MILITARY COUPS WHY DO THE SOLDIERS OVERTHROW GOVERNMENTS?

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 14

MILITARY COUPS WHY DO THE SOLDIERS OVERTHROW GOVERNMENTS?

IBy .MICHAEL GARDNER ot (he •■Economist.”] (From the "Economist” Intelligence Unit !

Why do the soldiers do it? In the last few months seven African governments have been overthrown by their armies: in Algeria. Congo. Dahomey, the Central African Republic. Upper Volta. Nigeria and now Ghana. Before them, many other governments have met the same end—in Egypt, Pakistan and Brazil, for instance.

These governments did not on the face of it have a great deal in common. Nigeria, for instance, was theoretically a democratic state with an organised party system. Ghana was an obvious one-party dictatorship, as was Algeria. The Ghanaian and Algerian leaders, Ben Bella and Nkrumah. were among the leading “revolutionaries” of the Afro-Asian world. The Nigerian Prime Minister was a conservative politician often thought to be too well-inclined toward the “imperialists."

No Common Pattern Among the former French colonies, the Central African Republic and Upper Volta can best be called mini republics, and if you could place them on a map without looking you know more than I do. The former Belgian Congo, on the other hand, is one of the major countries in Africa and could be one of the richest. Nor is there any very obvious resemblance between the governments that emerge from an army coup. In Latin America, the army tends to be the saviour of the State (and of its own gross privileges) from some vague reformist tendency which it labels “communism.” In Egypt, 14 years ago, the army threw out a corrupt monarchy and eventually installed a little known Colonel Nasser who has since become famous as a “dictator” with “revolutionary” ideas. In Pakistan in 1958 the army overthrew a corrupt and incompetent “democracy.” Its commander-in-chief, General Ayub Khan, soon installed himself as president. His regime is notably conservative.

If there is a common pattern, then, it is not to be found in the words I have put inside quotation marks. Communism, democracy, dictatorship are not meaningless labels, but they are all drawn from the political vocabulary of Europe, a vocabulary—like the system it describes — which is at present barely relevant to less prosperous parts of the world.

An Unusual System

Because it is the only one they know, people in advanced western countries seldom realise what an unusual political system they operate; how unlikely (and how uncommon) it is that those who hold power should give it up merely because a majority of their fellow citizens have put marked papers in a box, or pulled the arm of a votingmachine, the wrong way. Most of the world does not share the strange illusion that this is normal; and many of the world’s governments take care to ensure that it shall not be. If they hold elections at all, they see to it that it is the existing rulers who win. That was exactly

what happened in the western region of “democratic" Nigeria last autumn. It was what happened last summer in Ghana where elections no longer involved even the formality of voting. In such parts of the world, there is one way to remove a government: by the threat or use of force. A military coup is not some abnormality: it is the natural means of abrupt political change. Nor is it odd that the soldiers should act against the government to which they owe loyalty. It is only a western tradition that the armed forces should be outside politics. And that is only possible where other means of political change exist (and even then it is not likely). Disappointed Hopes

The question then is not so much why the soldiers do it, as why so many of them are doing it right now. The short answer is that since independence most African countries have been undergoing violent social change, while simultaneously exaggerated hopes that independence would bring the millennium have naturally been disappointed. The politicians have not improved their case by shamelessly feathering their own nests—as in Nigeria and Ghana—while

mismanaging the economy—as in Ghana and Algeria.

Many countries have also suffered from a drift, or collapse of world commodity prices. The price of cocoa. Ghana's main crop, has recently risen but it is still about a half of the level it was when Ghana became free. That is not Nkrumah's fault, but he has had to bear the consequences and the blame. But most of this has been true for some time. Why so many military coups now? Part of the answer may be that a coup is literally infectious: "They can do it. why don’t we?" Another part is certainly the intervention of Communist China in African politics since 1963. Though one reads less about it, one cannot doubt that this has led to a corresponding increase of western activity in Africa. The cold war is now raging. Whether as pawns or principals, it is natural that African military leaders or out-of-power politicians should both fear these outside forces—as buttresses for existing regimes—and be ready to work with them. At this moment it happens to be Chinese diplomats who are sent packing when the coup succeeds. If the west mishandles Africa as badly as China has, it could be its turn next.