Posted on 02/06/2005 7:11:59 PM PST by Cornpone
THE African Union yesterday accused army commanders in the West African state of Togo of staging a military coup following the death of the president, Gnassingbe Eyadema, by imposing Eyadema’s son, Faure, as the new head of state.
Gnassingbe Eyadema, 69, who died of a heart attack on Saturday, came to power himself in a military coup and led his tiny, impoverished country - just over two-thirds the size of Scotland - for 38 years, making him the world’s longest-serving ruler after Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
He was one of the last of Africa’s so-called "Big Men". A general when he died, he was a sergeant when he came to power after the assassination of the country’s democratically elected president, Sylvanus Olympio.
Eyadema ruled with a rod of iron through the military, which he kept loyal through a system of patronage. His regime has been compared to that of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in terms of its brutality, the repression of suspected dissidents and the terrorising of the country’s five million people, most of whom are illiterate or semi-literate peasants surviving through subsistence agriculture. Torture and extra-judicial killings were common under Eyadema, and an estimated one million Togolese have left the country since he came to power in 1967.
Togo’s army high command quickly swore in Eyadema’s 39-year-old son, Faure, as the new state president on Saturday night. This was in direct contravention of the country’s constitution under which the speaker of parliament, Fanbare Ouattara Natchaba, should have become interim president with the obligation to call elections within 60 days.
But the military said the speaker was out of the country and that it was necessary to act quickly "to avoid a power vacuum". They immediately sealed all the country’s land, sea and air borders, making it impossible for Speaker Natchaba to return from the neighbouring country of Benin.
In former years, other African countries and the world might just have shrugged at the news of yet another African military coup. But the African Union has set its face against military takeovers, as was demonstrated in the case of the arrest of mercenaries who last year tried to topple the government of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, current president of the AU, said the organisation will not recognise any unconstitutional transfer of power in Togo. "Democracy must be the principle in Africa and all African nations will have to subscribe to that," he said.
French President Jacques Chirac, United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan and South African President Thabo Mbeki also condemned the military coup.
The sudden change at the top in Togo came as President Eyadema was trying to thaw relations with the European Union, which froze aid to the country, a sliver of West Africa sandwiched between Ghana and Benin, because of what it called the country’s "democratic deficiencies."
Eyadema had permitted multi-party elections in the mid-1990s, but the man who conducted the count was his personal head of security. In 1998 the vote count in the latest presidential election was abruptly stopped and Eyadema was declared the winner after the army had killed several hundred civilian protesters.
Human rights organisations estimated that Eyadema salted a personal fortune approaching $3 billion in foreign banks while building himself a $6 million French-style château. Much off his fortune came from his take of Nigeria’s heroin, cocaine and money-laundering trade through Lome, the Togo capital.
See comment below.
"French Togoland became Togo in 1960. Gen. Gnassingbe EYADEMA, installed as military ruler in 1967, is Africa's longest-serving head of state. Despite the facade of multiparty elections instituted in the early 1990s, the government continues to be dominated by President EYADEMA, whose Rally of the Togolese People (RPT) party has maintained power almost continually since 1967. In addition, Togo has come under fire from international organizations for human rights abuses and is plagued by political unrest. While most bilateral and multilateral aid to Togo remains frozen, the European Union initiated a partial resumption of cooperation and development aid to Togo in late 2004."
Fron the The Tocqueville Connection:
FRANCE MOURNS DEATH OF A 'FRIEND' WITH LOSS OF TOGO'S EYADEMA
Received Saturday, 5 February 2005 21:38:00 GMT PARIS, Feb 5 (AFP)
France on Saturday mourned the loss of a "friend" with the death of Togo President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who with more than 37 years at the helm was Africa's longest-serving leader.
"It is with profound sadness that I learn of the sudden death of Gnassingbe Eyadema, president of Togo," French President Jacques Chirac was quoted as saying in a statement. "France has lost a friend, and I, too, have lost a friend," added Chirac. "In these sad hours, I send my sincere condolences to his family."
No official statement was immediately forthcoming from Togo's neighbor Ghana, though a source in the office of President John Kufuor said the president was "extremely grieved" by the sudden death of Eyadema, 69, who died en route to France for emergency treatment.
From the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, African Union commissioner Alpha Oumar Konare, too, offered condolences but also insisted that the west African state's constitution be followed in naming a successor to the veteran leader, one of the last lions of Africa.
"President Eyadema was a driving force in African integration, in the strengthening of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and in leading the Organization of African Unity," the AU's predecessor, Konare said.
The armed forces, one of the pillars of Eyadema's support over the nearly four decades he was in power following a 1967 coup, announced on national television Saturday that Eyadema's son Faure Eyadema would assume the helm from this day forward.
Under Togo's constitution, however, the speaker of parliament is next in line for succession.
"It is crucial that the constitution's rules be applied for his succession," Konare said.
"We suggest that ECOWAS convene a meeting rapidly, together with the African Union, to monitor the evolution of this situation," Konare said.
The African Union? How many countries in the AU have free elections? More to the point how many even have fully functioning governments? All of the huffing and puffing about the son of a dictator taking over the throne or whatever the position is called in Togo is just a smokescreen.
Or...an imitation of life.
Good idea. I hear that Kofi Anan and his son already have such a program set up and they both should be looking for new jobs soon. Of course Togo probably doesn't have enough money to interest those thieves.
It seems like every time Chirac loses a friend, the world is better off.
good point.
. . . and, um . . . and I was . . . expecting Jeffersonian democracy! Iraq is SO flawed!
Considerin the fact that all of the other "lions", e.g. Kenyatta, Nkrumah, Nyerere, inter alia, proved to be such unmitigated disasters for the fortunes of their people, I don't think that we should lament the departure of one last cog in an anachronistic, inefficient and utterly unjust political system.
Even if the AU is exhibiting hypocrisy in this instance-and I believe that they are-at least the platitudes they are mouthing are the correct ones.
Which begs the question: Did he promote himself to general after the coup, or did he go through the standard review process to get all of his promotions from Sargeant to General?
One thing about Nyerere -- he tried every kooky utopian socialist/collectivist plan there is, but when they all failed, he actually apologized for screwing up his country.
There are some examples-though very few-of African nations ruled by benevolent despots, who allowed for the flourishing of certain aspects of a civil society.
Jerry Rawlings is one example of a military strongman who learned-to a certain extent-from the mistakes of early, misguided policies.
That was the name of Klinton's secretary of the Army.
Korrect.
What is it about france's love for brutal dictators?
I don't know. What is it about them all going to France or dying there or dying in route...in a country by the way that will not release cause of death. Makes me kind of suspicious about the UN suggesting Tariq Aziz go to France to testify about what he knows about the oil for food scandal?
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