‘Western Togolanders’ deny knowledge of rebels

The Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) has denied knowledge of any rebels being trained for the alleged declaration of independence of Western Togoland.

A statement by the group warned that the continuous arrests of persons purported to be aligned to the foundation by police and the military will give rise to any rebels to infiltrate.

Meanwhile, it said, "This continuous tagging of the HSGF and making a mountain out of a molehill will cause more confusion and retaliation if the HSGF had not been exercising more and better political maturity.

“The foundation is very worried how Ghana is managing this issue knowing very well that the leadership of HSGF is very law-abiding. We have made ourselves available to the laws of Ghana on several occasions but Ghana is rather expressing her disinterest in the case. Any time Ghana took suspects to her own high courts, the suspects were discharged."

"Innocent Western Togoland citizens persistently have been harassed here and there. Many for fear have disappeared while many suffered severe torture in the hands of the Military and the Police. Others are shot and information about their bodies are unaccounted for.

"All these are panaceas for chaos which the leadership of Ghana should for goodness sake tread cautiously.”

Officers of the Ghana Armed Forces(GAF) on Monday, February, 17, 2020 arrested 20 people described as rebels in the Dodze in the Volta Region seeking to have the region secede from the Republic of Ghana.

The arrested persons made up of 19 males and 1 female are part of the Homeland Study Group Foundation(HSGF) which has been demanding secession from Ghana over the years.

In December 2019, pictures emerged on social media of a uniformed group supposedly being trained as soldiers at a place called the Western Togoland Training Grounds in the Volta Region.

The arrested persons are believed to be part of the so-called ‘army’.

Sources in the Ghana Armed Forces say a team of military officers flew from Accra to the Volta Region to effect the arrest.

In November 2019, 80-year-old Charles Komi Kudzordzi, led the group, to declare parts of the Volta, Northern, North Eastern and Upper East Regions [Western Togoland] independent of Ghana.

He was earlier in May 2019 arrested together with 80 other members of the group when they were allegedly planning to declare independence for Western Togoland.

Nine of them were later charged with conspiracy to commit treason felony, abetment of unlawful training, unlawful assembly and offensive conduct conducive to the breach of peace and put before court.

The Attorney General, however, in July discontinued the case based on which the High Court trying them discharged the accused persons.

Charles Komi Kudzordzi has been on the run since the charges against him were dropped.

Below is the full statement by HSGF

Re: THE ARREST OF WESTERN TOGOLAND ‘REBELS’.

The attention of the leadership of the foundation has been drawn to news items by various Media Houses one more time about some alleged group of young men and a lady arrested in a village at Dzodze as Western Togoland rebels. This arrest as usual has been linked to the HSGF being the main campaigner for the independence of Western Togoland.

The office of the public relations wish to make it clear that the Foundation has no knowledge about the said training nor have plans in place to engage Ghana in any warfare. The foundation which is now entering it’s 26 years (it was launched on the 5th July 1994 at Kedjebi) has never engaged in any act that will or could disrupt public peace and order.

We also like to inform the General Public that in the interest of Peace, prevail on Ghana to rather stop the military and the Police from the needless arrests that are on going so as not to give an opportunity to any rebels to infiltrate.

This continuous tagging of the HSGF and making a mountain out of a molehill will cause more confusion and retaliation if the HSGF had not been exercising more and better political maturity.

The foundation is very worried how Ghana is managing this issue knowing very well that the leadership of HSGF is very law abiding. We have made ourselves available to the laws of Ghana on several occasions but Ghana is rather expressing her disinterest in the case. Any time Ghana took suspects to her own high courts, the suspects were discharged.

Innocent Western Togoland citizens persistently have been harassed here and there. Many for fear have disappeared while many suffered severe torture in the hands of the Military and the Police. Others are shot and information about their bodies are unaccounted for.

All these are panaceas for chaos which the leadership of Ghana should for goodness sake tread cautiously.

Again, both political parties particularly the NDC must of a matter of urgency, give the required education to their political party communicators to stop misinforming the public that it was until the era of NPP that the agitation started. We have continued our education peacefully for a long time until the Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Letsa decided to misunderstand the historical facts which we keep raising peacefully through letters and petitions and effected arrests in 2017 and 2019 in fulfillment of his ministerial vetting promise. Our sources have revealed that those arrested were being trained by the government towards election 2020.

It is our hope that the citizens of our land will not be used for any political activity.

The HSGF is a political group with focus on the historical facts of the land and must be seen and treated as such. The continuous tagging as a secessionist group is without bases for the Western Togoland has never been part of the Gold Coast which the British founded in the year 1844. This bond stated clearly the various lands that were under the influence of the British.

When the two forces of France and Britain invaded Togo(Torgo) a peaceful nation in a suzerainty with Germany and got it divided East and West, none of its division was ever part of Gold Coast now Ghana. The division led to the packing of Germany from the land and the aggressors took over the land in an attempt to add them to their colonies but the League of Nations disagreed and rather mandated them to rather administer the lands side by side and when the time comes, they should be granted independence. The East portion is now independent but Britain and Ghana atrociously added her portion to her Gold Coast colony with lots of frivolous excuses and machinations.

Since 1956 the two lands are kept in a kind of unestablished Union which the citizens keep reminding themselves of the scars that were left. On countless occasions the indigenous Ghanaians keep tagging the Western Togoland citizens as aliens.

These are things that are not making us happy and should Ghana try to copy the aggressions her colonial master Britain had taught her, it will be very awful this time round.

The chairman of HSGF wish to admonish the general public to remain calm to show the maturity required and still hold on to the principle of peaceful activism… NO SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD WILL WORTH OUR INDEPENDENCE….. This has always been his call. The HSGF is ready and willing to have a round table discussion with Ghana to address the misunderstanding.

Still: PEACE IS PREFERENCE TO WAR! As emphatically stated in his last letter to the leadership of Ghana and citizenry, his interest is not and never in warfare. The leadership of Ghana should take a more careful look to her political appointees from the Volta Region and the way they are exercising their political powers. Thank you all.

signed

George Nyakpo

Dep: PRO HSGF.