Decades of poor governance and sanctions have taken heavy toll

Squatting in the red dirt of the village square and flashing his toothless gums, Koffi sums up life in Togo in four words: “It’s a miserable existence.” “We work the land here so hard for so little. We scrape together the money to send our kids to school but there are no jobs for them afterwards. When we get sick, it’s a four kilometre walk to the nearest nurse,” said the wizened farmer, the anger in his voice rising. Hidden away down a bumpy dirt road, Koffi’s mud-hut village of Hangoume-Akolisse seems a far cry from the political troubles unfolding more than 60 km away in the capital, Lome. But Koffi and the village's 500 other residents have been glued to their radios ever since President Gnassingbe Eyadema, Africa’s longest-serving ruler, died unexpectedly two weeks ago. Like thousands of city-dwellers, they rail against the way his son, Faure Gnassingbe, has seized power with the backing of the army. And many say they want the outside world to help bring a swift end to this dynasty and halt the economic and social decline that has become the family trademark. “We have been trodden on for so long by the father and now with the son we can expect more of the same," Koffi said. Hangoume-Akolisse is in many ways typical of Togo’s woes. The young men are unemployed and wile away their days under the shade of the palm trees. Fields of manioc that surround the village do not yield enough for a farmer to feed his family let alone sell for profit. The state cannot afford to pay for staff at the village school, so impoverished residents have to club together to give untrained volunteer teachers a token salary. And anyone needing medical assistance faces a long trek to the dispensary in a neighbouring village, not to mention a struggle to pay for drugs and treatment. State sends begging letters for money to hire a bus Diplomats, aid workers, businessmen and residents say 38 years of Eyadema’s poor governance have exacted a heavy toll on this sliver of a West African nation, sandwiched between Ghana and Benin. A freeze in European Union aid, imposed in 1993 because of concerns about Togo’s poor democratic credentials and lousy human rights record, has only aggravated the situation for the country’s five million people.

Papa Eyadema was at the helm for 38 years

“Basically the government is knocking at our door for funds,” said Stefanie Conrad, the director of PlanTogo, the largest international non-governmental organisation operating in the country. One of Plan’s main projects is fighting child trafficking, a pervasive problem in Togo where an estimated 70 percent of the population live on less than a dollar a day. “The government rescued 30 children from Nigeria who were victims of trafficking and wrote us a letter asking us to pay for hiring a bus to take them back home,” Conrad told IRIN. “We’re talking about 80,000 CFA (US$ 160).” “We bought bread and butter for another group of children because the government could not,” she added. When the state has to send out begging letters for such small items, it is no surprise to learn that funding for cash-swallowing services like health and education poses problems. In the maternity unit at Lome’s biggest hospital, signs are plastered on the walls informing patients that every person admitted will have to pay 7,550 CFA (US$ 15). Pregnant women who have labour complications not only have to undergo painful Caesarean sections but they must also worry about paying for the operation. “The Caesarean kit costs 60,000 CFA (US$ 120),” one doctor on the maternity ward told IRIN on condition of anonymity. “Out of every 10 patients we see on the ward, not even five can afford the admission charges without having to barter and plead their case.” Patients paying for own plaster casts Over at the casualty department, Jean-Claude is rushing out the door to find medical equipment for a friend who has been in a traffic accident. “The hospital has said he needs a plaster cast… so I’m having to go and get the stuff myself,” he said. “This isn’t right. They should at least treat him first and claim the money afterwards.” Aid workers say poor sanitation levels in urban centres, where residents throw their waste into drainless streets, create fertile breeding grounds for water-borne diseases. “We’ve had cholera epidemics for the last three years,” Claudine Mensah, the country director of aid agency CARE, told IRIN. Even buying the medicine needed to treat simple but potentially fatal illnesses like diarrhoea is beyond the means of many Togolese. Unemployed plumber Gbessiho was forced to turn to the black market to buy medicine when his two children fell ill earlier this month. The family lives off his wife's earnings as a market vendor, an income which rarely tops 700 CFA (US$ 1.40) per day. “We couldn’t afford pharmacy medicine so we bought stuff off people on the streets. It was 25 CFA (5 US cents) instead of 2,500 CFA (US$ 5),” said the 38-year-old, who was born in the same year that Eyadema seized power in a coup. Eyadema was a foot soldier in the French colonial army who rapidly moved up the ranks after Togo gained independence in 1960. A former wrestling champion who enjoyed hunting, he was rarely seen in public without his dark sunglasses. He became head of state in 1967 when Lyndon Johnson was US President, Harold Wilson was Britain’s prime minister and Charles de Gaulle ruled France. Until his death on 5 February at the age of 69, Eyadema was the world’s longest serving leader after Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Togo has fertile agricultural land and has traditionally earned most of its foreign exchange from mining and exporting phosphates. The port of Lome is also a busy entrepot serving several landlocked states in West Africa.

