Madagascar, and coups in general

Posted by Sappho on October 8th, 2009 filed in Africa news and blogwatch

In this post, which will still be a little sketchy, I want to get a little more into the background of the coup that took place in March, 2009 in Madagascar, along with a couple of other coups in Africa. I know that in other parts of the world where I have more background, coups are inspired by different sets of motives.

For instance, being Greek-American, I’ve long kept a bit of an eye on politics in Greece and Turkey. Greece has had a lively democracy since 1974, but from 1967 to 1974, it was ruled by a junta, which displaced an elected government in a coup. This particular coup was an outgrowth of divisions in Greece that went back to the civil war that followed WWII (in which one of my own uncles fought, at the tender age of 16), and was intensely anti-Communist; the officers who took control of Greece in advance of an upcoming election using a NATO plan to protect Greece against Communist invasion, and claimed to be acting in response to a Communist threat. They then held power until a combination of student protests and their own boneheaded moves in Cyprus caused their rule to unravel (and, incidentally, led to Turkey invading Cyprus, but that’s another story).

In comparison, in neighboring Turkey, the army has engaged in several coups over the years, with results ranging from the military holding power, directly or indirectly, for a couple of years and then returning to democracy, to the 1997 military memorandum that forced one coalition government to resign but left Parliament intact to form a different government. It’s generally argued that, in these instances, the Turkish military sees itself as the guardian of a particular secular vision of Turkey established by Kemal Attaturk. As in Greece, these actions have sometimes been a response to left wing vs. right wing conflict, but, unlike in Greece, concern over Islamist elements also plays a factor.

Closer to Madagascar, I want to add a little context on recent coups in Africa. The coup in Madagascar took place in March 2009. The previous year, 2008, saw two coups, one in Mauritania and one in Guinea (and also two hugely disputed elections, one in long poorly governed Zimbabwe and one in generally better governed Kenya, each of which involved mediators from other African countries being sent to resolve the post-election conflict). Both of these countries, like Madagascar, are in the part of Africa where France, as a former colonial power, has a lot of influence, which raises the question of what France’s role has been, but that’s not a question I’m informed enough to answer. In my cursory reading, it seems as if France has been more willing than the rest of the world to deal with post-coup governments, but also sometimes joined with the rest of the world in condemnation, and I just haven’t had enough time to sort it all out. I have, though, gotten a little background on what led up to the coups in the three countries.

In oil rich Mauritania, there was a coup in 2005, which the Oxford Council on Good Governance analyzes as an outgrowth of current international politics and a “failure of interest-led US policy towards Mauritania.” The government of Mauritania had taken an apparent pro-American and anti-Islamist policy that the Oxford Countil on Good Governance describes in these terms.

… changing the weekend from Friday/Saturday to Saturday/Sunday, closing mosques
outside hours of prayer, and incarcerating an important number of leading Islamist
figures were only the most visible signs of this policy. These measures were
heavily resented within the population…

The junta returned the country to civilian rule in a couple of years, but there was another coup in August 2008 in response to an attempt by the president to dismiss four senior army officers.

In Guinea, the coup, allegedly popular within the country at the time the army seized power but condemned by the US, the European Union, and the African Union, followed the death of the country’s president in December 2008. The army claimed to be acting to curb corruption and that it will restore civilian rule in 2010, but Human Rights Watch has reported

… arbitrary arrests and detentions, restrictions on political activity, unpunished criminal acts by the military, calls for vigilante justice, and disappointing progress in organizing elections …

The coup in Madagascar was preceded by a conflict between then President Marc Ravalomanana and then mayor Andry Rajoelina, which was marked by rising violence. Neither side seems to have covered itself with glory in this conflict, which included Ravalomanana’s closing TV and radio stations associated with Rajoelina, large scale protests in response to a call by Rajoelina to overthrow Ravalomanana, and police firing into crowds in said large scale protests. In March, Ravalomanana turned over power to some army officers who soon handed control to Rajoelina; it sounds, from my reading, as if Ravalomanana wasn’t necessarily anticipating the latter hand over. This move is reportedly contrary to the constitution of Madagascar on a couple of counts, the first being that under the constitution, power should have been transferred to the president of the senate, and the second being that Rajoelina was constitutionally too young to lead, being only 34 in a country that requires its president to be 40. The African Union, which has an anti-coup policy, responded by suspending Madagascar’s membership (as was also done for Mauritania and for Guinea) and giving Madagascar six months to restore constitutional rule, before other sanctions would be applied.

And there you have what I’ve been able to find in the way of background. It does look as if the African Union is currently being consistent in suspending and applying sanctions to any government that’s the result of a coup (whether or not it’s been as consistent in this regard in the past).