Human rights group says 790 killed in election violence

The Togolese League of Human Rights said on Friday that 790 people had been killed and 4,345 hurt in political violence triggered by the recent election of Faure Gnassingbe to succeed his father as president of the West African nation. “The international community must hold an inquiry given the scale of the human rights violations,” Ayayi Apedo-Amah, the secretary-general of the organisation, told IRIN. Photos released by the group showed corpses of young men who had been disembowelled or had their faces hacked to bits with machetes. Other survivors were pictured, their faces bleeding after being attacked with nail-spiked clubs. Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the reported death toll, which was much higher than the figure of about 100 previously estimated by diplomats. But on Thursday Gnassingbe ordered a national commission of inquiry into the violence that erupted after the disputed 24 April presidential election. “The national inquiry commission’s results will be made public within three months,” said a statement posted on the government's website. The six-party opposition coalition that fielded Emmanuel Bob-Akitani as its candidate in the presidential election said at it was opening a hotline for victims of political repression. "In the memory of the Togolese there have never been so many deaths for political reasons," Patrick Lawson, one of the coalition leaders, told a press conference to announce the move. The casualty toll released by the Human Rights League in what it described as “a preliminary report” was based on reports from hospitals, the morgue, witnesses and complaints filed by relatives, Apedo-Amah told IRIN. The report said it aimed to present “an initial glimpse of acts of violence organised by the Togolese Armed Forces (FAT), the (paramilitary) gendarmerie and the national police, backed by militias working for the RPT (the ruling Rally for the Togolese People party) regime.” The figures cover the period from 28 March, when the authorities began updating the electoral register, until 5 May, the day after Gnassingbe was officially sworn in to replace his father Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled Togo for 38 years until his death on 5 February. Previously, diplomats had estimated that around 100 people died and 2,000 were injured in street fighting that erupted on 26 April. That was the day when Gnassingbe was declared winner of the election, despite opposition claims that the poll had been rigged. Calm returned to the country within days after security forces stepped in to clear the streets of barricades and protesters. But around 24,000 people have fled into neighbouring Benin and Ghana in fear of more repression, particularly from southern towns and districts of the capital known to be favourable to the opposition. Many of the refugees have reported incidents of police and soldiers firing at civilians. Aid workers have reported seeing many bullet wounds. Asked whether the human rights group had been surprised by the high death toll it had compiled, Apedo-Amah said: “We are surprised. What is going on here is a day-by-day drama. We are worried.” He told IRIN that opposition supporters, particularly youngsters, were still being intimidated by the security forces, as were known members of the opposition. Only this week, he said, police had fired into a school classroom at Agbodrafo, 35 km from Lome, and detained two pupils. “People are living in fear,” the human rights campaigner stressed. In a separate development, the European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution condemning “the brutal repression perpetrated by the police against the people” in Togo and demanded an inquiry. It also slammed the elections, saying they “do not comply with the conditions laid down as a precondition for the resumption of cooperation between Togo and the European Union.” Both France and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have described the vote as basically fair, while conceding there have been some irregularities. But the United States took a tougher line. The State Department said in a statement last week: “The legitimacy of Togo’s presidential elections fell short of the aspirations of the Togolese people and the expectations of Togo’s friends in the international community.” The EU negotiated a deal with the government of the late president Eyadema in April 2004 in which the Togolese authorities pledged to implement 22 separate commitments in to promote democracy and civil liberties in return for a resumption of EU aid. The EU cut off aid to the former French colony in 1993 because of "democratic deficiencies." A new aid package worth 40 million euros (US $52 million) now lies in the balance. Members of the European Parliament called for a national conference in Togo to find a solution to the country's political crisis and “to envisage new presidential and legislative elections worthy of the name: i.e. democratic, free, fair and transparent, under international supervision and after a consensual review of the code and the electoral rolls.”