Filippov V.R. Sylvanus Olympio - the First Victim of Françafrique

Abstract: The historical reconstruction approach allowed the author to solve the task of explaining the role of France in the organisation of the assassination of the first President of the Republic of Togo Sylvanus Olympio in 1963. The article shows the reasons for the Élysée Palace to physically eliminate the legally elected president of a sovereign country: aspiration for the real sovereignty of the country, control over environmental resources and the use of natural resource rents to serve the interests of the Togolese people, the desire to get out of the franc zone, as well as reorientation of foreign policy of Togo towards the United States and Germany in the prejudice of the former metropole. The methodological basis of the research are systemic, structural and functional, comparative political approaches, methods of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, observation. The author makes French security services (Françafrique agent nets) responsible for the assassination, acting according to the instructions of the Presidential Secretary for African Affairs Jacques Foccart and under the control of French President Charles de Gaulle. From the author's point of view, it is the Élysée Palace that is guilty of the establishment and support of the dictatorial regime of Gnassingbe Eyadema in the Togolese Republic. The research is conducted with financial support from the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation, project No. 15-01-00363 - "External intervention in the domestic affairs of the Third World countries during the Cold War: an experience of multilevel analysis".

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