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Togo Boils After Late Ruler’s
Son Wins Election
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A
Togolese opposition supporter waves a machete at a barricade in
Lome. (Reuters)
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LOME,
April 27, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Togo is
teetering on the brink of civil war as the west African country
entered Wednesday, April 27, a second day of street battles and urban
warfare over the election of the late ruler’s son as president.
Security
forces patrolled on foot in Lome, firing tear gas down back streets at
shouting youths who had built barricades of bricks and blazing tyres,
Reuters reported.
At
least one building was on fire and black smoke rose over the area as
looting broke out in the center of the capital, with protestors
accusing Faure Gnassingbe, son of former ruler Gnassingbe Eyadema, of
stealing Sunday’s presidential election.
Gnassingbe
took 60.22 percent of the votes cast, the independent national
electoral commission (CENI) said, with opposition candidate Emmanuel
Akitani Bob finishing second with 38.19 percent.
Bob,
74, stood as the candidate for long-time exiled opposition figurehead
Gilchrist Olympio’s Union of Forces for Change (UFC) against
39-year-old Gnassingbe.
Nearly
2.3 million people turned out to vote, out of an electorate of 3.6
million, according to the CENI.
Togo’s
constitutional court must now review the results announced by the
national electoral commission.
Eyadema
died after 38 years in power and army leaders named Gnassingbe to
replace him, saying they feared a dangerous political vacuum.
He
eventually stepped down under fierce international pressure and called
elections.
Lebanese,
French Targeted
There
are reports that Lebanese and French nationals, whose countries seen
by the opposition supporters as having backed the ruling Togolese
People’s Rally, have been targeted and insulted on the streets.
A
Lebanese national told Al-Jazeera Wednesday that some 15 Lebanese
families were attacked and a series of shops in Lome were smashed.
The
US State Department has also urged Americans to put off any plans to
travel to Togo, and authorized non-essential US embassy personnel and
family members of staff to leave the country.
As
the violence raged, the battered city counted the cost of Tuesday’s
urban warfare which exploded after the announcement of provisional
results.
The
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said at least 70
wounded were treated Tuesday at Lome’s main hospital and many had
been shot.
One
Lome resident said he saw the bodies of two people who had been shot
dead outside his house. There were no immediate official details of
casualties, according to Reuters.
Opposition
leaders have rejected the election results, accusing Gnassingbe’s
ruling party of massive fraud.
Coalition
Govt.
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Faure
Gnassingbe casts his vote during the election. (Reuters)
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The
situation slipped out of control though Nigerian President Olusegun
Obasanjo, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the African
Union (AU), said Monday, April 25, that Gnassingbe and the opposition
presidential candidate agreed to form a coalition government.
Opposition
leaders fiercely denied any power-sharing deal had been struck though
both leaders appeared on TV hand-shaking.
The
secretary general of the opposition, Jean-Pierre Fabre, told Agence
France-Presse (AFP), “There’s no deal,” adding Obasanjo’s
announcement of a unity government was just “a proposal”.
The
United States further said Tuesday it backed efforts to establish a
national unity government in Togo to ease tensions there.
But
Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli stopped short of saying
whether Washington would recognize Faure Gnassingbe.
“We
continue to investigate those reports and to develop an assessment of
them,” Ereli told reporters at the department’s daily briefing.
A
senior State Department official added that while the United States
was looking into charges of electoral irregularities, “promoting a
government of national unity would help achieve the kind of
reconciliation that charges of abuse and fraud undermine.”
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