African veteran dies, replaced by his son

Gnassingbe Eyadema was a former wrestling champion who loved to wear dark suits and rarely removed his sunglasses. Picture / Reuters

Togo President Gnassingbe Eyadema, Africa's longest-serving ruler, died yesterday after 38 years in power and the Army named his son as his successor.

A senior African Union official described the move as a military coup.

The Army, saying it could not risk a power vacuum, sealed the West African country's borders and named 39-year-old Faure Gnassingbe president shortly after the Government announced the death of Eyadema, 69, while seeking emergency medical treatment abroad.

"Togo's armed forces have decided to confer power on Mr Faure Gnassingbe from today," Army Chief of Staff Zakari Nandje said on state television, before pictures of Gnassingbe being invested in front of military chiefs were broadcast.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, the chairman of the African Union, said the appointment was unconstitutional.

"President Obasanjo will not accept any unconstitutional transition of power in Togo," his spokeswoman said.

"Speaking on behalf of the AU, President Obasanjo has urged the people of Togo to insist on respect of the constitution on the provision of an interim leadership that will lead to the democratic election of a new president for Togo."

African Union Commission president Alpha Omar Konare, a former president of Mali, said it was a military coup.

"What is happening now in Togo, you must call things by their proper name, is a seizing of power by the Army. It's a military coup d'etat," he told Radio France Internationale.

Under Togo's constitution, the head of the National Assembly, Fambare Ouattara Natchaba, should have assumed power after Eyadema's death and elections organised within 60 days. The Army said Natchaba was not in Togo yesterday.

Eyadema, who survived numerous assassination attempts, a plane crash and bloody pro-democracy protests in the 1990s, had been suffering from illness for a few years and had been abroad on several occasions recently for medical treatment.

Born in 1935, Eyadema was a former wrestling champion who loved to sport dark suits and rarely removed his sunglasses. He was a young soldier when he staged one of the continent's first post-colonial coups in 1963.

Eyadema took power in his own name four years later and ruled the former French colony virtually unchallenged, becoming the archetypal African "Big Man".

There has been speculation that Faure Gnassingbe was being groomed to take over from his ailing father since he was given the influential position of Minister of Mines, Equipment and Transportation, Post and Telecommunications.

Phosphate mining is the main foreign exchange earner for Togo, a narrow country which is slightly smaller than Sri Lanka and borders Ghana, Burkina Faso and Benin.

A change to the constitution in 2002 also lowered the minimum age for president to 35 from 45, opening the door for Eyadema's son.

On the African stage, Eyadema carved himself the role of a peacemaker, focusing on regional diplomacy and, most recently, helping to mediate in Ivory Coast's civil war.

But at home, Eyadema's authoritarian style and the slow pace of political reform drew international criticism.

Rights group Amnesty International accused his forces of killing hundreds of people during a 1998 presidential election, in which Eyadema was declared winner after the vote count was abruptly stopped.

- REUTERS