ECOWAS leaders head for talks with Gnassingbe as police tear-gas protestors in Lome

A high-powered mission of West African leaders was due to fly into Togo on Friday to press the country's new head of state, Faure Gnassingbe, to hold presidential and parliamentary elections within two months as police tear-gassed opposition demonstrators in the capital Lome. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, a fierce critic of the military-backed father-to-son transmission of power in Togo, threatened to pull out of the West African delegation after a Nigerian plane carrying an advance party of his aides, was denied landing permission in Lome. However, his colleagues from Niger, Mali, Benin and Ghana were still due to fly into Togo to meet with Gnassingbe in the northern town of Kara, the birthplace of his father Gnassingbe Eyadema, who died on 5 February. Government officials in Benin said all four leaders had gathered in Cotonou, along with Alpha Oumar Konare, the President of the Commission of the African Union, for a preliminary meeting, before proceeding to Kara for talks with Gnassingbe in the afternoon. Obasanjo's office said he also flown in to Cotonou to take part in this preliminary meeting, but they would not confirm whether the influential Nigerian leader would continue on to Togo. Earlier, Obasanjo's official spokeswoman, Remi Oyo, had told reporters: "On Thursday evening, the plane carrying the advance team of... Obasanjo was refused landing in Lome." "As a result of this unfriendly and hostile action, President Obasanjo has advised the executive secretary of ECOWAS, Mr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, of his decision not to participate in the delegation of leaders who were supposed to visit Togo's president," Oyo said. In Lome on Friday, police used tear gas and batons to disperse a group of several hundred demonstrators attempting to stage a protest march against the new government. An eyewitness told IRIN that several people were hurt, one seriously. The march was organised by Harry Olympio, a former government minister, who has taken a hard line against Gnassingbe's seizure of power, following the death in office of his father. On Thursday, the authorities closed Lumiere FM, a private radio station in the coastal town of Aneho, 45 km east of Lome, after it broadcast an interview with Olympio, in which he called on people to resist Gnassingbe's takeover. The campus of Lome university was virtually deserted on Friday after students went on strike in protest at his seizure of power. The campus has been heavily guarded by police and soldiers since they broke up a student demonstration there on Monday. Since then they have been checking the identity of everyone entering the area and several students have complained of being harassed or beaten. Change of venue Government officials said the venue of Friday's meeting between Gnassingbe and a delegation of leaders from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had been switched at the last minute from Lome to Kara, 400 km to the north. The small town is a stronghold of Gnassingbe's family and their Kabiye ethnic group, which dominates the military high command. Gnassingbe, 39, was declared head of state by the armed forces following the sudden death of his father, who held power in this former French colony for 38 years. His appointment raised howls of protest from the African Union, ECOWAS, the United Nations and western donors, since it contravened Togo's constitution. This stipulated that the presidency should have gone to Fambare Ouattara Natchaba, the head of the National Assembly. He in turn was charged with organising presidential elections within 60 days. Although Gnassingbe summoned parliament the day after he took power to retroactively legitimise his appointment as head of state, this tactic failed to impress ECOWAS. The 15-nation body denounced his seizure of the presidency as a military coup and held a summit in Niger on Wednesday to consider ways of putting pressure on the authorities in Togo to implement genuine democracy. That meeting resolved to send a delegation of ECOWAS heads of state to Togo to persuade the authorities to allow the succession to take place in accordance with the constitution as it existed before Eyadema died. The ECOWAS leaders threatened to impose sanctions against Togo, which is surrounded by other member states of the organisation, should it fail to comply. Opposition parties in Togo have welcomed the wave of international condemnation that followed Gnassingbe's seizure of power and have called a fresh protest demonstration in Lome on Saturday in defiance of the new leader's decision to ban public marches for two months. The government has also taken measures to prevent criticism of the new president in the media. Police visited three privately-run radio stations in Lome on Wednesday to warn them to drop phone-in programmes where listeners could freely air their views about the new government . A senior government official called in news editors on Thursday to warn them that the authorities would not tolerate "appeals for hatred or uprising."