Government launches strained political talks

Political talks between the Togolese government and opposition parties officially opened on Thursday under pressure from the European Union (EU) despite the absence by main opposition parties. Some 26 political parties were invited to participate in the opening ceremony of the first political talks to be held since 1999. The EU is currently putting pressure on Togo to improve democracy, one of the conditions to lift ten-year-old sanctions against the country. An EU mission is due to arrive in Lome on the 2 June to assess the government’s progress. A large crowd crammed in the conference room of the Corinthia Hotel in the Lome capital, with some 500 representatives drawn from political parties, diplomats and local authorities in attendance. "I hope that the democratic dialogue that will open in the coming weeks will be open to all those wishing to participate in the process,” President Gnassingbe Eyadema said in his opening speech. These talks are intended to pave the way for political reconciliation in Togo. However, the traditional opposition has boycotted the ceremony. The main Union of the Forces for Change (UFC) party, the Action Committee for Renewal (CAR) and Democratic Convention for African People (CPDA) deplored the lack of preparedness of the dialogue and refused to participate. The UFC’s additional complaint was over the absence of their leader, Gilchrist Olympio, who had been denied entry into Togo by the authorities, Jean Pierre Fabre, the Secretary-General of the UFC, told IRIN on the phone. “There are two reasons to our non participation to the dialogue: the lack of preparedness of the national dialogue, which to be credible, should have been prepared by the protagonists of the crisis and the discriminatory fate imposed upon Gilchrist Olympio,” Fabre said. Olympio, the son of Togo's first president who was killed in a coup d'Etat in 1963 and himself escaped an assassination attempt in 1992, has lived in exile in London, Paris and Accra. President Eyadema, in his opening address, was critical of the parties that had boycotted Thursday’s ceremony. “Democracy rests, foremost, on everybody’s participation. Everyone, that is, that does not remain on the platform of the station, but boards the train to our target of democracy,” Eyadema said. Though they boycotted Thursday ceremony, the UFC has not ruled out participation in the talks entirely. “We are ready to participate in the preparatory work of the dialogue. We did not say that we did not want the dialogue, we only said that we did not want to take part in the solemn opening of the dialogue”, Fabre told IRIN on Friday. Nonetheless there is skepticism within the UFC over the government’s commitment to dialogue and democracy. Last month, Olympio himself said in an interview available on the UFC website, that he was cautious of the government’s intentions. “It will be necessary to maintain the strongest vigilance and the most extreme prudence… we know the Togolese government and it is skilled in the art of duplicity,” Olympio said. Opposition parties that did attend were less supicious. “This is a sober ceremony setting the tone of the dialogue and marking the will of the highest authority to show their attachment to the dialogue,” Djovi Galli, the president of the pan African Observatory for Democracy told IRIN. However, no precise programme nor calendar were set for the actual talks, which will be chaired by Prime Minister Koffi Sama. On 14 April, Sama led a delegation to Brussels that made 22 commitments towards installing greater democracy in Togo. Adherence to these commitments could see the lifting of 11-year-old EU sanctions. Togo, an impoverished and tiny West African country, has been hard hit by the decade of economic sanctions and the short-fall in much needed aid. "Our country has suffered, for ten years, from the interruption of international aid," Eyadema declared at the opening ceremony. Among those 22 commitments, the government promised “to guarantee, without delay, the free action of all political parties, without any act of harassment,” to hold “transparent and free elections acceptable to all parties, within six months,” and “to guarantee to all parties equitable access to public media.” The European Union ceased its aid to Togo in 1993 “until the country’s uncertain and sometimes disruptive moves towards democracy are brought back on track by President Eyadema,” the EU stated at the time.