Nine opposition militants jailed

Nine militants of the main opposition party, the Union of the Forces for Change (UFC), have been sentenced to between two and six years in prison for disrupting public order during presidential elections last year and for possessing illegal war-weapons, a court pronounced on Friday. The militants were arrested during the presidential elections in June 2003 after the destruction of a petrol station and the explosion of a handmade bomb in a French restaurant in the capital Lome. When they were arrested, they said that their actions were a protest against the exclusion of UFC leader, Gilchrist Olympio, from standing against President Gnassingbe Eyadema in the poll. The UFC claim that Olympio would have won the presidential election had been able to stand. Togolese judicial authorities welcomed the sentence and denied they were politically motivated. “We’re very pleased about the exemplary decision made by the judge with a completely independent mind,” said the state prosecutor Robert Bakai after the trial. “We will no longer be indifferent to acts of vandalism: in future we will take strong measures in accordance with the legal framework,” he said. Earlier this month, Minister of Justice, Foli Bazi-Katari said that Togo did not have political prisoners in their jails. “Nobody is incarcerated in Togo for political reasons,” he said. This week Amnesty International issued a continent wide report, in which Togo was slated for malicious prosecution, arbitrary arrest and excessive force against political demonstrations, as well as widespread torture and ill-treatment of prisoners. The court’s sentences were served one day after the opening of talks between the government and the opposition, designed to win back financial aid from the European Union. Togo’s government committed itself to holding the talks last month under pressure from Brussels as a condition for resuming aid, frozen in 1993 in protest over Togo's poor democratic and human rights record. However, UFC and two other main opposition parties said preparations for the "political dialogue" had been rushed and boycotted the opening ceremony. Eyadema is Africa's longest serving ruler. He seized power in a 1967 coup and has ruled the former French colony of five million people with an iron fist.