AFP International Text Wire. Middle East & Africa August 12th 2023. Vogt, M., Bormann, N.-C., Ruegger, S., Cederman, L.-E., Hunziker, P., and Girardin, L. (2015). Devermont, J. Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant. Integrating data on ethnicity, geography, and conflict: The ethnic power relations data set family. Am. Sudan coup: Thousands protest on uprising anniversary. We use IMR growthrate data from the U.S. Census International Database, available at https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/, to extend the IMR data series to 2022. On Tuesday, May 25, 2021, interim Vice President Gota announced that he had ousted Ndaw and Ouane for failing to consult him on the cabinet shakeup (Bell et al., 2021b), which he argued violated the country's transition agreement. The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the coup d'tat. The average country in Africa that avoided a coup attempt from 2020 to 2022 had not had a coup for 27 years. Pictures posted to WhatsApp showed the home of the minister of justice on fire (Paquette, 2020a). . How this wave of African coups differs from previous ones doi: 10.1017/S0043887115000118. Replication files will be available at https://www.johnjchin.com/colpus. Fariss, C. J., Anders, T., Markowitz, J. N., and Barnum, M. (2022). The first and principal aim of the transition charter was the fight against terrorism. On March 3, Dambiba appointed Albert Oudraogoa civilian and close friend of Damiba's uncleas interim prime minister. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. (2010). The extent of military involvement remains unclear (King, 2022). A delegation from West Africa's regional bloc ECOWAS met Niger's ousted president Mohamed Bazoum and held talks with junta leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani. As of this writing (in December 2022), Doumbouya remains in power and whether promises to restore civilian rule are kept remain to be seen. Before proceeding, it is worth acknowledging the limits of our narrative-driven (qualitative) and comparative (small-N/medium-N) research design. Coup attempt jolts Sudan's fragile transition. (2022, September 30). Second, can we blame the decline of anti-coup norms globally in recent years? Until 1999, Africa had never accounted for 80 percent or more of annual global coup attempts. 26 Jul 2023. doi: 10.1163/19426720-02402008. (2016). With the exception of Chad, none of the African countries suffering COVID-era coups are entrenched dictatorships.20 Understanding African coup politics now requires knowledge of politics in fledgling democracies. Military coups in Africa: here's what determines a return to civilian rule Coup attempt fails in Sao Tome: prime minister. In the 20202022 period, mean infant mortality rates (IMR)a key proxy for poverty in the coup forecasting literature (e.g., Goldstone et al., 2010)are only about 12 deaths per 1,000 live births in the rest of the world but is four times higher (48) in the recent coup-struck African countries.15 Likewise, the mean GDP per capita among African countries experiencing recent coups ($2,750) is nearly half that of African countries that have avoided coups ($5,400) and over 13 times lower than the rest of the world ($36,900).16 Put in terms of survival rates, not a single country with GDP per capita of over $6,000 suffered a coup during the 2020-2022 period, but nearly 15 percent of states with GDP per capita under $6,000 experienced a coup attempt. The interim cabinet installed on March 5 including some pre-coup members, notably the minister of defense Barthlemy Simpor (Engels, 2022a, 316, Engels, 2022b). U.S. forces were training Guinean troops who took off to mount coup. Mali's transition govt sets february 2024 for presidential election. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. As of this writing (in December 2022), Gota's junta remains in power and Mali is governed by a transitional government. On October 12, 2022, the constitutional commission set up in June 2022 delivered a new draft constitution to Gota (Africanews, 2022b). Sudan Tribune. Lusa (2022, November 26). 16. Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz questioned . The army needed to intervene to restore the country's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Kabor hand wrote a letter of resignation (Engels, 2022a, p. 315). ECOWAS also suspended Mali from its internal decision-making bodies (Ogunkeye, 2020) and moved to impose other sanctions, including shutting down Mali's borders (Richards and Ogugbuaja, 2020). To answer this question, this article presents narrative summariesa current historyof all eleven coups attempts in Africa between August 2020 and November 2022. New Haven: Yale University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108500319. J. Polit. If it were, given the global scope of democratic backsliding in recent years, we would expect coups to be distributed much more broadly. By Declan Walsh Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya July 29, 2023 Africa's coup belt spans the continent: a line of six countries