SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Monday, May 9, 2005 · Last updated 12:02 a.m. PT

Son of late Togo dictator changes little

By BRYAN MEALER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

LOME, Togo -- For years, Foli Nyassia watched as his neighbors were beaten, arrested and snatched away in the night by soldiers under Togo's late dictator.

Now the new president - son of the late dictator - professes to have embraced democracy and vows to unite his divided country. But Nyassia says little has changed in his opposition-dominated neighborhood of Be, on the eastern edge of Lome.

There, the disputed election of Faure Gnassingbe, who took the oath of office Wednesday, set off days of clashes, more deadly nighttime visits by soldiers, and the flight of thousands of terrified residents across the borders to neighboring Ghana and Benin.

Only last week, the dusty streets of Be were filled with young machete-wielding youths burning barricades and firing stones with slingshots at soldiers, who answered with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.

Now only an eerie silence remains, with most of the streets empty except for mounds of rotting garbage, dilapidated shacks and burnt husks of cars destroyed in the rioting.

The raids and harassment have forced many Be residents to flee the country. They are among 20,000 Togolese who have left since the government opened the borders Thursday, U.N. officials say. While the worst of the violence appears over, there are still reports of sporadic raids.

The government has repeatedly denied targeting innocent civilians in opposition neighborhoods. Officials could not be reached for comment for this article.

For all his talk of reform, Gnassingbe was a member of his father's Cabinet and has never clearly denounced Togo's brutal past. Whatever his intentions, it is not clear to what extent he can control the military.

Last week, Nyassia said he watched soldiers force a crippled man out of a church to dismantle barricades that had been built by demonstrators. As the man struggled to walk, the soldiers shot him in the stomach, then dragged him away, Nyassia said.

"After every election the soldiers come looking for militants," said Nyassia, who sent his wife and children to Ghana on Thursday. "But always, it's only us who suffer."

In past elections in 1993, 1998 and 2003, the government under the late dictator Gnassingbe Eyadema routinely sent soldiers into opposition neighborhoods like Be, Nyekonakpoe and Adamavo to crush demonstrations. Raids would continue after the votes, as troops came looking for opposition leaders suspected of hiding in homes.

Residents say the government also has punished them by shutting down electricity, water, and garbage collection.

Emmanuel Akakpo, 50, lives near a giant garbage dump in central Be, where groups of children and white seabirds pluck at the fetid heap. Akakpo said his neighbors are always sick from the garbage, and babies die regularly of malaria and cholera.

"The government wants to turn Be into a desert," said Akakpo, a taxi driver. "We're constantly breathing chemicals, and the odor here is awful."

In Nyekonakpoe, residents doubt Gnassingbe will be any different from his father, despite his promises to unite the political parties and find work for thousands of restless youth.

"Faure's father never gave me anything to eat, and neither will he," said one man in Nyekonakpoe, who only gave his first name, Amidou. "We all want the same things, but we only get the same problems."

He said many of his friends had already fled to Ghana. As he spoke, a military truck packed with soldiers rolled down the empty street.

One refugee, Kokou Ablevi, said he was at home with his family when masked soldiers descended on his street last Friday. Ablevi squeezed everyone under a tiny bed in the back room and waited for the troops to pass.

Instead, heavy boots kicked down his door, gunfire thundered through the room and suddenly his sister-in-law was dead, shot through the heart, he said.

The next day Ablevi fled to Ghana, where U.N. officials took him and his family to a small refugee camp in Mastrikasa, 20 miles from the border.

As rain pelted the tin roof of an abandoned tool shed he now shares with 105 other refugees, tears rolled down his cheeks.

"We left her body under the bed," he said of his sister-in-law.