Gnassingbe Eyadema
, 69, who died of a heart attack on Saturday [Feb. 5, 2005], came to power himself in a
military coup and led his tiny, impoverished country - just over two-thirds the size of
Scotland - for 38 years, making him the world�s longest-serving ruler after
Cuba�s
Fidel Castro.
He was one of the last of Africa�s so-called "Big Men". A general when he died, he was a sergeant when he came to power after the assassination of the country�s democratically elected president, Sylvanus Olympio.
Eyadema ruled with a rod of iron through the military, which he kept loyal through a system of patronage. His regime has been compared to that of Iraq�s Saddam Hussein in terms of its brutality, the repression of suspected dissidents and the terrorising of the country�s five million people, most of whom are illiterate or semi-literate peasants surviving through subsistence agriculture. Torture and extra-judicial killings were common under Eyadema, and an estimated one million Togolese have left the country since he came to power in 1967.
