Faure Gnassingbe, RPT / UNIR, Army: Conserving power at all costs against a background of lies and terror

"Terror does not endorse authority on a solid foundation, and the best way to ensure peace in a country is rather forgiveness and respect for the lives of others ..." Amadou Hampâté Bâ


Replica the grotesque editing on TVT
Lies of a regime at bay

The few who still watch the National Television TVT have seen Wednesday appear on their small screen a gendarme with hesitant gestures with the appearance of someone who is not convinced of what he does.
Indeed, his mission this evening was to present to the populations the booty of war, that is to say the supposed result of the excavations carried out by soldiers in Sokodé and Kparatao, the native village of the president of the PNP.
At the arrival of the soldiers on September 19 in Kparatao, they informed the Chief of Canton of their mission and began the excavations. And when they felt that they had finished their work, their superior had gone back to the Chief's house, but the latter was already in Sokode to meet the Prefect. The Chief's representative was informed of the end of their mission and went with the head of the military delegation to the house where the beef was shot. The identity of the butcher and that of his injured wife was noted and the military trucks left Kparatao.

The superior of the military knew well that the Chief of Canton was at the Prefecture. If they had found something compromising during their excavations, the Chief of the Village and the Township of Kparatao or at least his representative should be the first to be called to the scene to witness with them. The Chief of Kparatao whom we joined on the telephone told us that he had not been informed of any seizure of weapons, counterfeit notes or drugs.

Bows, arrows, and quiveres belong to the cultural patrimony, and are prevalent among many peoples, especially in the northern part of our country. Although hunting is no longer common due to problems related to wildlife protection, these personal items are used during traditional festivals. The same applies to talismans which are personal and intimate objects which no authority, be it military, has the right to seize under any pretext whatsoever.
Every citizen, wherever he may be and whoever he may be, has the right to have his private life and his private estate in his house, which every normal state is bound to protect. That is why, in order to search someone's home in case of force majeure, the authority needs an authorization issued by a judge and called a search warrant.
And it must happen like that in the normal countries, where the rule of law is a reality.
That is why we say that our country is ruled by a wicked dictatorship. A country where the citizen must still be afraid of the authority of the state is still far from being a state of law.
As in Kparatao, no local authority in the districts of Sokode where the excavations were carried out last Tuesday, that is to say the Barriere and Kossombio, has not been informed of any seizure.
So what happened Wednesday evening at the TVT is just a grotesque montage badly tied. One can sometimes try to embellish the lie, but this one was so big and stupid that it could not have lived at its size to hide it even to the last idiot of the village.

Having found someone with a large amount of money in counterfeit notes and drugs is not a pécadille. And anyone who learns such news usually expects the most from the world to be presented with the supposed criminal. Where are the suspected criminals?

Personal objects seized during the first and last excavations at Sokodé and Kparatao must be handed over without delay to their owners.

After failing to suggest that the PNP is an ethnic and Muslim party supported by jihadists, after miserably failing to invent stories to sleep standing to make the PNP entertain rebels in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire after having failed in trying to oppose the Kabyles to the Kotokoli, they are panicked because Tikpi Atchadam, through his frankness and charisma, has succeeded in restoring verve to the opposition and to the people.
The rebellious opposition, having recovered from the hair of the beast, is frightening, and for the enemies of the people it is necessary to pass by every means, even vile, to undermine this union of the opposition never realized.

The beef slaughtered in the native village of Tikpi Atchadam threatened the armed soldiers to the teeth! One must be so desperate, have lost one's head to make such an assertion. In my own country there is a proverb which says: "The liar does not know that there are some people who reflect."


Terror in Mango and Bafilo

If the demonstrations of the opposition went smoothly on Wednesday September 20th in Lomé, Kpalimé, Sokodé, Dapaong without big incidents, it is the terror in Mango and Bafilo.

In Mango, the incidents began when the RPT / UNIR militia, whose release was not allowed, mingled with the protestors of the opposition to provoke. It was then that the initially peaceful marchers began to attack RPT / UNIR militants and the police by erecting barricades. Our security forces, having the easy trigger, then began to fire live bullets; and thus a 9-year-old child was mortally wounded.

As the good work carried out by the PNP prevents them from sleeping quietly, this political formation has become the bete noire whose hand is seen everywhere. The Minister of Security found that it was the PNP militants who fired at Mango. If the PNP had militants in that locality, would they have gone out to protest or shoot? And with what weapons? Fortunately, the Advisor of the ADDI party François Kampatib replied to Yark that the PNP has no base in Mango.

It would not go too fast by stating that the incidents of Mango were engineered by the zealous prefect of the locality.
Let us not forget that it was the same man who had prevented a PNP meeting a few months ago in this city.

In Bafilo it is another local prefect's potentate who makes the rain and the fine weather. The man originally from Chaoujo has not yet understood that times have changed, and that it is useless to feed hatred against his constituents on the pretext that the majority is not on the side of his protector of president .
The incommunicable prefect said he was not aware of the demonstrations organized by the opposition on 20 and 21 September 2017. This was enough for him to get into his car and go to Kara.
The red berets, arriving a few moments after, as usual, do not make quarter.
The demonstrators who were marching peacefully were scattered unceremoniously. Everything went by: rubber bullets, caning, hunting of people even in houses, seized and burnt motorcycles.
A very heavy balance. Wounded are transported by makeshift means to the Sokodé and Kara hospital. The most unlucky on the road to Kara are recovered by soldiers who refuse them care.
The Red Berets refuse to allow the wounded to be embarked in ambulances. Some are taken by military personnel to unknown destinations.
Pursued even to their last entrenchments, several young people, whose wounds nevertheless require care, are obliged to flee into the mountains, given up to pain and hunger.
The soldiers forbid their loved ones to go and recover them.
In Bafilo it's hell, it's horror.
The government must finally stop appealing to the military, trained for war, to terrorize and cheat civilian populations.

An official of a human rights association in Togo, himself a former soldier, whose name I prefer to mention, once said that we should reconsider how we train the military in our country. A military training, according to him, which is in itself a torture.

A people demanding more bread, democracy, freedom and justice with bare hands, and to whom are sent commandos trained to kill in times of war.
This people of Togo, from North to South, does not deserve this!



Thanks to the Chief of Canton of Kparatao, to our correspondents in Bafilo and Mango thanks to whom this article could be written.


Samari Tchadjobo

Germany