Photographer, Getty Images
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The latest military coup in Africa took place in Burkina Faso. Before him, four successful coups took place in a year, after him – one unsuccessful attempt
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There have been more military coups in Africa over the past year than the average of the 1960s, when military takeover by force was almost commonplace on the continent. African leaders gathered for a summit in Ethiopia condemned this wave of insurgencies.
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During the year, the military seized power in five African countries: Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Sudan and Chad.
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As the head of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council, Bankole Adeoye, told reporters, the participants in the AU summit this weekend in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa unanimously condemned the wave of coups and said they would not tolerate the military in power.
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After the coups, the African Union suspended the membership of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Sudan. According to Bankole Adeoye, this is the first time the union has had to apply this sanction to so many countries in such a short time.
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Since the 1960s, when African countries were freed from colonial dependence, and until the end of the last century, military coups on the continent happened very often.
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In the 1960s, researchers from the American universities of Central Florida and Kentucky counted 26 successful coups and 15 unsuccessful insurgencies, that is, a total of 41 attempts to seize power by force, in the 1970s – 42 successful and unsuccessful attempts, in the 1980s – 39, in 1990s – also 39.
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In this millennium, the number of coups and attempted coups in Africa has dropped markedly: 22 in the first decade and 19 in the second. The countries of the continent seemed to be moving towards more or less peaceful and democratic ways of changing power.
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A bad example is contagious
But lately, the density of coups per unit of time has skyrocketed again: over the past two years, the military has taken power in six countries, and three more attempts to seize power have failed.
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Four recent coups have taken place in neighboring countries of West Africa. Two of them, Mali and Burkina Faso, are fighting Islamic extremists, and coups have been linked to this fight.
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An attempted coup in Guinea-Bissau failed last week. Its president accused gangs of drug traffickers of conspiracy: the country has become an important transshipment point on the way of cocaine from Latin America to Europe.
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Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Ando said last week that the first of the recent coups, in Mali, set a contagious bad example for neighboring countries.
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At the same time, most of the inhabitants of West African countries were enthusiastic about the overthrow of the civil authorities, which they considered corrupt and helpless in the fight against radical Islamists, while in the east of the continent, in predominantly Muslim Sudan, a military coup in October last year, on the contrary, was met massive street protests. They were brutally suppressed: the military killed dozens of demonstrators.
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Some accuse the African Union of double standards: by suspending the membership of five countries where the military seized power, it did not apply the same measure to Chad, where in April last year, after the death of President Idris Déby in a battle with rebels, the military also took power and was appointed leader of the country son of Idris Debi Mahamat.
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Deby ruled the country for over 30 years.
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