Land and Conflicts in Togo

UNIVERSITY OF MILANO -BICOCCA “R ICCARDO MASSA ” DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SCIENCES AND EDUCATION DOCTORAL PROGRAMME “A NTHROPOLOGY OF CONTEMPORANEITY ” Joint Research Doctoral Thesis with UNIVERSITY OF BAYREUTH Dissertation Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2013 LAND AND CONFLICTS IN TOGO MARCO GARDINI Under the Supervision of Prof. Alice Bellagamba and Prof. Georg Klute Land and Conflicts in Togo Marco Gardini University of Milano Bicocca University of Bayreuth Contents Acknowledgements 1 Introduction 3 Chapter 1: Land, Identity and Power 27 - Settling in a borderland 30 - Taking possession of the land: from the hunter to the planter of trees 34 - Myths of arrival and colonial ethnogenesis 40 - Villages and forests, men and spirits 47 - Conclusion 56 Chapter 2: Plantations and colonial agricultural policies 59 - Colonial agricultural policies: the German administration 62 - Colonial agricultural policies: the French administration 66 - History of the Agou plantations 74 - Discussing the restitution of land 79 - Conclusion 82 Chapter 3: The Cocoa Economy and Access to Land 87 - The Cocoa Economy and Migration 89 - Dem ɛ (“To produce and to share”) 91 - Nana 97 - Work and Labour 100 - Renegotiating inheritance and kinship in conditions of scarcity: the kolonyigba 108 - Selling land 110 - Conclusion 115 Chapter 4: Chefferies and Conflict Management 119 - State and Chefferies 122 - Conflict of Interest and Interest in Conflicts 129 - Composition of the court and structuring of the trial 134 - How to solve a conflict? 138 - Oracles, witchcraft and conflicts 143 - Chefferies and land frauds 150 - Conclusion 153 Chapter 5: How to win a trial: Strategies to strengthen local land rights 157 - Social Capital and Membership 159 - Womi: the “vegetable” structures of kinship 162 - Planting trees and choosing the court 167 - Producing Documents, Renegotiating Histories 170 - Exploiting the State 175 - Conclusion 179 Chapter 6: Beyond Land ? 183 - Beyond the Urban / Rural dichotomy 185 - Borders, smugglers and check points 190 - Road-blocs for the tourists 200 - Markets and agriculture 202 - Conclusion 210 Conclusion 213 Glossary 223 Bibliography 225 Unpublished sources 241 Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the help, advice and support of many people. The research was supported by a Ph.D. scholarship granted by the University of Milano Bicocca and by a co-partnership with the University of Bayreuth. Both institutions deserve my acknowledgments and my thanks. My journeys to Togo were financially supported by MEBAO ( Missione Etnologica in Benin e Africa Occidentale ). Moreover, I owe a great debt to all the Togolese friends and interlocutors who helped me during my fieldwork in Agou, Kpalimé and Lomé, and who kindly gave of their time in answering my questions. Evans Ahiatroga and his family hosted me during a large part of my fieldwork, looking after me as a member of their family, providing much help in the collection of valued information, and teaching me - with great perseverance - how to behave and speak in the everyday life of a little village. Their moral and material support was crucial for the accomplishment of this work. Their friendship was probably the most precious gift that the fieldwork gave me. Togbui Dzakpata II, Fiavi Michelle Sedaho and the other members of the chefferies of Agou Tavie gave me the opportunity of following the trials held by the chefferie of Koumawou and they introduced me to the complexities of local conflict management. Lucie, Marguerite, and Dela gave me precious information about local markets. Gadede, Fomé and Aku helped me with translations and interviews. Mr. Goga provided much valued information on the history, ancient and recent, of the region, together with all those who work in the National Archive of Lomé. All of them deserve enormous thanks. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Alice Bellagamba (University of Milano Bicocca) and Prof. Georg Klute (University of Bayreuth), my supervisors, who encouraged me at every stage of this research, providing great sources of teaching, advice, and support. Many of the theoretical questions and of the methodological approaches that guided this work were inspired by their lectures, articles and books. Many others deserve tremendous thanks for reading and commenting on parts and drafts of this work, or providing invaluable sources of inspiration: Luca Jourdan, Ivo Quaranta, Ugo 1 Fabietti, Mauro van Aken, Cristana Fiammingo, Maria Cristina Ercolessi, Luca Rimoldi, Massimiliano Reggi, Paolo Gaibazzi, Riccardo Ciavolella, Luca Ciabarri, Laura Menin, Barbara Pinelli, Alessandra Brivio, Achim von Oppen, Jon Abbink, Marc Koto, the organizing committee and the participants of the AEGIS Summer School of Cortona, and the reviewers of Africa Spectrum. Damian Randle and Rithika Punj helped me in revising the English translations. Other debts are more personal and deserve more than a note on this page. Among them, I would like particularly to thank my parents and my brother who have always believed in my projects, my friends who have always “tolerated” my insane intellectual passions, and Licia, whose everyday support and presence was the very source of the energy I needed to get through this research. This work is dedicated to her. 2 INTRODUCTION This work investigates the cultural, social and political relationships that the inhabitants of south-western Togo (Prefectures of Agou and Kloto) entertain with land. The topic will be addressed via the analysis of the plurality, the conflicts and the dynamics of land tenure regimes and, more generally, via a discussion of how these emerge as central to the redefinition of local power structures. The aim is to give an in-depth account of the historical meanings of land at local level, of the range of strategies used by individuals competing with each other to strengthen their rights over land, and of the dynamics of conflict settlement. The latter are seen not only as arenas where local land rights are discussed, but also where the legitimacy of the authorities that should guarantee them is renegotiated. The theme of access to land is of growing political and academic interest. Much has been written about the cases of Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Benin, on the phenomenon of land grabbing in Eastern and Southern Africa, and on land degradation and desertification in Sahelian countries. Judging by the vast research concerning this topic, by the degree of economic and political interest that it raises and by the increasing frequency of instances of land grabbing all over the African continent, the theme of access to land is crucial to understanding current social and political developments in Africa. Sara Berry (2002: 639) is clear on this point: "Rapid population growth, environmental degradation, and slow rates of economic development that leave many people dependent on small-scale farming, livestock raising and foraging have transformed Africa from a continent of land abundance in the first half of the twentieth century to one of increasing land scarcity by its end." In many African contexts, scholars have demonstrated an increasingly close relationship between access to land, the renegotiation of the legitimacy of social and political authorities, and the redefinition of the local criteria of citizenship and belonging (Lentz 2006; Berry 2009; Lund 2011). In this respect, the historical, political and economic trajectory of Togo 1 offers useful comparisons with the other countries bordering the Gulf of Benin, but it is still 1 For land and agriculture in Togo, see Go Konu 1983; Quesnel and Vimard 1988; Akibode 1989; Bishop 2002; Folikpo 2006. 3 an underexplored case-study. Amongst other things, this work tries to fill this gap. During my first stay in Togo, in 2006 and 2007, my interests focused on the "classic" theme of witchcraft, which had come back into vogue in the anthropological debate of the 1990s due to the works of Peter Geschiere and Jean and John Comaroff. Accusations and counter accusations of witchcraft appeared to be the privileged grammars through which the "power" of Eyadema (who established in Togo a 38 years-long military dictatorship), of his son (who in 2005 replaced the deceased Eyadema and took power amid a wave of repression of all opposition) and of the political and economic elites was represented and discussed (Toulabor 1986; 1999). Moreover, witchcraft accusations emerged as the main narrative through which the discourses around the social and political tensions were expressed at the local level. The analysis of witchcraft accusations led me to investigate more deeply the social and economic causes of conflicts. During my PhD research, my subsequent stays in Togo (in 2009, 2010 and 2011) made me more aware of how modes of access to, and management of, land represented both one of the main causes of conflict and a major concern in local discourses. In other words, if "witchcraft" told me something about conflicts, these conflicts were frequently linked to access to land or attempts, often unsuccessful, at “emancipation” from agricultural activities. In Togo conflicts over land or land sold twice are steadily increasing. It is often stated, even in official speeches that, after malaria and AIDS, conflicts over land are the leading cause of death. It is implicitly argued that the perceived increase in witchcraft attacks, which for Togolese are a major cause of death and the major weapons used among conflicting parties, is proportional to the increase of

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