German cultural centre torched in Togo violence

Masked gunmen torched a German cultural centre in Togo today, leaving the main library building gutted and a van in ashes in the latest violence gripping the country since disputed presidential elections.

A group of armed men stormed into the Goethe-Institut in the capital, Lome, before dawn and held the guards at gunpoint while the attackers shot up the main library and set it ablaze, said the director of the institut, Herwig Kempf.

The once-tidy concrete building later stood gutted, with a nearby tool shed and van also burned. No one was injured.

Through films, book-lending and language lessons, the Goethe-Institut promotes cultural exchange between Togo and Germany – Togo’s colonial master until Germany’s defeat in the First World War.

Kempf noted the interior minister sacked last week after saying Togo should delay elections has taken refuge in the German Embassy.

The ex-minister, Francois Boko, lost his job after warning of possible bloodshed in the country surrounding Sunday’s presidential election, which authorities said on Tuesday was won by the son of Togo’s late dictator.

Two days of clashes between demonstrators and troops broke out after the announcement of Faure Gnassingbe’s victory, leaving at least 22 dead nationwide by Thursday. UN officials said thousands of Togolese have fled their homes.

Bob Akitani, the main opposition candidate, declared himself president on Wednesday, alleging massive ruling-party fraud and claiming the opposition’s own ballot counting had put him ahead of Gnassingbe. He urged his followers to continue to fight the government.

But by Thursday, the mobs of machete-wielding demonstrators had disappeared from Lome’s opposition neighbourhood of Be, scene of the heaviest clashes, while Lome’s downtown streets slowly came back to life.

In Be, soldiers beat residents and forced them to dismantle crude roadblocks - symbols remaining from the days of unrest.

“This is what you’ve done – now take it apart,” one soldier screamed at several women walking past. The soldier whipped two of the women in the back with a steel cord, while other troops beat several teenage boys with clubs and batons, forcing them to work.

Reports of violence in the countryside began emerging in the capital.

Gerard Besson of the International Committee of the Red Cross said eight people died in political violence at the town of Atakpame, 105 miles north of Lome. Further details weren’t available and it wasn’t clear when the violence occurred.

Still, government officials reopened Togo’s land borders, which had been closed two days before Sunday’s election.

Besson said three people had been reported killed in violence in Lome, though officials in the city morgue said 14 bodies had been brought there since Tuesday’s fighting, most of them victims of gunshots.

Togo’s interior minister, Foli Bazi Katari, said three soldiers had been killed this week and that eight residents from Niger had been burned alive in their Lome home by opposition supporters. He didn’t elaborate.

Amid the strife, nearly 4,000 Togolese have registered with UN refugee agencies in neighbouring Benin and Ghana, said UN spokeswoman Needa Jehu-Appiah. Others have likely fled Togo but haven’t registered, she said.

Togo’s foreign minister, Kokou Tozoun, blamed foreign journalists currently for the violence perpetrated by the opposition.

“It is you who have ignited the fire,” he said. “It is you who are at the origin of the massacre,” speaking of the attack on the eight residents of Niger.

Tozoun later made similar comments in a broadcast on national television.