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DE RUEHFR #2348/01 1001429
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 101429Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6147
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHROV/AMEMBASSY VATICAN 0023

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 002348 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/10/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR PHUM TO FR
SUBJECT: TOGO:  APRIL 5 MEETING WITH EX-MINISTER BOKO 
 
REF: A. PARIS 1118 
     ¶B. 05 PARIS 4103 
     ¶C. PARIS 1919 
 
PARIS 00002348  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By:  Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt, reason 
1.4 (b/d). 
 
¶1.  (C)  SUMMARY:  Togo's ex-Interior Minister Francois Boko 
said during an April 5 meeting that the regime in Togo feared 
active U.S. intervention in Togo's affairs and that the U.S. 
could readily influence events in Togo if it chose to do so, 
and even compel the leadership to step down, as in Haiti and 
Liberia.  The U.S. could, for example, demand that the GOT 
investigate the deaths of those who died during the April 
2005 elections and insist that it do something about drugs 
and arms trafficking.  Togo's fear of the U.S. makes it very 
unlikely that any damage will be done to USG 
properties/personnel in Togo.  Boko recounted his failure to 
meet with Gilchrist Olympio, whom he deemed "more of a guru 
than a political leader."  The GOT has become more overt in 
threatening Boko, and he has obtained some cooperation from 
the French for his and his family's protection.  END SUMMARY. 
 
U.S. INFLUENCE 
 
¶2.  (C)  On April 5, we met with Francois Boko, Togo's 
Interior Minister until April 2005.  Our last meeting took 
place in February (ref A).  Boko emphasized the potential 
power the U.S. could wield in Togo.  He said the Gnassingbe 
clan had always expressed fear and concern that the U.S. 
might turn attention to Togo and exert pressure.  Eyadema, 
Boko said, had feared that the U.S. would someday do to Togo 
what Eyadema believed the U.S. had done in Haiti and Liberia, 
which was to tell Aristide in Port-au-Prince and Charles 
Taylor in Monrovia:  "OK, your time's up, we've had enough. 
It's time for you to go."  Boko cited several occasions when 
Eyadema had told his inner circle to back off certain 
projects for fear of attracting unwanted attention from the 
U.S., one being the drug smuggling case described ref B. 
Another incident involved the issuance of a diplomatic 
passport to a Togolese known to be in disfavor with the USG 
(whom Boko did not identify).  Eyadema instructed that the 
passport not be issued, to avoid "complications with the 
Americans." 
 
¶4.  (C)  Because of this fear, Boko said that it would be 
very unlikely under the present regime that any harm would 
ever intentionally come to USG properties or personnel in 
Togo.  He said that the burning down of the German cultural 
center at the time of the 2005 elections in Togo could not 
happen to a U.S. facility.  If such a thing happened, Togo's 
leaders feared that the next day a U.S. aircraft carrier 
would appear off-shore and launch all manner of retaliation 
against Togo and its leaders.  "They have learned what your 
military is capable of doing and that Washington seems less 
hesitant to use force than was perhaps the case in the past," 
Boko remarked. 
 
¶5.  (C)  Boko said that the U.S. could exploit this fear to 
produce positive change in Togo.  Although acknowledging that 
"perhaps Togo is not your highest priority," Boko suggested a 
number of steps.  The U.S. could send a "strong message with 
a hint of menace" to Togo and demand that its human rights, 
anti-corruption efforts, and good-governance practices 
improve.  It could demand that Togo undertake, in cooperation 
with outside legal authorities, a complete investigation of 
drug and arms smuggling involving Togo.  The U.S. could 
initiate UN Security Council action to demand an 
investigation of the hundreds of deaths that took place 
during the 2005 elections.  Boko said that the more direct 
and insistent the U.S. appeared, the more Togo's leaders 
might feel inclined to cooperate. 
 
¶6.  (C)  The Department's annual Human Rights Report on Togo 
also made a big impression.  Togo's leaders dreaded its 
appearance, Boko said, and had put in place a mechanism to 
produce a quick response showing how the HRR was "wrong." 
Boko said that he found the reports "90 percent" accurate 
("you could hardly expect 100 percent accuracy") regarding 
individual cases, but that more importantly, it presented an 
accurate global picture of a dismal human rights situation. 
 
