Police fire tear gas at anti-govt protests in Togo
LOME: Riot police fired tear gas at massive crowds gathered in Togo’s capital, breaking up the huge opposition protests against President Faure Gnassingbe’s regime.
Demonstrators, blowing whistles and waving Togo’s green, yellow and red flag, had said they were determined to stay in the streets ‘all night’ but were finally made to disperse by security forces. In Be, a working-class district of Lome, small groups of protesters set fire to barricades. “Faure, get out, you’re driving us mad,” shouted one young male demonstrator.
The rest of the city remained quiet, even as many residents had set up makeshift barricades in the streets, using tyres and rocks.
The protesters, shouting ‘Liberate, liberate Togo!’, had marched calmly during the day Wednesday and Thursday, but had been blocked from heading to the presidency, according to AFP journalists on the scene.
Togo’s political opposition has long demanded the introduction of a two-round voting system and a limit to the number of terms a president can serve.
Gnassingbe, who has repeatedly promised to look into the reforms but never implemented them, took power in 2005 after the death of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who was installed as head of state of the tiny West African nation in 1967 after a military coup.
“We’re tired. Enough is enough. I’ve known the same family since I was 14. Let’s liberate Togo so these children can see something else,” said one woman who gave her name as Agnes, 64.