TOGO PM DENIES MASSACRES

TOGOLESE Prime Minister Agbeyome Messan Kodjo has appeared before the UN Human Rights Commission to deny allegations that hundreds of people were killed in Togo following elections in June 1998. Amnesty International had in a May 1999 report alleged the Togolese security forces had killed several hundred people and thrown their bodies into the Gulf of Guinea following the elections. The London-based human rights group said fishermen and farmers interviewed in a number of villages in Togo and neighbouring Benin claimed to have seen scores of dead bodies in the water and along beaches that had apparently been dumped by Togolese security force aircraft seen overflying the area. The killings allegedly occurred after the June 1998 re-election of President Gnassingbe Eyadema, in power since a bloodless coup in 1967 propelled him to the presidency of the tiny west African nation. – AFP

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