Talk:Gnassingbé Eyadéma

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Saturday 5 February 2005, 20.35: Dictator Eyadema is just dead this morning. A country is free of 38 years of tyranny, but is afraid of its uncertain future. L, Belgium

I gave the article a bit of hasty revising, correcting and expanding due to the fact that many people are doubtless going to look here for information, and are probably doing so already. But I must confess my knowledge about Eyadema is insufficient to do much more than that. Anybody who can do better than me, please give it a try. Everyking 21:45, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also perhaps someone would know enough to modify the first bit of the Politics of Togo article. -- KittySaturn 07:13, 2005 Feb 6 (UTC)

"He fathered one hundred children with seven women." That doesn't seem like it could be right. That would require each woman to have about 14 kids by him, right? I'm guessing there's either fewer kids or more women. Everyking 15:04, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

References

How come this article is using itself as a reference and is rated B class?--Natsubee 14:57, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this needs to be taken down a notch (or several) on the scale. Even after I did a fair amount of cleanup on it (such as removing the appalling self-references), it's still a mess. Everyking 04:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the rating was done before an anon did a very poor rewrite on June 14, in which he or she deleted whole paragraphs of good info and replaced them with poorly written POV paragraphs filled with weirdly formatted referencing, including the bizarre self-references. There were a couple of good elements added in that rewrite, though, such as info about his funeral, so in cleaning it up I tried to merge the best of the old and new versions together. Everyking 06:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

dob

The article gives his year of birth variously as 1935 and 1937.217.43.173.146 (talk) 20:48, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

His date of birth is uncertain, though officially it was announced that he was born on December 26, 1935.: Gnassingbé EYADEMA — né le 26 Décembre 1935 à Pya legitogo.gouv.tg

As additional confirmations:

• The New York Times says, He was born [...] on Dec. 26, 1935.[1]
• BBC states that he died at 69 (in 2005),[2] which means he was born in 1935 if his birthday is after Feb. 5.
• Radio France Internationale also says it was 1935.[3]
• Britannica Online agrees.[4]
• Larousse agrees.[5]

In an article in Encyclopædia Universalis, Comi M. Toulabor says: Sa date de naissance officielle, fixée au 26 décembre 1935, relève d'une imagination fertile. Il serait plus exact de dire qu'Étienne Eyadéma est né vers 1930.[6] (Translation: His official date of birth, set on December 26, 1935, is based on a fertile imagination. It would be more accurate to say that Étienne Eyadéma was born around 1930.) As of writing this, the French version of this article in Wikipedia also says he was born in 1935, with a short footnote: État civil inexistant donc date de naissance aléatoire. (Translation: Civil registration didn’t exist, thus the date of birth is uncertain.) One source that says his year of birth is 1937 is infopelase.[7]

Since so many sources, including something published by the Togolese government, say it’s 1935, we should use 1935; unless, of course, someone comes up with something reliable that states he was actually born in 1937 even though officially he was born in 1935. —Gyopi (talk) 12:32, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Two more official documents that say he was born in 1935:

• Pages from jo_1998-016.pdf
• Pages from jo_2003-016ter.pdf

I will update the article soon.—Gyopi (talk) 12:47, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Done. —Gyopi (talk) 11:18, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Neutrality and Weasel Words

I noticed that a lot of the first paragraph consists of badly-worded statements, all of them quite vague. There is thinly-veiled pro-Eyadéma content in there, and I'd like to keep this neutral. For example, the bad speculation bit about France being behind the killings (that I keep in only because I have no knowledge about Eyadéma myself, and don't want to cut something important) seems awfully suspicious. Could we get someone who knows about Eyadéma to come in and clean this article up, please? --24.22.240.16 (talk) 07:27, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

Does anyone know how to pronounce Eyadéma's name? Josh (talk) 20:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

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Name Change Information

The Wikipedia article says that he was born Étienne Eyadéma and changed his name from Étienne to Gnassingbé after the plane crash, but this Guardian obit says his father was named Gnassingbé and that he took the name Étienne at first and then eventually replaced it with Eyadema (meaning courage). It makes more sense that Gnassingbé is a family name, as his son has it too, and that the name change was Étienne (French) to Eyadéma (more African). https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/feb/07/guardianobituaries

This obituary refers to him as if Eyadema were his surname, but says he was given the Christian name Etienne, only changing it to Eyadema, meaning "courage" in the local dialect, when he began his ascent to power. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1483018/Gnassingbe-Eyadema.html

This one says he changed his first name from Étienne to Gnassingbé, after his father, agreeing with the Wikipedia article, but of course it has a different birthdate. https://newint.org/columns/worldbeaters/2001/06/01/gnassingbeeyadema

Faure Gnassingbé's half-brother is named Kpatcha Gnassingbé, which does seem to indicate that Gnassingbé is a family name passed from father to son, and not a christian name. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14935349

This article, written by a Nigerian, refers to the family as the Gnassingbes. https://www.tori.ng/news/74695/the-story-of-gnassingbe-eyadema-the-evil-dictator.html

Encyclopedia Britannica says "In the mid-1970s Eyadéma sought to strengthen the country’s nationalism by ordering the citizens of Togo to assume African first names, himself adopting the name Gnassingbé." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gnassingbe-Eyadema

So did he change his first name to his father's name, Gnassingbé, drop the Étienne and then make his former surname the family name for his sons? Did he name all of his sons after himself?

Togolese naming conventions may defy assumptions like "a person has two names at birth" and "a person's surname comes after his christian name" or "a person has the same surname as his father". It doesn't help that the guy made up stories about himself anyway.

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A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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• Gnassingbé Eyadema, 1972.jpg

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• President Gnassingbe anniversary.jpg

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