Six die in Togo election violence

At least six people were killed in violent protests that broke out after the son of Togo’s late dictator was declared the winner of presidential elections, officials said today.

Clashes pitting riot police against opposition party supporters angered by yesterday’s announcement of Faure Gnassingbe’s victory continued into today, with young men throwing firebombs at police.

The dead included at least three civilians, said Gerard Besson, an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate, while Interior Minister Folly Bazi Katari told reporters three soldiers were killed.

Katari also reported heavy looting and said rock-throwing crowds had damaged some foreign embassies. At least 100 people were reported wounded in the clashes that began yesterday.

The main opposition candidate, Bob Akitani, declared himself president, saying the government vote count had been fraudulent and that ballot counting by the opposition in many parts of the country had put him ahead of Gnassingbe. He called on opposition youth to fight the government.

“You must know to remain mobilised, to remain determined,” Akitani told reporters, sending a message to his supporters in a statement. “At the expense of our lives, we must be opposed to people who think they have divine order to govern this country. The struggle will be long, but victory will be ours. We will be invincible. Resist, resist, until the final victory.”

The military had named Gnassingbe Togo’s new president shortly after his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, died of a heart attack on February 5. Eyadema’s 38-year-rule had made him Africa’s longest-ruling dictator.

Amid heavy international pressure, the 39-year old son agreed to give up power and allow for elections, held Sunday amid violence and charges by the opposition that the ruling party was stealing the vote.

Authorities announced yesterday that Gnassingbe won with 60% of the vote. His main opponent – Bob Akitani, in hiding since Sunday’s balloting – took 38% of the vote.

The head of the political party that stood Akitani in the elections alleged Faure’s backers stole the election and said hopes to create a national unity government have vanished.

“Our problem today is that after the massive fraud by this boy calledGnassingbe Faure, it’s impossible for us to go into a government with him,” Gilchrist Olympio said.

“The ballot boxes were stuffed,” he said, calling the election “a complete joke.”

A day earlier in Nigeria, Olympio and Gnassingbe agreed that whoever won would form a government of national unity.

Nigeria, which brokered the unity government deal now in question, was among the West African nations that had intervened to ensure a democratic succession in Togo and now do not want to see their efforts destroyed by violence.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that the proposal of a unity government “is an initiative that we support because we believe ... that an inclusive government focused on national reconciliation would be a positive development.”

He said the US, together with the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, would try to get a unity government functioning ”as a way of healing the divisions in Togo and as a means of promoting a political way forward.”

Ereli called on the government and opposition to commit ”themselves to a peaceful way forward.”

In Paris today, French foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei called on Togolese political leaders to work to restore calm, noting that French and other foreign residents in Togo had been the victims of attacks and vandalism.

A spokeswoman for the 15-nation ECOWAS declared that the elections had been fair, saying votes uncounted amid Sunday’s violence in Lome weren’t enough to cause concern.

Protesters raged across the capital immediately after the results were announced, blocking roads with stacks of tyres and setting them ablaze. Within minutes, fires burned across the capital, darkening the horizon.

Throughout the afternoon, police and soldiers shot tear gas and grenades to scatter mobs of young men throwing stones and waving machetes and nail-studded clubs.

Gnassingbe had campaigned on a platform of national unity, promising to bring together the country’s political parties, long divided by distrust and suspicion under Eyadema.

Despite his efforts to escape his father’s legacy, many fear Gnassingbe is only a pawn of his father’s political machine, which has left the country in economic shambles.