426 Torrijos, Omar Eyadéma and his party, Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais (RPT, or Togolese People’s Assembly), created a new constitution In the elections that followed, Eyadéma was almost unanimously reelected president On the 13th anniversary of his takeover of the government, Eyadéma announced the Third Togolese Republic Unrest continued to plague Togo, and in 1986 France sent troops to help quell another attempted coup Eyadéma was reelected to another seven-year term the same year Eyadéma agreed in 1991 to work with a transitional government until general elections could be held A national referendum in 1992 approved a new constitution Among the provisions of the constitution were the establishment of multiparty elections and term limits for officials In the 1993 election Eyadéma was still able to emerge as the victor for another term The elections resulted in a new legislature, which demanded concessions In 1994 he appointed Edem Kodjo prime minister of a new coalition government Nevertheless Eyadéma was reelected in 1998 and in 2003, after the legislature removed the term limits from the constitution When President Eyadéma died in February 2005, he was succeeded by his son Faure Gnassingbe The succession, supported by the military but not by the constitution, was challenged by popular protest and a threat of sanctions from regional leaders Gnassingbe easily won the elections he held in April 2005 Further reading: Cooper, Frederick, and Martin Klein Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (New Approaches to African History) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; Manning, Patrick Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, 1880–1995 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 Jean Shepherd Hamm Torrijos, Omar (1929–1981) Panamanian military chief General Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera was the de facto ruler of Panama from his coup d’état of 1968 until his death in an airplane crash on July 31, 1981, after which he was succeeded by General manuel noriega Best known for successfully negotiating a series of treaties in 1977 with the United States for the return of the Panama Canal to Panama in 2000, Torrijos (torr-EE-yos) was a staunch U.S ally who instituted a range of popular reforms while also suppressing dissent and committing many human rights abuses during his years as the country’s supreme military ruler Never elected to office, Torrijos dominated Panama’s political life for 13 years, his rule representing a significant departure from the country’s previous regimes, dominated by the country’s traditional landowning and commercial elite concentrated in Panama City Denounced by many as a false populist whose dictatorship ruthlessly crushed dissent, paid lip service to anti-imperialism, and selectively dispensed government patronage to defuse and coopt opposition, Torrijos was born on February 13, 1929, in the town of Santiago, southwest of Panama City In 1952 he joined the U.S.-created National Guard, was promoted to captain in 1956, and attended the U.S.-run school of the americas As a lieutenant colonel, in 1968 he and Major Boris Martínez overthrew the democratically elected president Arnulfo Arías Torrijos cultivated the political support of the urban and rural poor, the working class, the middle class, and students through government largesse, legal reforms, and the populist, nationalist, anti-imperialist rhetoric espoused by his People’s Party (Partido del Pueblo, or PdP) Leaving existing property relations largely intact, he excluded the country’s traditional powerholders from office, dissolving the national legislature and outlawing other political parties The high point of his rule came in the 1977 treaties with the United States, though his expenditure of political capital in securing the treaties’ passage compelled him to approve amendments to the constitution in 1978 that paved the way for a return to civilian rule The circumstances of his death remain the topic of considerable controversy, with some implicating his successor, Noriega, in the plane crash that killed him in 1981 Further reading: Haitt, Steven A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2007; Koster, R. M., and Guillermo Sánchez Borbón In the Time of Tyrants: Panama, 1968–1989 New York: Norton, 1990 Michael J Schroeder Touré, Ahmed Sékou (1922–1984) Guinean president Sékou Touré, a prominent West African politician and anticolonial agitator, became president of the Republic of Guinea in 1958 and ruled the country as a singleparty state until his death in 1984 Touré was born on