EYADEMA, GNASSINGBE

born Dec. 26, 1937, Pya, Togoland [now Togo] original name Etienne Eyadema soldier who became president of Togo after a military takeover in January 1967. Eyadema joined the French army in 1953, served in Indochina, Dahomey, Niger, and Algeria (195361), and had attained the rank of sergeant when he returned to Togo in 1962. When President Sylvanus Olympio refused to take 626 Togolese veterans of French wars into Togo's tiny army, a group of them, including Eyadema, murdered him in an otherwise almost bloodless military coup (January 1963) and installed a civilian, Nicolas Grunitzky, as president. After an abortive coup by members of the Ewe tribe of southern Togo in November 1966, the army took over directly in January 1967 and in April made its chief, Eyadema, president and minister of national defense. He invited past political exiles to return, and in 1969 he set up a new unity party (the Togolese People's Rally) and became its president. In the mid-1970s Eyadema sought to strengthen the country's nationalism by ordering the citizens of Togo to assume African first names, himself adopting the name Gnassingbe. He was elected to the presidency of Togo in one-party elections held in 1979 and 1985. Eyadema's long rule brought a measure of stability to Togo, and his nationalization of the country's phosphate industry in 1974 produced increased state revenues for development. The economic gains achieved in the 1970s were largely negated in the '80s, however, by governmental mismanagement and corruption. In the early '90s, faced with growing unrest with his rule, Eyadema legalized political parties, freed political prisoners, and agreed to a democratic constitution. He surrendered his power to a transitional government in 1991 while awaiting multiparty elections. Though he was easily reelected in 1993, there were allegations of electoral fraud, a charge that was made at subsequent elections. In 1998 Eyadema started what should be, under terms of the constitution, his final term as president.