crossing 3,500 miles, from coast to coast, that has become the. Diallo, A., Maclean, R., and Camara, M. (2021, September 6). Coups and Army Rule in Africa: Studies in Military Style. (2015) shows that worsening terrorist violence increases the risk of leader reshuffling coups in authoritarian settings as other regime elites seek to punish poor performance and install a more competent leader to prosecute the counter-insurgency more effectively. Figure 3. Between coups and election: constitutional engineering and military entrenchment in Sudan. Political Violence at a Glance. Eltahir, N., and Abdelaziz, K. (2021, September 25). doi: 10.2307/2010462. Voice of America. (2022, July 8). Crowds cheered in the streets, shouting They have IBK! (Paquette, 2020e). Son of Mali's president resigns parliament position amid calls for father's resignation. (2022, April 7). An epidemic' of coups, U.N. chief laments, urging security council to act. Are military coups back in style in Africa? Mechanics work on a car in Niamey, Niger, Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. Decalo, S. (1989). In July 2022, the junta proposedand ECOWAS accepteda two-year transition timeline proposal under which there would be a constitutional referendum in December 2024 and legislative and presidential elections in February 2025 (RFI, 2022). Domestic reception of the coup was initially mixed or ambivalent (Diallo et al., 2021a). Sao tom'e e prncipe: golpe de estado'e uma invencao. Coup prevalence in Africa has not gone back to Cold War levels, but is higher than any other point in the last two decades. We then discuss the most relevant causal explanations for the observed increase in coup frequency in Africa in this period. Following negotiations with ECOWAS, in June 2022 Gota's government adopted a 24-month transition plan from March 2022, with a referendum for a new constitution set for March 2023 followed by local elections in June 2023, legislative elections in fall 2023, and presidential elections in February 2024 (Kontao et al., 2021; Africanews, 2022c). In April 2022, Niger's government arrested Ousmane Ciss, a former interior minister after the 2010 coup and ambassador to Chad since 2016. Introducing acled: an armed conflict location and event dataset: special data feature. The National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC)a coalition of civil society groups pushing for a return to civilian rulebegan organizing mass protests since July 2022 (Agence France-Presse, 2022b; Samb, 2022b). Thousands in Niger rally in support of coup leaders Yet, democratic backsliding does not seem to be the major factor in most of the cases reviewed above. ECOWAS and the AU condemned the attack. Niger coup: ECOWAS delegation meets deposed president, military govt Le Figaro. Front. World Polit. The military takeover marks the seventh coup in west and central Africa since 2020, . Aug. 14, 2023. In some countries, particularly Sudan, civilian political opposition remains mobilized for democracy, and if they succeed in winning a democratic breakthrough it will be in spite of not because of COVID-era coups. Voice of America. We were not able to discover the fate of the alleged coupmakers or any evidence of a public trial. 52, 6994. Despite setting up a National Operations Command, Burkina Faso suffered some 620 terrorist attacks killing 567 people during Damiba's first 100 days in power (Heywood et al., 2022). He took part in an Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance course in 2013 and attended a U.S.-sponsored military intelligence basic officer course in 2014. Booty, N. (2022b, October 3). Reuters. Radio France International. Sudan's military sign deal to reinstate ousted pm hamdok. Chad buries slain leader as critics accuse military of endorsing coup. (2021, July 14). But, an impoverished, insecure and coup-prone Africa is not inevitable. Mimault, A., and Ndiaga, T. (2022b, September 27). Among the eight African countries with coups since 2020, most had coups recently, occurring in Sudan in 2019, Burkina Faso in 2015, Guinea Bissau and Mali in 2012, Niger in 2010, Guinea in 2008, Chad in 2006, and in 2003. Reuters (2021a, June 7). The militaryspread thinhad struggled for years to contain Islamist militants in the country, all while being blamed for many civilian casualties and suffering a significant number of losses itself. Gunfire near Mali's capital raises fears of mutiny or coup. Burkina Faso coup: Ousted military ruler Damiba in Togo. As soldiers mutiny in Burkina Faso, government dismisses talk of coup. Guinea-bissau: Many dead after coup attempt, president says. Niger coup: List of recent military takeovers in West and Central Africa Their list of demands included a call for more support, troops, and training for the fight against terrorism in the country, changes to deployment processes, increased support for families who had lost their relatives in conflict, improved assistance for injured soldiers, and for the replacement of intelligence and military chiefs, for the government. RFI (2021, April 1). West African army chiefs discuss Niger coup response Heads of state ordered standby force to be assembled Official: most ECOWAS members ready to participate Niamey residents back coup leaders . Available online at: https://hir.harvard.edu/narco-state-an-attempted-coup-and-drug-trafficking-in-guinea-bissau/. Anadolu Agency. Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups. Hamann, J. S., and Djilo, F. (2021). Less than two weeks after the coup, ECOWAS imposed sanctionsa travel ban and bank freeze for junta members and their familiesand called on the junta to release Cond from detention and hold elections within six months to restore civilian rule (AFP et al., 2021). Africa News. Aug. 16, 2023. . Having reviewed the history of coups in Africa over the two plus year-period from August 2020 to November 2022, what lessons may follow about their causes and consequences? The Guardian. Reuters. In fact, the continent continues to witness the resilience of democracy in Malawi and Zambia, among other countries . . Mali president's son quits parliament role amid protests. France 24. The senior-most military officers and service chiefs did not support the coup and none of the new junta members were Tuareg or Arab from Mali's north (Melly, 2020; Thurston, 2020). 'Coup attempt' in Niger: Here's what we know so far Conflict Resol. Singh (2014, p. 7577) dismisses this factor. doi: 10.1080/13510340701768182, Londregan, J. Sudan needs new date for civilian leadership handover-sovereign council member. France, who had for years defended the Dby regime and allied with Dby to fight Islamic insurgents in the Sahel, backed the junta and advocated a civilian-military transition. It is generally accepted that the international community's reactions to coupseven if they cannot reverse coups in the short-run (Powell and Hammou, 2022)can influence how long post-coup regimes survive (Thyne et al., 2018). Unlike other recent African coup leaders, Dby was allowed to attend the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022. Paquette, D. (2021d, May 25). Around 3 a.m. on Wednesday, March 31, just two days before Bazoum's inauguration, an armed air force unit from an airbase near the capital's airport reportedly headed west in three heavily armed vehicles and attempted to take over the presidential palace in Niamey. (2022, December 6). Gunfire and blasts in Burkina Faso capital raise fears of another coup. Traor's camp accusing Damibawhose whereabouts remained unknownof planning a counter-attack because they were willing to work with new partnerswidely believed to be a reference to Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Groupin the fight against Islamists (Booty, 2022a; Kabore and Mednick, 2022). Some pro-coup protesters that week were seen waving Russian flags (Jones, 2022). Club of Mozambique. Powell, J., Lasley, T., and Schiel, R. (2016). (2022a, January 24). 2022, 112. Amidst rumors of an elite split, a source close to the ex-CNSP chief tried to assuage concerns, noting that Assimi Gota sees Bah N'Daw as an uncle. Angolan president calls for serenity in Sao Tome and Principe. Coast to Coast, a Corridor of Coups Brings Turmoil in Africa Thousands of counter-protesters in Khartoum on October 21 demanded a fully civilian government (Hammou, 2021). In October 2021, a National Transition Council was set up as an interim legislature, headed by Haroun Kabadithe man who had been deposed as president of the national assembly and denied the interim presidency in April 2021 (Nebe, 2021). Around midnight, Keta appeared on state television wearing a surgical mask to announce his resignation, saying For seven years I have with great joy and happiness tried to put this country back on its feet. The threat and imposition of sanctions and refusal to recognize post-coup governmentsespecially in countries most dependent on Western foreign aid (Marinov and Goemans, 2014)was credited with altering the cost-benefit calculation of would-be coup plotters and thereby deterring coups in Africa (Powell et al., 2016). A coup within a coup' leaves Burkina Faso in uncharted territory. He spent his entire childhood with him (Diallo, 2021). (2021, October 25). To shore up his support in the military, Kabor reshuffled the senior military ranks. Before the coup, Doumbouyaa former French Foreign Legionnaire and Cond allyhad kept a low profile. Keeping chad's transition on track. Despite these post-election protests, international observers from the African Union endorsed the elections as peaceful and democratic. The international communityincluding the European Union's chief diplomat, the French foreign ministry, and the U.S. State Department and Defense Departmentcondemned the coup. Africa crisis: Some of Niger's neighbors defend coup, hint at war - Los Responsible Statecraft. 