The cow belonging to the butcher in Kparatao was tied to a tree and minding its own business when the soldiers pumped it full of bullets.
Within days, the stricken animal became a symbol of popular protests against Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe that have resulted in mounting calls for him to step down.
A photograph of the white, long-horned beast sprawled in a pool of blood was shared widely on social media and sparked fevered reactions online for more than a week. Its fate was even featured on national TV’s main evening news program.
However, despite sparking a slew of online jokes, the killing is more than just a story and no laughing matter for the 6,000 or so inhabitants of Kparatao.
The village, about 340km north of the capital, Lome, is where opposition leader Tikpi Atchadam grew up.
On Sept. 19, the day before the last big nationwide demonstrations, Togo’s military and police turned up in force in Kparatao.
They surrounded the village with pickup trucks as an elite unit — the red berets — spread out conducting raids, asking questions and looking for “weapons of war.”
No stone was left unturned. They even checked under the bed of the traditional leader.
“Some of them wore balaclavas. They were very nervous,” local elder Agoro Wakilou said. “We thought they’d come to kill us.”
Two people have been killed since the first protest took place in the neighboring city of Sokode late last month and the situation remains tense.
Police Chief Abalo Yao claimed troops found “three Korean assault rifles,” bows and arrows, charms and 18 million CFA francs (US$32,370) in counterfeit notes.
Villagers dispute the claim.
The soldiers were about to leave when shots rang out, creating panic. The butcher’s cow had been shot at point-blank range.
“It was threatening the defense and security forces,” police said.
Inevitably, news of the incident caused amusement online.
“Even animals want Togo’s 1992 constitution,” one person said on Twitter, referring to the issue at the heart of the opposition protests.
Others paid tribute to what they said was “the latest victim of repression of Gnassingbe’s dictatorial regime.”
News site Togomedias.com called the death a “political assassination.”
The wall of the butcher’s house near where the animal was killed was riddled with bullet holes.
The butcher’s wife, who was inside the house at the time of the shooting, was grazed by a bullet and spent three days in a hospital.
“After the raids, the intimidation, it was the final straw. The village chief went to see the prefect to get compensation for the butcher,” Wakilou said.
Elders in Kparatao, where Atchadam thought would be the best place to hide his family, now say they live in fear.
“They [the government] are threatening us because the opposition leader is from here,” said one old man, dressed in a long white tunic, his eyes clouded by cataracts.
Comi Toulabor, head of research at the Institute of Political Studies in Bordeaux, France, has another theory about why the cow had to die.
For the military, Atchadam’s spirit might have been in it, Toulabor said, adding: “Animist beliefs are still very common in Togo.”
He drew parallels between the shooting and a well-known story that has circulated in Lome since the time of Gnassingbe’s father, former Togolese president Gnassingbe Eyadema, who was president from 1967 until his death in 2005.
“Every Jan. 13 on the stroke of midnight since 1963, Eyadema used to assemble his officers at ... camp in Lome and shoot a cow to mark the assassination of Sylvanus Olympio, the first president of independent Togo,” Toulabor said.
The general claimed to have personally fired the shot that killed Olympio.
Toulabor said the story might sound outlandish, but several senior army officers had confirmed it to him.
Along with neighboring Benin, Togo is one of the birthplaces of voodoo and the former president “was always surrounded by all sorts of charm makers and holy men,” Toulabord said. “Faure is carrying on this ritual even today.”
“The military wanted to symbolically kill Tikpi Atchadam,” he said.
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