These two-wheeler taxis are the main mode of transport in the capital

But economists estimate that Togo is 12 percent poorer now than when Eyadema staged the military coup that propelled him into the presidency four decades ago. Today, in Lome, most of the taxis ferrying people about the capital have two wheels not four because mopeds are less expensive to run than cars and their fares are five times cheaper. In different circumstances, the city’s beachfront with its turquoise water and deep yellow sands could be a magnet for tourists, but at the moment it is where people do their laundry and soldiers and policemen loll on their lunch breaks. Downward spiral Some Togolese that have returned from abroad are shocked at the country’s decline. “It’s taken so many steps backwards,” said 65-year-old Georges. He left Togo in 1971 for France after living through the first four years of Eyadema’s rule, and returned in 2001. “There are a lot more beggars on the streets now. They ask you for just 10 CFA (2 US cents) so they can eat,” he told IRIN outside the bakery which he runs in downtown Lome. “We’re at a critical point. If something’s not done, it’s going to go on for another 40 years.” Many Togolese who put the blame squarely at the door of the long-ruling elite, are also angry at former colonial power France for not taking action to stop the suffering. Throughout his four decades in power, Eyadema remained a staunch friend of France and its leaders shielded his government from international criticism and ensured its stability. French troops are still based in Lome and the French navy and air force use the port city as a regular staging post for operations in Africa. Today in the suburb of Be, an opposition stronghold, mobs of angry youths can quickly surround and threaten anyone who looks as if they might be French. In some instances machetes have been wielded at people. In others, rocks have been lobbed at their cars.

Anti-French banner at opposition rally

“Mr Chirac, you have French people in Togo. Beware!” was the warning to French President Jacques Chirac emblazoned on one banner at a rally of about 10,000 opposition supporters in Lome last weekend, the biggest protest yet against Gnassingbe’s seizure of power. Against the backdrop of Cold War alliance building, much of the West and particularly France turned a blind eye to some of Eyadema’s undesirable excesses. When he died in the presidential jet en route for medical treatment, Chirac mourned the passing of a “friend”. But now the entire international community, including France, has condemned the father-to-son handover and has called for a democratic transition. Several influential countries, including the United States and South Africa, have told Gnassingbe to step down in no uncertain terms. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has already imposed diplomatic sanctions on Togo, suspending its membership of the organisation, banning Togo’s leaders from travelling in the region and recalling the ambassadors of ECOWAS member states from Lome. The African Union has called a meeting on Thursday to consider slapping its own political sanctions on Gnassingbe's regime. What next? Economic sanctions from African peers would be the next step, though many diplomats think these unlikely, given that they would probably increase the suffering of ordinary Togolese, and put neighbouring countries in a bind. Civil war in Cote d’Ivoire has slowed traffic through West Africa’s main port, Abidjan, allowing Lome to pick up much of the transit trade for landlocked Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. And the disruption of trade along the coastal highway that links Lagos in Nigeria with Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire would damage the interests of all five states along this key trucking route. However, the EU has firmly warned the Togolese authorities of economic consequences if they continue along the pariah path.

Gnassingbe junior is becoming increasingly isolated

Diplomats say that until Eyadema died, Togo had been one good legislative election away from a resumption of EU aid. Polls had been tentatively pencilled in for the first half of 2005. But EU aid is once more on ice. Although Gnassingbe has agreed to hold presidential elections in early April, reversing earlier plans to put off a vote for three years, his decision to stay on as head of state until the ballot has provoked blunt threats from donors. "(His) decision places Togo in a situation of cutting itself off from the international community," said Louis Michel, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. The shifting of Togo's political sands has also raised questions with regard to assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. They had issued a re-engagement note for Togo in December -- the first step to sorting out the country’s debt arrears and getting major development projects off the ground. “In the worst-case scenario, the political developments have thrown reengagement into jeopardy. In the best-case scenario, it will simply be delayed,” Fidele Sarassoro, the UN Resident Co-ordinator told IRIN. Back at CARE, director Claudine Mensah is gloomy about Togo’s prospects of rapidly climbing out of its social and economic hole. “I don’t think there will be a humanitarian crisis that grabs the attention of the international community,” she said. “But things will gradually get worse and worse.”