Owei Lakemfa
29 August 2008
opinion
There is a general mis conception that military coups are outdated, that they are out of fashion. People who hold this view forget that most armies in Africa who have held political power, are like lions who have tasted human blood.
If we assume that the international community will not tolerate coups, all we need do is look at Pakistan and how the United States not only tolerated, but backed Musharaff's coup. They should ask why the son of former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, led some Britons to try toppling the government of Equatorial Guinea.
They should ask themselves whether the West and America will hesitate for a second to recognize coup plotters, were there a coup that topples President Robert Mubage in Zimbabwe.
Those who sing the farewell to coups ballad in Africa only need to follow the on-going consolidation of the August 6, 2008 coup in Mauritania.
The practical issue in the world today is not whether there can be coups or not, but of what complexion; is it pro or anti-west? Will the new regime join the "Anti Terrorism" war? Principles are not the issue in today's international politics, interests are the primary concern.
Therefore, those who carry rumours of coup in order to blackmail opposition; those governments and political parties accusing every imaginable opposition of coup plotting are playing dangerous games. It is like scratching one's nose with the head of a cobra.
In Nigeria, the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP) plays such games. Just last week, its National Publicity Secretary, Furai Ahmed Alkali, accused the loose coalition, the Nigeria United for Democracy (NUD) of working in tandem with foreign entities to truncate the nine-year civil rule in the country.
The party then asked security agencies to arrest some leaders of the opposition parties.
Having poisoned the Nigerian political atmosphere, the routine replacement of all the service chiefs and the Chief of Defence Staff is being linked with the ruling party's claim of a coup plot. Similar games were played by former President Olusegun Obasanjo when he had no response to the mass protests against his favourite past time of increasing prices of petroleum products. He simply took to the network television in October 2003 to announce that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was trying to topple his government through unconstitutional means.
The Mauritanian coup came about eighteen months after soldiers handed over power to an elected leadership. President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi having become uncomfortable with the army's continued overbearing attitude, decided a re-organisation.
On Wednesday August 6, 2008, the President began the re-organisation by replacing Head of Presidential Guard, General Mohammed Ould Abdul Aziz and the Army Chief of Staff, General Mohammed al-Ghazw. By 9.20am local time, agents of the generals stormed the presidential palace and seized President Abdallahi, and the Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf.
Although a clearly self-serving coup, the coup plotters led by General Aziz, in the manner of coup plotters in the world, claimed they overthrew the government as the only way of "... avoiding a catastrophe in the country".
Like unprincipled politicians in many parts of the world, over two thirds of the Mauritanian parliament issued a statement supporting the coup plotters.
As for the international community like the A U, European Union and United States, it is a condemnation of the coup. Meanwhile, the coup plotters consolidate and continue their rape of the country.
Mauritania's contemporary problems were laid by founding President Mokthar Ould Daddah who won the elections leading to the country's November 28, 1960 election.
Following in the path being tread today by the ruling PDP in Nigeria, Daddah in 1964 eclipsed all other political parties and imposed a one - party rule.
Mauritania had been part of the Ghana Empire destroyed by the Almoravids in 1076 before being over run at the beginning of the 16th century by an Arab tribe, Meqiul which had been expelled from Arabia.
This tribe had created a caste system of a ruling Arab elite and an enslaved black population.
Rather than heal the wounds and integrate the people, Daddah sought to widen the wounds. In 1966, he embarked on a complete Arabisation programme under which his government imposed Arabic as a compulsory language in schools while rejecting the indigenous languages of the Fulanis, Tukulors and Soninkes.
Then in 1972, Daddah castrated the trade unions and integrated them into the ruling Mauritania Peoples Party.
Out of greed, he joined Morrocco's King Hassan in 1975 to seize and share the newly independent Western Sahara. The resultant resistance by the Sharawi people under the POLISARIO Movement led to President Daddah's overthrow on July 10, 1978.
Lt. Colonel Mustapha Ould Mohammed Salek who took over was removed by Lt. Colonel Mohammed Ould Louly in June 1979. He in turn was thrown out on January 4, 1980 by Colonel Mohammed Ould Haidalla who imposed Sharia on the country.
Four years later, on December 12, 1984, Colonel Mohammed Taya overthrew Haidalla. In his 21- year military rule, Taya apart from continuing the Daddah programmes tried to depopulate the majority black populace by deporting a large number to Senegal where some of them still live in refugee camps. Taya was removed in a bloodless 2005 coup and the Junta had a transition programme that led to elections last year.
The lesson is simple; a system of government in which votes and the people don't count and politicians simply loot and share national wealth, cannot be immuned to coups. The people are the best, most reliable and surest defence against coups.
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