GILCHRIST OLYMPIO 
 
¶7.  (C)  We informed Boko, without going into detail, that we 
had met recently with Paris-based opposition leader Gilchrist 
Olympio (ref C).  Boko said his frustrations with Olympio 
continued, most of which centered on Olympio's belief that 
he, Olympio, embodied the opposition and was the only 
opposition figure who mattered.  However, Boko believed 
Olympio did not function as a political leader should. 
Olympio operated on the assumption that the Togolese exile 
 
PARIS 00002348  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
community should come to him, express loyalty and gratitude, 
and adopt his positions without quibbling.  Unfortunately, 
Boko continued, Olympio never seemed to take action or 
inspire others to take action.  His view of himself as 
opposition leader rested mainly on his decades' old belief 
that the Gnassingbes illegally stripped power from the 
Olympios and that Gilchrist was the only proper heir to a 
claim to power in Togo.  Expressing his frustration, Boko 
said "he's more like a guru.  We don't need a guru but rather 
an active political leader."  He remarked dryly that Olympio 
and Eyadema shared the same birthday (December 26), although 
Eyadema was born three years before Olympio. 
 
¶8.  (C)  Boko said that because of comments we had made at 
our last meeting, he had decided he should seek a meeting 
with Olympio, which he tried to arrange in March.  He almost 
called it off when he learned that during a public speaking 
engagement in Accra, Olympio, when asked about Boko, said 
"well, he seems to be plotting a coup."  This outraged Boko. 
Such an accusation would only increase the risk that the GOT 
would try to harm him or his family.  Nonetheless, Boko 
worked through intermediaries to arrange a meeting with 
Olympio.  Boko wanted a formal meeting, with an agenda and 
specific things to discuss.  "I wanted him to understand that 
this was business and that I wasn't going there to kiss his 
ring," he said.  However, the effort came to naught when 
Olympio reportedly said, "well, I really don't want or need 
to see him."  Boko indicated that he would not continue 
pursuing a meeting with Olympio for the time being. 
 
THREATS 
 
¶9.  (C)  Olympio's statement in Accra was not the only reason 
the GOT had increased threats against Boko, he said.  At his 
February 4 meeting with the Togolese diaspora (ref A), Boko 
was questioned, by someone he later learned was an agent of 
the GOT, about the "Gilchrist Olympio passport affair" and 
Togolese drug smuggling.  Boko said he answered these 
questions but without revealing details.  He explained to us 
that the Olympio passport issue involved a request in 2004 
from Eyadema that Boko, as Interior Minister, issue Olympio a 
new passport.  The problem was that Eyadema wanted Boko to 
use a scanned signature of Olympio's, and to create in effect 
a forged passport.  (COMMENT:  Boko did not elaborate on why 
Eyadema wanted Olympio to have this passport.  END COMMENT.) 
Boko refused to issue the passport on the basis of the 
scanned signature.  Instead, he asked the Togolese consulate 
in Paris to obtain a genuine signed passport application from 
Olympio that Boko later used to issue the passport.  On the 
drug smuggling issue, Boko said that at the February 4 
meeting, in response to the question, he explained evidence 
of drug smuggling in Togo without being specific. 
 
¶10.  (C)  In March, in response to what Boko said at the 
February 4 meeting, a GOT-controlled journalist in Togo 
published an article denouncing Boko's "disclosure of state 
secrets" (i.e., his discussion of the Olympio passport affair 
 
SIPDIS 
and the drug smuggling).  The article accused Boko of further 
disclosing "state secrets" when he testified to French 
authorities investigating arms trafficking and the November 
6, 2004, bombing of French forces in Cote d'Ivoire by the 
Ivoirian military.  Boko said he interpreted this article as 
calling for his death.  The article said that by revealing 
"state secrets," Boko had "violated an agreement he had made 
with France, Germany, and the United States when he left Togo 
after the April 2005 elections."  Boko said he knew of no 
such "agreement."  He was heartened, he said, when certain 
Togolese military officers subsequently distributed 
statements saying that if anything happened to Boko, they 
would retaliate against the journalist. 
 