5:1077945. doi: 10.3389/fpos.2023.1077945. African military coups d'tat and underdevelopment: a quantitative historical analysis. The year 2021 was remarkable and unique following the many events in Africa, which could have major impacts in 2022. The decline of coups in Africa in the early 21st century did not last, with 11 coup attempts in Africa between August 2020 and November 2022. Home Publications A Sixth Coup in Africa? (2022a). Woldense, J. New York Times. Washington Post. Kim Hjelmgaard USA TODAY A military coup this week in Niger, a land-locked former French colony, marked the 13th attempt 10 of them successful to overthrow a government in Africa since. Paquette, D. (2022, February 2). doi: 10.1177/0095327X05277885, McGowan, P. J. In August 2019, the sovereignty council appointed Abdalla Hamdok, a civilian diplomat, as prime minister. Ghana Web. Democratisation 15, 86105. Gunfire, confusion grip Burkina Faso day after coup, fire breaks out at French embassy. 19/12/2022 Conflict & Security Regional Organizations There have been nine attempted or successful coups d'tat in Africa since 2020. Sahel Blog. President Embal quickly linked the coup attempt to men connected to drug trafficking who opposed his war on drugs and corruption (Munshi, 2022b). Lawfare. Leaders of mali coup cite patronage and bad governance'. Beaumont, P. (2021, September 21). Africa: Coups in Africa and Way Forward in 2022 - allAfrica.com Ongoing Islamist insurgencies may have helped precipitate recent coups in West Africa but not elsewhere. ST (2022b, January 19). By the spring of 2021, the June 5 movement (M5-RFP), having initially supported the CNSP but increasingly sidelined, thus moved into opposition to the interim government, decrying continuity of the old regime and lack of civilianization. Council on Foreign Relations In Brief . Washington Post. Breslawski, J., and Fleishman, M. (2022, October 15). New York Times. On the CNSP, Col. Diaw emerged as first vice president, Col. Sadio Camara as second vice president, and Col. Modibo Kon as third vice president (Diallo, 2020). On February 10, Embal said that former navy chief Admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto and his aides Tchamy Yala and Papis Djeme had masterminded the failed coup and were among those arrested. He correctly notes that insurgencies in the Sahel have been raging for many years, yet there were no coup attempts in the region from 2015 through mid-2020. It will be hosted by Ivory Coast for the second time . The domestic opposition also decried the coup. President of chad is killed in clashes with rebels. Maclean, R. (2020a, August 18). Thursday, August 3, 2023 / By: Kamissa Camara; Susan Stigant Publication Type: Analysis and Commentary Radio France International. Soldier and State in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Military Intervention and Political Change. Chad's president lived and died by the gun. Third, one of the oft-discussed factors of recent coups in West AfricanMali, Burkina Faso, and Chad especiallyis the presence of the Islamist insurgencies, which France and the United States have done what they can to combat, including by training local military forces. Meanwhile, non-democratic powers may fill the void, acting as black knights that could sponsor coups and prop up post-coup regimes. doi: 10.1017/S0022278X13000785. 2023 Africa Cup of Nations - Wikipedia Mackintosh, E. (2021, October 25). 14. Finally, will the recent uptick in coups in Africa continue? Political instability in Africa's Sahel region is tied to rising extremism. Al Jazeera and News Agencies (2022, January 25). Citation numbers are available from Dimensions, Centro de Estudos Sociais Amilcar Cabral - CESAC, Guinea-Bissau, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (LG), Germany, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences Headquarters Ecuador, Ecuador. Dabo, A., and Peyton, N. (2022b, February 3). ^As noted previously, this milestone was not achieved in 2021 due to the coup in Myanmar in February 2021. doi: 10.1177/0022002716649232. Since 2000, this threshold has been met or exceeded in over half of all years (12 of 22). Nebe, C. (2021, October 8). Staff, M. E. E. (2022, September 30). Mali's president, prime minister have been detained in a military rebellion, African union says. Bell, M., Wojazer, B., and Hu, C. (2021, May 7). The more that conflicts that drag on and threaten regime survival or state sovereignty, the more likely coups become, as soldiers seek to install leaders that can better prosecute the war (Aksoy et al., 2015).18 Figure 6 shows the time trend in monthly number of violent organized events in each of the eight recent coup-struck states in Africa.19 Overall, there is not a general or blanket connection between violent insurgency and coups in this set of countries, with violence either absent (as in Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and) or declining from historic peaks (Sudan) in half of the countries. King, I. A current history of coups in Africa, 