Togo Presidential Adviser Holds Influence

It is not possible for Africans to be too upset about French interference, exploitation and destruction of their countries. Read on, and learn the story of a certain Charles Debbasch, who loves dogs more than people.

By BRYAN MEALER (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

February 23, 2005  KINSHASA, Congo (AP)
A bespectacled French law professor who was rarely seen around the Togolese capital without his lapdog named Love is the secret weapon of a regime now led by the late dictator's son.  Presidential legal adviser Charles Debbasch is believed to have tweaked  the West African nation's constitution so that Gnassingbe Eyadema could run for another term a few years ago. He's believed to have written more constitutional changes to allow the father-to-son succession after  Eyadema died of a heart attack Feb. 5.

The trust Eyadema placed in Debbasch showed that a regime better known for going to horrifying lengths to silence dissent - beating old women with belt buckles, torturing political foes so severely their fingers blackened and fell off - also recognized the value of more subtle, pseudo-legal means when it came to hanging onto power.

With Love, his tiny brown Yorkshire, propped in the crook of his arm, Debbasch was constantly seen at the dictator's side or elsewhere in Lome, where he had a home in a fashionable neighborhood. He does not give interviews or public statements, though he did write a 2001 book about his pet: "A Love for Love: Five Years with my Favorite Yorkshire."

He reportedly is still steering the course of Togo's regime, which faces international pressure, including from the United States, for Eyadema's son, Faure Gnassingbe, to step down. "Debbasch represents a new model for a new era," said French filmmaker
Eric Deroo, who made a documentary about Eyadema and his circle in the 1990s. "These days, it's more practical for a dictator to be protected by laws than by big guns."

Debbasch, who has homes in Togo and France, was in France when Eyadema died. Togolese parliament speaker Fambare Natchaba, who under the constitution was to step in as caretaker in the event of the president's death in office, was also in Europe, on official business. They took the same flight back to Lome after Eyadema's death. Togolese insiders say Natchaba handed Debbasch a copy of a proposed speech to
the nation, which the adviser found too self-aggrandizing. Debbasch made an in-flight call to Lome, and shortly afterward, the flight was refused permission to land and diverted to neighboring Benin, the insiders said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of angering powerful forces in their country.

The next day, Debbasch was able to cross the border into Togo by road, but Natchaba was barred. Natchaba is still in Benin. The military took advantage of Natchaba's absence to install Gnassingbe as interim president hours after his father's death. The day Debbasch arrived, parliament made it permanent, first making Gnassingbe speaker
then approving a constitutional amendment that allowed him to fulfill his father's term, which expires in 2008.

International and regional uproar ensued - some said the military had engineered a bloodless coup to keep the Eyadema clan in power. The parliament responded by more tinkering with the constitution earlier this week, approving changes allowing for presidential elections within 60 days. But instead of ensuring Gnassingbe was the disinterested caretaker for which the original constitution had provided, he was left in charge to oversee elections in which he says he'll run.

For 10 years, nearly every major decision and piece of legislation in Togo has been vetted by Debbasch, observers of the regime say. In 2002, he reportedly rewrote the constitution to allow Eyadema to run for another term.

Debbasch met Eyadema through French lawyer Jacques Verges, who was also on the Togolese payroll and was known for representing people like Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. Verges helped Eyadema sue Amnesty International after the international human rights group accused Togolese security forces of killing hundreds of political opponents during 1998 presidential elections. The Amnesty case was dropped in 2000, according to the human rights group.

The 67-year-old Debbasch was once the dean of the university law school in Aix-en-Provence in southern France and an adviser to former French President Valery Giscard d' Estaing. Filmmaker Deroo said Debbasch's unassuming manner was deceptive. "He was a very precious guy," Deroo said. "I never saw him without that dog."


Togo opposition leader Harry Olympio said the sense that Debbasch had
"total control of the government" earned him the enmity of some in Togo.
"Debbasch is protected by soldiers," said Olympio, who as a former
member of parliament once worked with Debbasch. "Otherwise the Togolese
people would kill him on sight."

Comments

[Moore]

Togolese Diaspora

http://www40.brinkster.com/libertatogo/index.html

[abby]

hey. i had to use this website for a French project, great information. thanks so much!:]