Mauritania was vetoed for UN membership by the USSR because Morocco, then pro-Moscow, claimed Mauritania as part of its territory. And so ‘The attempt to find a formula which would rationally unite the lands and peoples irrationally conglomerated by French colonial expansion, which would end colonialism but preserve the empire, was at last abandoned.’16 It was Sekou Touré who had effectively undermined de Gaulle’s Community when he secured a resounding ‘no’ vote in Guinea on 28 September 1958. Apart from the 14 Francophone countries that achieved independence in 1960, the Belgian Congo became independent on 30 June, Somalia on 1 July and Nigeria on 1 October. It was no wonder, therefore, that the year was described as the annus mirabilis of African independence.