¶11.  (C)  Boko said that soon after, Togo's Foreign Minister 
paid a private call on Boko at his Paris law office, and 
beseeched him to "be quiet" and not "betray state secrets." 
Boko countered the accusations and said that he was now a 
private citizen engaged in legitimate political discourse who 
had never revealed state secrets.  He told the Minister about 
the GOT agent who had asked the provocative questions at the 
February 4 meeting, and indicated he would not bow to Lome's 
threats. 
 
¶12.  (C)  Also in March, Boko learned that a member of the 
Togolese security service was coming to France.  According to 
contacts in Togo, this individual might be traveling to 
France to organize Boko's assassination.  Boko said he had 
notified French authorities, who said they would keep watch 
over the individual.  Several of Boko's friends agreed to 
observe him as well.  The Togolese arrived and then 
immediately went to the South of France with a female French 
acquaintance, where they stayed for about two weeks.  The 
French authorities provided the same information to Boko that 
his friends did, which Boko found reassuring. 
 
PARIS 00002348  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
 
THE FRENCH 
 
¶13.  (C)  Boko said he meets sporadically with MFA AF 
A/S-equivalent Bruno Joubert to discuss his situation.  Boko 
was ambivalent about the sincerity of Joubert's commitment to 
help him.  He said that when the GOT issued a world-wide 
diplomatic note canceling Boko's diplomatic passport (ref A, 
para 8), the French MFA circulated the note with a cover 
letter to the immigration and customs services instructing 
them to seize Boko's diplomatic passport if he tried to use 
it in entering or leaving France.  Boko was upset about this 
and confronted Joubert, asking "so now you are executing the 
instructions of the Togolese government?"  Boko said that 
Joubert accepted his arguments, said it must have been a 
mistake, and made a few calls to remove Boko's passport from 
the black list.  Boko continues to use the diplomatic 
passport, as the GOT will not issue him a new civilian one. 
 
¶14.  (C)  Boko said that he has also discussed with Joubert 
an apparent attempt by the GOT to obtain records of Boko's 
phone calls.  He explained to Joubert that "I don't care if 
the French are listening to my calls," which he said Joubert 
emphatically denied was happening, but that he especially did 
not want the GOT to know the identities of his associates or 
confidants in Togo who would phone him, which would be very 
dangerous for those individuals.  Joubert, according to Boko, 
assured him that the GOT would receive no GOF assistance in 
obtaining a record of Boko's phone calls. 
 
¶15.  (C)  Boko said that, for now, he had not received 
further requests to testify in the arms smuggling case that 
French investigative judge Brigitte Raynaud had been pursuing 
before her recent move to another job (ref A, paras 3-5) 
Immediately after the press reported on his testimony, Boko 
said he complained to Raynaud about the apparent leaks on 
which the reports were based.  She denied leaking the 
material to the press.  However, Boko said that Raynaud 
indirectly indicated that the leaks "may have been made" in 
order for her to establish some public record of where she 
had taken the case before she changed jobs.  Devoted to her 
cases, Raynaud wanted to make it difficult for them to 
disappear once she was no longer overseeing them.  Boko 
believed that one reason Raynaud shifted to another job was 
because her investigations, which included other unrelated 
cases in Rwanda and Cote d'Ivoire, were making other elements 
of the GOF uncomfortable. 
 
¶16.  (C)  COMMENT:  Boko was quite insistent that if the U.S. 
flexed its muscles, Togo would cower and be more cooperative. 
 He was a bit more direct at this meeting in labeling himself 
an opposition "leader" than he has been in the past  Although 
clearly troubled by the threats he believes are directed 
against him, Boko was calm in describing them.  He indicated 
that exposure to some danger was among the lumps one has to 
take if one travels the road of an opposition leader in 
exile.  END COMMENT. 
 
 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
 
Stapleton