The African Coup Belt: Your coup, My coup, Our coup? Its complex.

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The Many Coups of the Coup Belt

There’s been a spate of coups all over West Africa and beyond – the latest rocking Gabon. The motivations aren’t always the same. In some we find unity in anti-imperialist vision and anti-neocolonial motivation, others are rank opportunists.

Here’s a quick look at what unites and what differentiates the seven recent power grabs.

The Anti-Imperialists

Burkina Faso Coup leader: Ibrahim Traoré:  A highly popular and revered leader, he expelled the French military and tore up unfair accords.  He also suspended the French media and appointed a Prime Minister linked to the Sankara Revolution.

Mali Coup leader: Assimi Goïta:  He kicked out the French military, banned all French NGOs and media, and changed the official language from French to African languages.  He denied visas to French nationals.

Niger Coup leader: Abdourahamane Tchiani.  He terminated French military accords and banned French media. and we still do not know the outcome of ordering the French ambassador to leave.  Currently, electricity and water to the French embassy remain cut off.

These three say they will be working on new constitutions and have transitional Prime Ministers in place.

In Solidarity

Guinea Coup leader: Mamady Doumbouya:  He supported Mali through harsh ECOWAS sanctions and is in the process of forging closer ties with Burkina Faso and Mali.  He rejects military intervention and sanctions against Niger.

The Opportunists

Chad Coup leader: Mahamat Déby – He assumed power after the death of his father Idriss Déby (president of Chad for 30+ years, close ally of France). He oversaw massacre of anti-coup protesters on October 20th, 2022, and is normalizing ties with Israel.

Sudan Coup leader: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – He was close to the deposed leader al-Bashir and is vying for control of the country with paramilitary general Hemeti.  There is a raging civil war that has killed up to 10,000 civilians already.

New coup on the block

Gabon Coup leader:  Brice Oligui Nguema ended over half a century of the Bongo family rule.  He had close links with Omar Bongo and is rumored to be Ali Bongo’s cousin.  Accusations of theft of millions of dollars are flying and these are all people with multiple US properties.

African Voices

Kwesi Pratt, a prominent Ghanaian journalist, believes four more coups are on the way. He says the coup in Gabon was to be expected. The Bongo family has ruled Gabon for over five decades. Despite this and the country’s oil wealth, over a third of Gabon is in poverty. Ali Bongo is under house arrest, as is his son, for high treason. Several high-ranking government officials were reportedly busted with briefcases full of local and foreign currency, one of them attempting to flee the country. The inequality and decades-long corruption explain why the streets erupted into celebration at the news of Ali Bongo’s ouster. The military has already elected General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema as president of a transitional committee to lead the country. The coup has been condemned by France, while the US says it’s following developments closely.

A ‘wind of change’ for West Africa was predicted by Ghanian Archbishop Duncan-Williams. Since then, coups have been shaking up the status quo in one African country after another, and his words today feel very prescient.  He sets his theme in perspective of the youth and says they have nothing to live for, and for someone that has nothing to live for, they won’t mind dying for the proximate cause.  He stated that the countries need to become resolute and well-managed, despite Western democracy and party politics.  He stresses the change in Africa must be according to the tradition, and as we can see, the tradition is military coups so far. 

And if you look at the list of coups, they are mainly against French neocolonial masters.  We can make a tentative statement that those are real popular regime changes but this tenet does not always hold.

With the Niger coup, there was this sense from all that know Africa or even a little.  We all felt that this was grassroots and real with help from previously successful coups.  So far that bears out and despite the usual violent coup, there is no extreme violence.  The new military leaders are doing the right things.  For example, they set a timeline to get back to civil rule and administration.  So far their most dangerous foe is still Ecowas, who is now a divided organization and a clear puppet regional conglomeration.  From this, we may already be able to conclude that these regional supra-national organizations are not as pure as we think.  The Ecowas countries that threatened military action have their hands tied behind their backs now because there is no violence that they can use as a casus belli to attack Niger.  The previous president seems to be in a safe space and not under threat and we hear this morning that the French are seemingly blinking, and their forces will leave.  I guess when the French Ambassador is hungry enough, he will have to appear and they will peacefully give him a ride to the airport.

The timing turned out to be spectacular.  Looking for destabilization at the South African BRICS summit, at first, this Niger coup fits the destabilization mode, yet, the actuality was that Africa was in the spotlight of the world, and that made the coup draw attention.  France had no maneuvering space to hide it, or to do anything else to stop the stream of information.  This information included facts like France paying a pittance for uranium and Niger itself did not benefit in any way from the actions of their France overlords.  Today, Macron says that they have to withstand the coup because of democracy, and the German gardener, on being confronted with questions why the Africans are carrying Russian and Wagner flags, let loose with another insult.  They don’t even know where those places are, he said, insulting every African in the whole world and showing his neocolonial attitude for all to see and marvel at the shortsightedness.

So far, for Niger, all is good and generally proceeding with no violence, with openness to negotiating with all, and newly open airspace, but the coup will stand.  It may change within minutes.  All we can say is so far so good, for this popular regime change which will remove France from the equation as the erstwhile neo-colonial overlord, but, they can do business if they want.  Yet, take the French troops out of the country and it will be awhile before any French envoy will be allowed in because as we see in living color, they don’t want to leave.

There is a danger here and it is the danger of countercoup by France.  Here it is and this may be a fake news campaign:

France in talks with Niger officials over troops withdrawal according to Le Monde.  France has started talks with some Niger army officials over withdrawing some troops from Niger following a coup in July, Le Monde reported on Tuesday.  At this stage, neither the number of French soldiers involved nor the timing of their departure has been decided, Le Monde said, citing several unidentified French sources.  The talks are not being held with putsch leaders, but with regular army officials with whom France has long cooperated, the newspaper said.

Is it any surprise that this is not supported in the African media on the spot up to the time of writing? You can be assured that much money is being offered to change sides.  The military junta must get their own soldiers under control to not speak with the enemy.

We wonder about the US part in all of this.  At this moment, it is quiet and the US did not call this a coup because of legal reasons.  If it is a coup, they have legal rules to contest it (they gotto bomb bomb bomb!).  It is thought that perhaps the US is simply selling their French toady down the river and will enter the theater at their leisure.  In reality, they also buy uranium.

The Gabon coup is not so easy to understand.  It may be that internal factors wanted to remove the Bongo family, or that external forces wanted to remove the Bongo family.  The new junta has close ties to the US and we will have to watch this one a little more before we will see if this is an opportunist power grab.

Unlike the views of the European Gardener, Africans know what is happening.

AMERICA’S BRICKING IT

All empires rise and fall, as history has taught us.

Like a bully who beats the weakest kid in school for fun, the U.S has heavily sanctioned many African states, besides looting their wealth and killing their people.

However, oppressed countries have… pic.twitter.com/klIHX3mzuh

— African Stream (@african_stream) September 5, 2023

NEWS JUST IN:

The Chinese government has announced its intention to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the Niger crisis, following a coup in July that triggered sanctions and left the country facing threats of armed action.

“The Chinese government intends to play the role of good offices, a role of mediator, with full respect for the regional countries,” Jiang Feng, Beijing’s ambassador to Niamey, said on Monday during a meeting with military-appointed prime minister Ali Lamine Zeine.

Nobody will say this, but what this means is that Niger will be under Chinese protection in reality.  https://www.rt.com/africa/582433-china-mediate-niger-coup-crisis/