20202022, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2023.1077945, https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Sudan_2019.pdf?lang=en, https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/MostUsed/, https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56497164, https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538120675/Historical-Dictionary-of-Modern-Coups-d%E2%80%99%C3%A9tat, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/don-t-blame-contagion-for-the-resurgence-in-military-coups/, https://hir.harvard.edu/narco-state-an-attempted-coup-and-drug-trafficking-in-guinea-bissau/, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/burkina-faso-military-coup-sahel-region-crisis, Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), Institute for Politics and Strategy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States. (2018). France 24. Conflict Resol. Sudan's Burhan: army won't accept political deal that undermines constants. Though some elements (including former Bashir loyalists) expressed support for the coup, tens of thousands of civilians took to the streets to protest in Khartoum, Omdurman, and other cities. ^GDP per capita data through 2019 is from Fariss et al. (2022, February 9). After Niger's coup, the drums of war are growing louder; Dev. Balogun, E., and Glas, A. The international communityincluding the United States, European Union, and Arab Leaguelargely condemned the coup. Christensen, S. (2022, November 25). 6. Arm. Agence France-Presse (2021, September 21). Chin, J. J. On the morning of Friday, September 30, 2022, gunfire rang in the capital of Ouagadougou. The protest was reportedly financed by a minority civilian faction on the Sovereignty Councilled by former rebels and known as the Charter of the National Accordthat sought to replace the Hamdok's majority FFC faction with more pro-military civilians in the transitional government. 65, 17. As the following chart shows, between January 1950 and July 2023, there were some 220 successful and attempted coups in Africa, representing almost half (44 percent) of all attempted coups worldwide. France 24. Heavy gunfire soon engulfed the capital of Burkina Events soon overtook government assurances of being in full control (Ndiaga and Mimault, 2022a; Walsh, 2022). Contemporaneous evidence of such learning from changes in the international environmentand insight into coupmakers' cost-benefit calculationsis difficult to observe. Echoing rumors spread on social media, Capt. Africa News. A Deeper Look Into the West African Coup Wave The uranium-rich, landlocked West Africa country is located in a region beset by military coups, poverty and Islamist extremism. The heads of the African Union and ECOWAS both condemned the coup attempt (Yusuf, 2022). Whereas countries with no coup history were mostly immune to coups (with Myanmar and So Tom and Prncipe the exceptions that prove the rule), more than one in five countries (7 of 33) with coup attempts in the last 15 years suffered coup recidivism from 2020 to 2022.14. The research We studied five countries and 12 post-coup transitions: Egypt (coups in 2011 and 2013), Mauritania (coups in 2005 and 2008), Niger (1996, 1999 and 2010), Fiji (2000 and 2006) and. Doumbouya said that the Guinean personalisation of political life is over. Reuters. The fading of the anti-coup norm. Neves had unsuccessfully run for president in July 2021, and alleged fraud after he was eliminated in the first round. Why West Africa has had so many coups and how to prevent more Ethnicity was only explicitly mentioned in media reporting we reviewed in one coup. Costa allegedly died after he jumped from a vehicle (Agence France-Presse, 2022a). Sci. Powell, J., and Hammou, S. B. Mon 21 Aug 2023 20.27 EDT. DeutscheWelle (2020, April 22). (2018). "This is an opportunity for Burkina Faso to retain its integrity." In November, 53 people,. To the extent that poverty predicts coups,17 the relative poverty in Africa helps explain why coup risk in Africa is generally higher than other world regions. 32, 102114. Despite France's denial, protests commenced outside of the French embassy and other French-related sites, leading to significant property damage after the embassy was set on fire (Associated Press, 2022a). At least three active-duty corporals were arrested. ECOWAS and the AU suspended Guinea's membership (BBC, 2021a). 2023. Paquette, D. (2021c, Mayy 27). During the Cold War years from 1958 to 1989, when coups were much more common in other world regions, Africa accounted for 36 percent of all coup attempts (127 of 355) and successful coups (66 of 183) worldwide. Coup Traps: Why Does Africa Have So Many Coups D'etat? doi: 10.1177/0022002714545332, Harkness, K. A. By The Numbers: Coups in Africa VOA Special Report Collier, P. (2007). On April 19, 2021, long-time dictator Idriss Dbywho himself had come to power as a rebel leader in 1990 (Debos, 2021)was killed in action on the front during a battle against Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) rebels north of N'Djamena.7 Fearing a power vacuum that might leave the regime vulnerable and threaten the fight against Islamist extremists in the Sahel, the military moved quickly to prop up Dby's personalist regime (and preserve militarized rule) by installing his 37-year-old son, Mahamat (a four-star military general), as interim president.
Prisma Health Mychart,
Greeley Stampede 2023 Tickets,
Hartness Drive Greenville, Sc,
Articles H
