{"id":2452,"date":"2021-11-01T22:35:44","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T22:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=2452"},"modified":"2021-11-01T22:35:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T22:35:44","slug":"coups-make-a-comeback-in-africa-and-for-some-leaders-therein-lies-a-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=2452","title":{"rendered":"Coups Make A Comeback In Africa \u2014 And For Some Leaders, Therein Lies A Warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

CONAKRY, Guinea \u2014\u00a0A military coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Guinea last month \u2014 the country\u2019s third since independence in 1958 \u2014 became just the latest data point in a resurgence of unconstitutional power grabs in West Africa. The return of the plight of coups has raised fears of democratic backsliding in one of Africa\u2019s\u00a0turbulent hotspots<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 5, the 41-year-old\u00a0Colonel Mamady Doumbouya<\/a>\u00a0deposed Guinea\u2019s 83-year-old\u00a0President Alpha Cond\u00e9<\/a>, after declaring it was \u201cthe duty of a soldier is to save the country.\u201d It was West Africa\u2019s second successful coup in 2021, following another in Mali on May 24 and a failed attempt on March 31 in Niger.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, when Chadian strongman Idris D\u00e9by died in April while fighting rebels, the army installed his son Mahamat as de facto president, a move opponents termed a \u201cmilitary power grab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2010, Africa has had eight successful coups and at least 29 attempts, according to an\u00a0ongoing project<\/a>\u00a0to track global coups maintained by American researchers Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne. The pair have documented over 200 coup attempts in Africa since the late 1950s, with the landlocked West African nation of Burkina Faso leading with seven successful and one failed coup.<\/p>\n

Almost all instances, they note, are justified by their perpetrators in name of \u201cthe people\u201d to end autocratic regimes and seek economic and social justice \u2014 even if such good intentions are rarely if ever, achieved.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfrica\u2019s deep-rooted social, political and economic problems in the 21st century cannot be resolved \u2026 by coups nor with greedy heads of states conniving with lawmakers to tweak constitutions to legitimize their stay in power,\u201d\u00a0David Otto, director of\u00a0Geneva Centre for Africa Security and Strategic Studies<\/a>, told Zenger.<\/p>\n

Despite adopting democracy as their system of government, states in Central Africa and the Sahel region also remain a major global epicenter of 21st-century military coups.<\/p>\n

Experts like Otto say that is because they adopted democratic structures without developing relevant supporting institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeaders must rely on strong institutions and respect the rule of law while in power,\u201d he said. \u201cThe military and other security agencies must not be brought too close to politics and used to intimidate citizens into keeping leaders in power. It allows the military to take power by force citing corruption, intimidation, economic downturn, instability, and bad governance from sitting presidents as justification.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cond\u00e9, the ousted president of Guinea, had been a longtime opposition leader in the country before becoming its first\u00a0democratically elected president\u00a0<\/a>in 2010. He won a second term in 2015. After amending the constitution through a\u00a0controversial referendum<\/a>\u00a0in March 2020, he secured a third term in office after an Oct. 2020 presidential\u00a0election<\/a>\u00a0that was\u00a0marred by violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The coup leader, Doumouya, in turn, deposed a man who had once blessed his career, after asking him in 2018 to return to Guinea to lead the newly established elite Special Forces Group. The coup leader is a former French legionnaire who trained in France, Israel, the United Kingdom, Senegal and participated in the United States special forces exercises.<\/p>\n

After the coup, Doumouya proclaimed: \u201cThe duty of a soldier is to save the country\u201d\u2014 a phrase beloved by Africa\u2019s military strongmen who cast themselves as \u201csaviors\u201d of their people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the same with\u00a0Thomas Sankara<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Sam Amadi<\/a>, director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, referring to the leader of Burkina Faso\u2019s 1983 coup, who was killed by military allies in 1987. \u201cWhen the conspiracy gets to the point of enlisting the president\u2019s closest aides, the deed is done. It illustrates the lesson that dictators don\u2019t have trusted people, and their hold on the so-called enablers is tenuous at best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0African Union<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Economic Community of West African States<\/a>\u00a0both condemned Guinea\u2019s coup but could not convince the putschists to return Cond\u00e9 to power.<\/p>\n

But even coups have their apologists, who argue they are often necessary to end unjust governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegional organizations should first condemn prolonged stay in power,\u201d\u00a0Wilson Tamfuh<\/a>, professor of Public and International Law at the University of Buea in Cameroon, told Zenger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is what you call military democracies and civilian dictatorships. We also have a coup of necessity which usually happens when a civilian dictator has brought a country to its knees. There is a need for such a coup, especially if the plotters are doing it in good faith: to reorganize the government, conduct elections, and see that a good constitution is drafted for the country to go back to democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what the coup leaders in Guinea are saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Otto noted that coups can be a difficult event to discourage, as the international community has few useful options to punish militaries who have taken control of the levers of a state. He said continent and regional bodies like the African Union and Economic Community of West African States have only one primary tool to deter such coups: ineffective economic sanctions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not enough to deter putschists who understand how these economic sanctions have been applied unsuccessfully in the past,\u201d Otto said. \u201cThey understand how to circumvent these measures. For example, they\u2019ll appoint a transitional government that they control. The Economic Community Of West African States has so far failed to bring back any deposed leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

That has regional consequences, too, according to Amadi, who attributed the military coup in Guinea to \u201cthe crisis of political legitimacy growing in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the regimes are facing existentialist challenges of legitimacy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result of failed transitions and rigged elections is showing. The so-called democratic governments are transitioning into military regimes. This marks an ugly phase that tends to increase violent conflict over control of political power. In turn, this will increase refugee crisis and starvation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there is Africa\u2019s ever-present \u201cresources curse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guinea is blessed with\u00a0abundant natural resources,<\/a>\u00a0including large quantities of bauxite, iron, gold, and diamonds, and mineral wealth, which gives it the potential to be one of Africa\u2019s wealthiest countries. But its people are among the continent\u2019s poorest \u2014 it\u2019s estimated that 43.7 percent of Guinea\u2019s population of 13 million people live below the poverty line, according to the\u00a0World Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Otto said it was not surprising that younger army colonels were now trying to secure their share of spoils, after being forced to watch their corrupt leaders monopolize them for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese young military officers have had the opportunity to hang around these older leaders and seen how vulnerable they are and in most cases very self-seeking, greedy, and selfish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the end, said Tamfuh of the University of Buea, that means Guinea\u2019s coup should be seen as a warning.<\/p>\n

\u201cCitizens in failing civilian dictatorships are in sinking ships, and if there are no captains bold enough to take the steering wheels, then the ships will all drown with all of us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are not promoting the coups, but we are saying that current hardliners in Africa should learn from what has happened in Guinea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Zenger News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CONAKRY, Guinea \u2014\u00a0A military coup d\u2019\u00e9tat in Guinea last month \u2014 the country\u2019s third since independence in 1958<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-express","category-zenger-zone"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}