Chapter 266 Transition

"On behalf of the Kolo Liberation Front, I now announce that we have overthrown the nearly 40-year dictatorship of Nassim Dema in Togo. Kolo will usher in true democracy and freedom, and power will return to the people. However, before that, in order to prevent a counterattack by reactionary forces, we will dissolve the government, suspend the constitution, and close the border. The Kolo Liberation Front will organize a transitional government, and in two months, a national election will be held, and the people will elect our government. During this period, any unauthorized entry into Kolo will be regarded as hostile."

  On February 5, television programs throughout Kolo began broadcasting the coup statement read out by Jammeh Bongo himself.

  The day before, 100 elite soldiers and special operations team members of the Kolo Liberation Front entered the Kolo capital of Loti under the transportation of two CH47 Chinook helicopters.

  There, with the support of intelligence personnel who had been lurking in the capital in advance, the soldiers of the Kolo Liberation Front, under the leadership of the special operations team, launched an attack directly on the presidential palace.

  Because the operation began in the early morning, most of the capital's defense forces were still asleep and had no time to organize an effective defense.

  In addition, this time they brought sufficient and comprehensive weapons and equipment, so the soldiers marched straight in and occupied the Presidential Palace in less than an hour.

  During this process, Nasin Dema was killed by a stray bullet, and most of his family members were also affected by the conflict.

  After occupying the Presidential Palace, a group of soldiers went to the military camp, controlled most of the guard officers, and took over control of the capital's army. They blocked the entire capital, announced a ban, and no one was allowed to go out.

  Currently, the total population of Kolo is around 7 million, and the capital, Loti, is its largest city, with a population of more than 2 million.

  Therefore, controlling Lottie basically means taking control of the entire country.

  At this time, the CH47 Chinook helicopter also took Jammeh Bongo to the city of Loti, and he came forward, on behalf of the Kolo Liberation Front, to announce the news of the success of the coup and a statement on the country's future policies on Kolo TV.

  Almost all officers of the government army had their families in Loti, so after Loti was occupied by the Kolo Liberation Front, they easily took over the control of the government army.

  After all, in Africa, coups are nothing new. No matter who is in power, they need people to serve as soldiers. These soldiers and officers just need to surrender and do not have to worry about their future. They just need to change their allegiance to someone else.

  Then, under the attack of the Kolo Liberation Front and the government forces, they launched a large-scale offensive, directly wiped out the two anti-government armed groups, the Free Kolo Alliance and the Kolo Resistance Army, and within a week, they controlled the entire Kolo.

  Based on the Kolo Liberation Front and absorbing some personnel from the former government, Jammeh Bongo formed the Kolo People's Party and established the Kolo Transitional Government. He announced that he would participate in the Kolo national election in two months, so that the people would elect a new Kolo government.

  All previous armed forces, including the Kolo Liberation Front and government forces, were reorganized by military adviser Markel Paulson.

  Speaking of which, Kolo is just a small country in West Africa. Its land area is less than half of China's Zhejiang Province. The countries neighboring it are much larger than it. Generally speaking, Kolo's presence is not very strong even in Africa.

  Therefore, the coup in Kolo was not even mentioned in the news in many Western countries.

  The first to react to the coup in their country was the Economic Community of West African States, an economic union composed of 15 West African countries, of which Colom is one of its founding members. Currently, all countries in this economic community, including Colom, use a unified currency, the West African franc.

  Therefore, the Economic Community of West African States was the first to respond to Collo's coup.  

  Then there is the African Union, which, together with the Economic Community of West African States, sent special envoys to contact Jammeh Bongo.

  During this call, Jammeh reiterated that their previous goal was to end Nassim Dema's dictatorship over Kolo, and that a national election would be held in Kolo to decide the future of Kolo. He also welcomed the two African organizations to send people to witness.

  The AU and the Economic Community of West African States were quite satisfied with his statement and said they would immediately send a delegation to Kolo, as they did not want a humanitarian disaster to occur there.

  In addition to them, another country that is very concerned about Colo's coup is France.

  After all, before independence, Colo was a French colony, and even now, France still has many interests there, the main one being the mining of some phosphate mines.

  This can be seen from the fact that the currency used by the Economic Community of West African States is called the West African franc, because the predecessor of the West African franc was the currency used by the French government in its African colonies.

  However, with the wave of independence in Africa, the monetary policy of the Economic Community of West African States has basically been controlled by its West African member states. The central banks of their countries participate in the formulation of various policies of the West African franc, and France only has the right to participate.

  But in the beginning, the West African CFA franc was still pegged to the French franc. Now, it is pegged to the euro. After the EU member states unified their currency and used the euro, the exchange rate between the euro and the West African CFA franc remained fixed, that is, one euro was exchanged for 656 West African CFA francs.

  At this time, Colo is still one of the least developed countries in the world. Therefore, European and American countries do not have much interest in Colo. Even France only cares about some of their mines.

  After Jammeh Bongo said that the transitional government would respect the legitimate rights and interests of French companies in Colo and complete the transition to the elected government as soon as possible, France did not show much concern about this.

  Of course, there are still two months until the national election, and during this period, the transitional government still has a lot to do.

  After taking control of the capital, they set up a temporary court and procuratorate, and began investigating Nasin Dema's use of power to illegally seize state-owned assets during his administration.

  First of all, it should be noted that after Jammeh Bongo formed the Kro People's Party, former government official Thomas Kaboré also formed the Kro Socialist Party with the support of West African Industrial Holdings, and recruited a number of people to join, and also prepared to participate in the general election two months later.

  As for the remaining former senior officials and influential people who were unwilling to join either the People's Party or the Socialist Party, the investigation "found" evidence of their collusion with Nasim Dema to make illegal profits, and they were put on trial.

  Therefore, in this election, the two candidates will be Jammeh Bongo, leader of the People's Party, and Thomas Kaboré, leader of the Socialist Party.

  To put it bluntly, the two of them are the left hand fighting the right hand with Barron's support behind the scenes.

  The only difference is that this time it will be Jammeh Bongo who will win the election, while Thomas Kaboré will be the "spare tire". It depends on whether Jammeh can always be obedient.