TOGO: UN report says at least 400 people died in political violence

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

LOME, 26 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Between 400 and 500 people were killed and thousands wounded in Togo during political violence earlier this year and state authorities must shoulder most of the blame, the United Nations said on Monday.

In a long-awaited report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, referred to "the massive nature and gravity of human rights violations as evidenced by the high number of victims -- between 400 and 500 dead and thousands wounded."

Previous estimates of the death toll had ranged from the Interior Ministry's 69, to Western diplomats saying that more than 100 people had been killed and the Togolese League of Human Rights putting the number of dead at more than 800.

Violence first erupted in this tiny West African nation in February when the death of President Gnassingbe Eyadema brought his 38-year rule to a sudden end and prompted his son Faure Gnassingbe to seize power.

In the face of international condemnation, Gnassingbe agreed to step down and hold elections. He eventually won the ballot but the opposition denounced the polls as rigged, and more widespread violence ensued, sending thousands of Togolese fleeing east to Benin and west to Ghana to seek refuge.

"The country has regularly experienced cycles of violence as different electoral processes have been carried out. But with the election on 24 April 2005, the violence seemed to reach a degree never seen before," Arbour said in her 49-page report, written on the basis of a visit by her agency to Togo in mid June.

"The principal responsibility for the political violence and the violations of human rights (resided with) the state security apparatus," she said. "The reactions of the security forces were excessive in relation to the demonstrations and actions of the opposition militants."

The majority of victims were killed in their own homes, the report said.

It also cited credible evidence that there had been commando units within the army who had been primed "not only to crush the demonstrators and militants but also to round up the corpses and systematically dispose of them so that they could not be counted."

Reinforcements had been bussed in from the north -- the bastion of support for the father-to-son political transition. Some soldiers had been given civilian clothes and paid to work undercover with machetes and cudgels.

Torture and inhumane treatment had also been widely deployed during the unrest, the UN human rights chief said.

Government tight-lipped, opposition calls for change

Togo's Communications Minister and government spokesman, Kokou Tozoun, had no immediate comment on the UN report when contacted by IRIN on Monday.

But on the official government website www.republicoftogo.com, an unsigned editorial dismissed the UN findings.

"The U.N. report seems a slapdash affair with hasty conclusions," it said. "We are allowed to doubt the seriousness of the inquiry."

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