Masons

2019: Freemasons conflict with Catholic Church in Togo

In the Republic of Togo, the funeral of former Minister of Economy and Finance Elom Emil Dadzi, who died on December 11, is being vividly discussed. On December 27, 2019, the body of an influential Catholic and a sponsor of the Catholic community was not allowed to be buried by Archbishop Lome Denis Amuzu Dzakpa in the metropolitan church of Cristo Risorto due to the fact that the deceased belonged to the Freemasons.

The clash of local Freemasonry with the archdiocese is an alarming symptom, exacerbated by the years-long internal crisis that the Grand Lodge of Togo is experiencing at this time. The election in September 2019 of Iñas Anani Klomega as Grand Master split the Togolese elite and the ruling Gnassingbe family in the country since 1967. A number of high-ranking members of the brotherhood spoke out against his candidacy - from the prosecutor general to the chief of the gendarmerie.

In Togo, Masons appeared before independence, in 1953, and became the most elitist brotherhood, uniting most of the most senior members of the government. For 2020, the ruling Union for the Republic (formerly the Unification of the Togolese People) for a long time remained mainly a Rosicrucian structure, while influential enough to hold major international events (including public ones) at its headquarters. The largest of these was the August 15-16, 1980 convention, which drew 2,919 delegates from around the world. Local organizations operate in the country, the most famous of which is the now deceased occult Brotherhood of the Cosmic Heart, founded by a dissident Rosicrucian and incorporating the practices of the Peda people in southern Togo. At another level, however, Catholic, Islamic, Protestant, and Wooduist structures acting as parallel powers and mediators between pro-government forces and the opposition have sufficient influence to lobby for their interests and occasionally oppose the Masonic and Rosicrucian establishment.

1940s: France uses Freemasonry to control elites in Africa

The fact is that after the end of the Cold War, most African regimes reluctantly and forcibly restored multi-party systems and began to legitimize themselves through elections, so Masonic lodges became the key organs of non-public cabinet policy and an instrument of neo-colonial control by the former metropolis of France. Representatives of all religious communities enter there, all intra-elite conflicts are resolved there, including through the mediation of influential Europeans, and in the same place, at meetings of fraternities, all future appointments are discussed.

Therefore, the political class of the countries of francophone Africa - Cameroon, Togo, Gabon, Benin, the Republic of the Congo - since the 1940s. tightly integrated into overseas and African Masonic structures.

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