Letter Requesting International Support
Dear Friends,
As you know, I have long been a journalist and an HIV/AIDS educator, working around the world, and more recently have been developing my skills in filmmaking for a number of projects. You also are aware that I am a fanatic about truth, about human value, and about building peace.
I want to share a story with you, and I want to ask for your help.
In 1995, while working on projects relating to peace and human development, I met a young cultural attache in the Embassy of Togo. I was immediately impressed with his grasp of the value of family in creating positive societies, and further, that peace is strongly enhanced by family-based initiatives.
Within a short time, I developed a close bond with this young attache, Mr. Pascal Bodjona, and his new bride, Zaina. My husband and I helped mentor them in building a great marriage, and later, becoming good parents. Knowing that having a good character and good family life is a strong asset in one’s professional career, I was not surprised to learn just three years later that Mr. Bodjona had been chosen to serve as Ambassador to the United States…the youngest in his nation’s history to serve in that capacity.
During his term as Ambassador, from 1998 to 2005, Pascal Bodjona built strong ties both with U.S. Government agencies, but also, between and among the entire diplomatic community in Washington, D.C., and was recognized as Dean of the West African Diplomatic Corps. During his posting in Washington, D.C., I was invited by Ambassador Bodjona to be part of an international group of election observers for a parliamentary election in 2002, where I observed both his passion for his nation and his desire to see all citizens have the right to vote their choice in safe and peaceful elections.
In 2005, he returned to Togo to attend the celebration of the then-President Eyadema Gnassingbe’s 37th anniversary as national leader, when the president suddenly died, forcing a national election. Instead of returning to the ambassadorial post, Pascal supported the president’s son, Faure Gnassingbe for election, and was a strong and vocal advocate for holding elections without violence and without fraud or misconduct. Again, he invited international representatives to observe the election, continuing his advocacy for honorable electoral practices, and defended the Rally of the Togolese People party from opposition criticism of electoral misconduct.
When Faure was elected in 2005, Pascal Bodjona was appointed as Director of the Cabinet, where he served more than two years, then became the Minister for State Administration, Decentralization and Local Collectives (similar to our Minister of the Interior). He also served as the spokesperson for the government in international issues, including the 2010 attack on Togo’s football team by Angolan rebels precipitating the withdrawal from the African Cup of Nations for mourning. The Confederation of African Football subsequently banned and fined Togo’s team, which Bodjona strongly protested.
Despite his loyalty to his nation and to the person of Faure Gnassingbe, or perhaps because of it, Pascal was known to be a likely future presidential contender. However, in 2012, quite suddenly, he became the target of a campaign that seemed both capricious and contrived.
In July, 2012, Bodjona was summarily dropped from his Cabinet post. A few weeks later, his home was surrounded by heavily armed, SWAT-type units, and he was arrested. He quietly accepted his arrest, was held under Togolese preventive detention provisions (Article 112 of the Penal Code), yet never charged officially, never was able to confront his accusers, never tried, and never sentenced under any legal tribunal.
For more than seven months, Pascal suffered imprisonment without any normal due process of law. The government was said to be responding to the unsubstantiated claim of a citizen of the United Arab Emirates that in 2008, he was approached by a person claiming to be the widow of a former leader in the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Robert Guei, who was killed during the 2002 coup in Abidjian. According to the statement of Abass al-Youssef, Mme. Awa Mounira told him she wanted to retrieve funds deposited by her husband into an account held in Togo, in the amount of $275 million. Abass engaged the assistance of business associate Loik le Floch-Prigent, a French citizen and former CEO of the French oil company, ELF, in investigating the woman’s claims.
The French oil executive then traveled to Togo, meeting with Togolese business owner Bertin Sow Agba, who owns a private security firm, Optimal Protection Services. Agba arranged a brief meeting between Mssr. Floch-Prigent and the then-minister Pascal Bodjona. The meeting, by both Floch-Prigent’s and Bodjona’s statements, was a “courtesy call” at which no discussion of the funds of the Ivorian “widow” ever took place. In later discussions, Agba told the French executive that Togo’s Ambassador to Ghana, Jean-Pierre Gbikpi Benissan, would help transfer the funds out of Togo. (Although charged with this, Benissan was never arrested, detained or removed from his position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.)
Two weeks after Pascal was arrested in a highly visible manner usually reserved for violent criminals, the French national Floch-Prigent was illegally detained in the Ivory Coast and without any due process or legal proceeding, was “extradited” to Togo (skirting the legal requirements for extradition.) This was rumored to be done as a personal favor to Togo’s president by President Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire. From Sept. 15, 2012 to Feb. 26, 2013, Floch-Prigent is jailed in Togo, pays a 4.5 billion franc bond (bail), and is released “for health reasons” back to France. He then filed legal suits against both Abass and Togolese authorities. He then wrote a book about the events, Le Mouton Noir, in which he recounts the entire story. In that book, he said that during his incarceration in Togo, the investigators only wanted him to implicate M. Bodjona. He emphasized that he had no information indicating Pascal Bodjona was part of the fraud. “I want to state very precisely that Bodjona played no role, either near or distant, in this affair, of which I am aware.” (Page 42, Le Mouton Noir, unofficial translation).
Three months after Floch-Prigent returns to France, Pascal was released from detention and allowed to return to his home on April 9, 2013. One week later, April 16, Agba, the Togolese businessman, is released after posting a bond for 150 million francs, and flees to Ghana, then South Africa, and later Greece. Extradition requests from the Togo government are unsuccessful.
For more than one year, Pascal Bodjona kept quiet about the injustice that was done to him. Finally, on June 23, 2014, he held a press conference where he described the nature of the attacks on him as being politically-motivated, and he repeated that he is innocent. Two months later, August 21, 2014, he is re-arrested, again without due process, and this time is held in a remote area prison in Tsevie, under harsher conditions.
Bodjona’s case has been declared by the Economic Community of West African’ States’ Court of Justice (ECOWAS) to be specious in nature, calling his detention “arbitrary” and finding that his rights were violated. The Court ordered Togo to release Bodjona immediately (on April 24, 2015) and further, to pay him damages of 27,500 Euros. Togo has neglected to comply with the ruling of the regional judicial body.
On October 23, 2015, Amnesty International issued a statement calling on Togolese authorities to implement the legal ruling of ECOWAS Court of Justice.
The reason I am writing to you is that the family of Pascal, my dear sister Zaina and adoptive daughter Bilquis, are in despair, having lost hope because all the many legal efforts that have been tried have been ignored. Pascal’s physical safety is at risk, but also, (and I have to say, knowing him, this is even more important) his honor and reputation have been falsely attacked.
I know it’s difficult to imagine how we can reach out and help a good man that is imprisoned in a remote place in a distant country. However, I want to ask each of you to do me this one, very big, favor. Please, will you contact the Togo Embassy in your own country, and request the immediate release of Pascal Bodjona?
Togo is a developing country, and the current president has worked hard to try to reverse some of the former economic factors that kept it from being included in many positive development initiatives. It would be a shame for the entire country to be prevented from getting the funds and programs that are able to help all the other West African nations, because the government is seen to be denying human rights and due process of law, especially to a man who is recognized in Washington and among many internationally as a good and worthy representative of his nation.
A sample of the type of message you can send is below. Please, please take a few moments of your time to send your own message to the Togo Embassy, consulate, or to humanitarian representatives you know who work internationally. If we all pull together, I believe we can create a miracle.
Thank you,
Kate Tsubata