Togo youths: 'Send us guns'

[Columbia]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/02/16/togo.bitter.youth.ap/index.html

Togo youths: 'Send us guns'

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 Posted: 4:14 PM EST (2114 GMT)



LOME, Togo (AP) -- Armed with sticks and stones and hard-bitten desperation, Togo's opposition movement waged a 38-year losing battle against the oppressive military regime of President Gnassingbe Eyadema.

After Eyadema's February 5 death was followed by the abrupt appointment by the army of his son Faure Gnassingbe, Togo's new generation of protesters is dismissing people-power, grass-roots solidarity and all that.

They want guns, and lots of them.

Restless, jobless and short on patience, the youth of Togo's beach-front capital say weaponry is the only way to bring down the Gnassingbe military dynasty, which has made fear and intimidation a bedrock of Togolese society.

<MORE>

[struggle4progress]

1. Europe: Togo Faces African Sanctions as Thousands Protest

1 Hour,18 minutes Ago


: LOME, Togo - <snip> Faure Gnassingbe, who was named president by the army just hours after the death of his father Gnassingbe Eyadema two weeks ago, said Friday he would hold a presidential election within 60 days but indicated he would not step down before then.

Regional officials, who have branded the succession a coup, said the election pledge did not meet their demands that Togo revert to its original constitution, which was amended after Gnassingbe's nomination to legitimise the move.

In Togo's capital Lome, at least 10,000 people marched through the opposition stronghold of Be, waving branches and placards and demanding Gnassingbe step down in the largest protest since the 39-year-old took over.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, current head of the African Union (AU), told a visiting Togolese delegation that he would not endorse the decision to leave Gnassingbe as president until elections, said Obasanjo's spokeswoman Remi Oyo. <snip>

http://www.keralanext.com/news/indexread.asp?id=122433


<edit:> TOGO: Gnassingbe digging in as the new front man for Togo's long-ruling elite

19 Feb 2005 16:31:09 GMT
Source: IRIN

LOME, 19 February (IRIN) - <snip> Eyadema's sudden death on 5 February left Gnassingbe as the best bet the extended family business had of clinging on to the perks of power, diplomats and analysts say. <snip>

The next day a parliament stacked with family allies amended the constitution and the electoral code to retroactively rubberstamp the transition of power and clear Gnassingbe to rule until 2008.

"These guys have not been accountable for 38 years, and they want someone who can protect their interests," one Western diplomat in Lome told IRIN.

Despite a tide of international condemnation, the threat of sanctions from neighbouring West African states and protests on the streets of the capital, Lome, crushed by police firing live bullets into the crowd, Gnassingbe has refused to stand down. <snip>

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/453a5ce13ad86f8064d4677e69ffdbf8.htm

[Igel]

2. The last thing they need is guns.

Let them duke it out with rotten bananas or branches.

13% Muslim, 48% Xian, and scattered other; with several large tribes and a history of interethnic rivalry. And let's not mention class warfare. Don't see how Eyadema could be Muslim (wrong sort of name, but that's not a for-sure clue).

Dictator Saddam kept peace over a cauldron of seething interethnic/religious tensions. So did Tito. I don't like dictatorships; no or few guns, the best revolution you can get is through non-violence and mass action.

Last thing the people need is the kind of pointless bloodshed in Ivory Coast or Liberia.

[mordarlar]

3. Yet the military has guns.

[Igel]

4. And we see how much better it was in Ivory Coast and

Liberia when the franchise on violence and bloodshed was extended to the entirety of the population.

There was a coup last week or the one before that. Let's try compelling them to give discussions a chance by denying them the chance of ethnic and religious warfare, or is a bloodbath somewhat more satisfying to Western sensibilities?

[mordarlar]

5. I suppose as bush becomes more powerful we should simply go...

along. When they TELL us what to do with OUR CHILDREN, homes, faiths, reproductive rights we will all submit to the CONTAINMENT of the administration. No, it is always different when it is personal.

Easy to stand outside the box on this one and suggest that the "flock" under the dictator should behave one way or another. Until we ARE the flock.

I believe in peaceful action. But when the rulers themselves are not peaceful and will not TOLERATE peaceful dissent other action sometimes becomes necessary.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

[Igel]

7. Go along with what?

I'm the one saying give discussions a chance. I don't know why you think a bloody revolution, which invariably leads to civilian death, is in any way preferable to getting the jerk to submit to elections.

Unless you believe that the army's going to extirpate the citizenry between now and then.

[DoNotRefill]

6. Yup...

after all, if they've failed to change the government by using peaceful means for the past THIRTY YEARS, then if they stick with using peaceful means, the government is SURE to fall in the very near future....

/singing Bob Marley's "Sit down, shut up, you know you can't be right..." Isn't that how the lyrics went???

[LinuxInsurgent]

8. then you go in there...

and sing Kumbaya...right before getting your head split open.

I PREFER non-violence...but when it hasn't worked for 38 years, it's time to get Frantz Fanon on some mofos...

[bemildred]

9. Tsk, naive children. You need RPGs and a few hundred tons of RDX. nt

[ausiedownunderground]

10. Chirac is focusing on Lebanon- Togo Youth you'll have to wait!

Togo - most Americans would think that this was some type of "turtle" or "Dance"! Who cares!! In Oz we don't even care as well. We are fully with the US on this - Like Rawanda, let Togo Rock!!! There is nothing better than blacks killing blacks. But Muslims killing supposed christians- WTF