Washington, DC — The recent coup that ousted Mauritanian despot Maaouya Ould Taya has elicited the usual hue and cry: condemnations from the international community and calls for the soldiers to return immediately to their barracks.
The African Union, which makes the most noise when such situations arise, expressed its utter indignation by suspending the country from the organization until it returns to democratic constitutional rule. And, as usual, the military rulers, who had been Ould Taya's weapon of oppression for the past twenty years, have promised to return the country to civilian rule within two years. Already, the military council is talking about the drafting of a new constitution and making all the usual pacifying noises.
The current scenario in Mauritania is all too familiar to observers of African politics. Total disenchantment with an African despot who's been in power for decades provides an excuse for a group of semi-illiterate soldiers to seize power. To appease the world, the soldiers declare that they are only out to root out corruption and return the country to civilian rule within a few years. The condemnations continue for some time and then die down, replaced by the sleepy and indifferent silence of the pre-coup days.
The soldiers taste power and find it sweeter than their wildest imaginations. And then, yes - there is an easy way out: They will return the country to civilian rule all right. All they need to do is throw off their military fatigues and slip into civilian tails and ties, or twenty-meter grand boubous, complete with swords, beads, and small white caps to demonstrate just how civilian and pious they have suddenly become. And then, of course, elections are held and who comes out with a landslide victory but the God-sent savior, the very choice of the people, the neo-military despot? And so the tragedy continues.
In the case of Mauritania, the situation is even more predictable, owing to the fact that within the next twelve months, the country will be producing 75,000 barrels of crude oil per day and is hoping to find more lucrative oil reserves offshore. Is it not likely that the soldiers actually had the impending oil windfall in full view as they hatched their plan to oust Ould Taya? Of course they knew about the oil. And of course they want to get richer than they already are. And certainly, by the end of their stated transition period of two years, the oil will have been flowing and Mr. Vall, the "new" leader, would hate to imagine simply handing over all that power and unlimited wealth to another person while he himself could very well handle it. How could he turn his back and return to being a subservient soldier under some civilian pretender who would probably see him as a threat and get him killed or locked up on some flimsy excuse?
So, of course, the soldiers will NOT return to barracks. Yes, they will hand over power to themselves, like all military despots do in Africa: Togo's Eyadema, Sudan's El Bashir, Gambia's Jammeh, Central African Republic's Bokassa, Uganda's Museveni. The list is long. All those soldiers who seized power with the now outmoded excuse of saving the country, only to stay on and become more corrupt, more ruthless and more deserving of condemnation than the despots they removed.
The story is all too familiar for elaboration. Suffice it to say that if the African Union, the United States and European Union want to stop the occurrence of military coups on the continent, they have to stop the prevalence of the conditions that cause military coups in Africa. They have to help the people of this beleaguered continent end the ugly specter of never-ending sultanism, one-man rule.
They have to insist on the building of workable democratic institutions that will make it impossible for any despot to stay in power beyond two terms, or change the constitution at will to run yet again, as Uganda's Yoweri Museveni so shamefully did a couple of months ago, as Togo's Eyadema did all through his thirty-six years in power, as Zimbabwe's Mugabe continues to do, as Guinea's Lansana Conteh is doing, as Gambia's Yahya Jammeh is doing.
So long as despots are allowed to stay in power indefinitely, there will be coups in Africa and the soldiers will never return to barracks because they can become civilians anytime.
The elections conducted by these despots are a sham. Some of them go so far as to declare, long before the polls, that they will win the elections, that they will never allow the opposition to rule this country. Gambia's Jammeh is very fond of making this ugly declaration. These dictators feel that they actually own their countries and have a natural right to stay in power forever. They exert full control over all arms of government - the legislature, the judiciary, the cabinet, the security forces, the public media, foreign policy. They assume the identity of the state itself and become the personification of the law itself. They become gods in their own right and specialize in bullying everybody else into subservience.
Is it any wonder that someday, while their backs are turned, a cowardly group of soldiers will muster enough courage to seize power, and then turn themselves into saviors and heroes and fearless lions over night?
Of course, the African Union is made up largely of so-called leaders of this ilk. They will condemn the coup because they are afraid of being removed themselves. If the African Union cannot tell Robert Mugabe the truth, if it cannot tell Lansana Conteh to step down and hand over power before that country slides into chaos, if it cannot condemn the blatant impunity with which Yahya Jammeh rides over the breaking backs of Gambians, if the African Union is silent in the face of the innumerable abuses perpetrated against the people of this continent by power-hungry despots, then it has no right to condemn the seizure of power by power-hungry soldiers in Mauritania or anywhere else.
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Clearly, what we have here is a case of the thief looking for the thief, dictators condemning dictatorship, abusers of power condemning the abuse of power. In fact, one finds it ridiculous to call on the African Union to do anything constructive, because it is made up of leaders who have no intention of looking the truth in the eye, because the truth is that they themselves are guilty of the same crimes for which they condemn others. As far as the United States and the European Union is concerned, they should begin by trying to make sense of the concept of a one-man democracy. Then they will see why coups happen in Africa.
Baba Galleh Jallow is the founding publisher of The Independent in the Gambia. He has written several books, including "Angry Laughter" and "Dying for my Daughter," and is currently pursuing a doctorate in African Studies at Howard University.
