The strains in Ghana–Togo relations stretch back to pre-independence days. History Early years After 1930 following the defeat of Germany, the League of Nations divided the German colony of Togoland from north to south, a decision that divided the Ewe people among the Gold Coast, British Togoland, and French Togoland. After 1945, the United Nations took over the Togoland mandates. During the 1950s, when the independence of Ghana was in sight, demands grew for a separate Ewe state, an idea that Kwame Nkrumah, leader of the Gold Coast independence movement, opposed. Following a UN plebiscite in May 1956, in which a majority of the Ewe voted for union with Ghana, British Togoland refused. After Togolese independence in 1960, relations between Togo and Ghana deteriorated, aggravated by political differences and incidents such as smuggling across their common border. At times, relations have verged on open aggression. The transfer of Togoland to Ghana resulted in many Togolese living in Ghana but working in the Togolese capital, Lomé. 1970s During the mid-1970s, Togolese President General Gnassingbé Eyadéma for a time revived the claim to a part or all of former British Togoland. Two leading Ewe members from the Volta Region sent a petition to the UN in 1974. By 1976, a Togoland Liberation Movement and a National Liberation Movement for Western Togoland existed and were agitating for separation from Ghana. The National Liberation Movement threatened the use of force against Ghana unless the UN intervened in the crisis but it failed to launch a successful guerrilla war against Ghana. The Eyadéma government publicly backed their demands, although it subsequently agreed to cooperate with the Ghanaian government against the separatist movements and against smuggling. A factor influencing Eyadéma's cooperative attitude was doubtless Togo's dependence upon electricity from Ghana's Akosombo Dam. A consistent preoccupation of Ghana and Togo is that of national security. The PNDC regime repeatedly accused both Togo and Ivory Coast of harboring armed Ghanaian dissidents who planned to overthrow or to destabilize the PNDC. The PNDC also accused both countries of encouraging the smuggling of Ghanaian products and currencies across their borders, thus undermining Ghana's political and economic stability at a time when Ghana was experiencing a deep economic crisis. 1980 onwards In June 1983, when the PNDC was barely eighteen months old, groups opposed to the PNDC made a major attempt to overthrow it. Most of the rebels reportedly came from