Togo, 1986 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On the night of 23 September 1986 a group of around seventy armed dissidents crossed from Ghana into the Togolese capital Lome in an attempt to overthrow the long ruling President Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had held power since a 1967 coup. The attackers, entering in some thirty to forty trucks, headed for the military camp where Eyadema resided and opened fire with automatic weapons and rocket launchers, also striking the radio station and the headquarters of the ruling RPT party. Eyadema reportedly led the counterattack in person, and Togolese armed forces, backed by warplanes, crushed the assault in an all night street battle that left at least thirteen people dead, including commandos and civilians, with nineteen rebels captured.
Eyadema blamed Ghana, then ruled by Jerry Rawlings, for harboring and enabling the mostly Ewe opposition dissidents linked to the exiled sons of the murdered first president Sylvanus Olympio, and France responded to his appeal by sending warplanes and troops. Eyadema survived and ruled Togo until his death in 2005, after thirty eight years in power.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
46109231986
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Gnassingbe Eyadema crushed the September 1986 cross border attack and ruled Togo until 2005.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Globe and Mail
Irish Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →