Revolutionary Overthrow of Constitutional Orders in Africa

Chapter 9. Countries where there has been no Military Rule (Yet)

115 Chapter 9 Countries where there has been no Military Rule (Yet) A number of African states have not experienced rule by the military. In some cases this is due to the fact that the soldiers respect the hallowed principle of an apolitical military and have shown no ambition for political power. In some other cases soldiers tried to seize power but failed in their attempt(s). Overall, in countries ruled by a national liberation movement that came to power (Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe) an army or insurgency overthrow of the government would seem infeasible for at least two reasons. Seemingly comrades in the same struggle and belonging to the same ideological school do not fight each other. Furthermore, the ‘civilian’ rulers and the country’s soldiers were all freedom fighters. There is therefore no difference between both. Where no coup has been attempted No attempt has ever been made by the military to seize power in the following ten countries: Botswana Djibouti Eritrea Malawi Angola Namibia Mauritius Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic South Africa (post-apartheid) Republic of Southern Sudan Swaziland 116 Where a coup or an insurgency attempt failed Angola Angola’s war of independence began in 1961 until 1975, when Portugal granted independence. Almost immediately, civil war broke out between the Zaire-based National Front (NF) of Holden Roberto, the US-backed National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) of Jonas Savimbi, and the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) of Agostinho Neto. On 27 May 1977 there was an attempted coup which “unrolled with incredible slowness, callous brutality and farcical incompetence over the next six days.” (Birmingham 1978: 555) The coup leaders were Captain Nito Alves, Ernesto Gomes da Silva and José van Dunem. The coup was designed to kidnap President Agostinho Neto. It failed for the simple reason that the venue for the Central Committee meeting was changed fifteen minutes before the opening. Foolishly, Mobutu prematurely welcomed the announced overthrow of Neto. (Twenty years later, Mobutu would be paid back in his own coins when Angola intervened in the DRC in support of Kabila’s insurgency against Mobutu). Angola’s civil war which broke out in 1975 was officially ended in 1991 but fighting again broke out in 1992, when UNITA rejected the multiparty elections of that year and took once more to the bush. The country returned to normalcy following the killing of Savimbi and defeat of UNITA in 2005. Cameroun In 1955 the Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), Union of Cameroun Populations, launched a liberation struggle against French colonial rule in French Cameroun. France hurriedly granted independence to its French Cameroun territory on 1 January 1960 under French protective umbrella. The reins of formal power were handed to the pro-French politician, Ahmadou Ahidjo. The UPC characterized the independence as fake and Ahidjo as a French puppet. In fact, the independence ceremony in Yaoundé took place literally under a hail of bullets from UPC insurgents. The UPC vowed 117 to continue the struggle until genuine independence was achieved under a nationalist government. The UPC insurgency continued until the end of 1970 when the remnants of the insurgents gave themselves up. The principal leaders of the insurgency, Ernest Ouandié and his lieutenants, were put through the motion of a trial by a military tribunal, sentenced to death and publicly executed in January 1971. The UPC insurgency was a particularly bloody affair in which the French army used overwhelming military force against the UPC. There was indiscriminate mass killing of civilians and the reported extermination of at least half a million people (Deltombe et al). This was probably the first but unacknowledged genocide committed in Africa. Throughout the next ten years rumours were rife of coups nipped in the bud. But in 1984 the real thing happened. In November 1982, Biya was appointed President by his departing predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo. In early April 1984 Biya ordered a transfer of all soldiers of the Garde Républicaine (GR), presidential palace guards, who came from Ahidjo’s predominantly Muslim north, and replaced them with those from his own tribal area. According to some accounts he had been alerted to a coup plot involving those soldiers. Dissident members of the GR promptly reacted to the order by rebelling against Biya. The leaders of the plot may have been forced to launch their coup attempt prematurely due to Biya...