Togo’s New Rulers Clamp Down on Media

Michael Hedges February 15, 2005

After the military installed a new president, son of the last one, Togolese media was put on notice: Don’t make waves!

The story has a familiar sound; disorderly transition from one ruler to another followed by warnings to media. February 5th, Togo’s President and Africa’s longest surviving leader Gnassingbe Eyadema died of a heart attack. Under the Togolese constitution the speaker of parliament succeeds a president dying while in office. Instead the military quickly named Eydema’s son, 39 year old Faure Gnassingbe, “acting president.”

The good people of Togo, who lived under Eyadema’s near-dictatorial rule since 1963, tuned to local media for more information. One radio station, Radio Lumiere, was closed (February 10) after it broadcast an interview with opposition leader Harry Olympio who called on French President Jacques Chirac to “re-establish constitutional order.” Togo is one of several former French colonies to appeal to or complain about France in recent years. In the radio interview Olympio encouraged “civil disobedience,” according to Agence France Presse.

Harry Olympio’s uncle, Sylvanus Olympio, was the first elected president of Togo, shot and killed at the US Embassy gates during the coup that brought Eyadema to power.

Radio Lumiere’s owners were “inciting hate and violence,” according to army press spokesman Capt. Moïse Oyomé Kemence, reported by Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF). Police seized the station’s equipment and transmitter and even the managers’ car.

In a chilling reference to the infamous hate-radio episode and its role in the Rwandan genocide, Kemence told a meeting of broadcasters at the headquarters of regulator High Council for Broadcasting and Communication (HAAC) “It is not the job of the press to call on the population to take to the streets and practice civil disobedience. We have ways of putting a stop to that, we don't want a Rwanda here or a Radio des Mille Collines.”

Managers of privately owned stations Kanal FM and Nostalgie were told by HAAC representatives to “play music” and not broadcast interviews or panel discussions and particularly not telephone call-ins. “When listeners are allowed to phone in, anonymous callers very often use the media to make appeals for tribal hate or revolt against the constitutional authorities,” HAAC president Georges Agbodjan told a meeting with broadcasters. In addition to Radio Lumiere, Nostalgie, Kanal FM, Radio Nana FM and independent television station TV7 were closed Friday (11 February) by authorities demanding tax payments.

Supporters and demonstrators near the Radio Nostalgie transmitter site were met and dispersed by riot police Friday afternoon.

And, as certain as the sun rising, Radio France International’s (RFI) local Lomé radio station lost power to its transmitter for two days. One of RFI’s journalists was refused a visa to enter Togo from Benin. RFI maintains, as best they can, an extensive network of broadcast outlets, journalists and correspondents in Africa. Last year the broadcaster engaged in a dispute with Ivory Coast authorities over radio transmissions. In 2003, RFI correspondent Jean Hélène was murdered by an Ivory Coast policeman.