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Coups d’État in Africa: Zoom in

These coups have a story. During the colonial period, during which the European imperial powers subjugated the African peoples, plundered and destroyed their countries for decades or even centuries, the latter began to resist, thanks to historical leaders such as Patrice Lumumba, Sékou Touré, Abdelkrim Al Khattabi, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela and so many others. After recovering their political independence during the 1950s and 1960s after long and bloody resistance, African countries began to rebuild their countries under extremely difficult conditions.


But the colonial powers, and France in particular, did everything to curb these countries. Mercenaries, such as the Frenchman Robert Denard, carried out all sorts of actions to bring down governments deemed too nationalistic. According to some sources, from 1963 to 2016, more than 20 African presidents were assassinated, among them Patrice Lumumba (Democratic Republic of Congo, Ruben Um Nyobé (Cameroon), Barthélemy Boganda, (Central African Republic), Félix Moumié (Cameroon) , Thomas Sankara (Burkina Faso) later, and so many others. It was during this post-colonial period that France in particular installed in several countries regimes chosen by France, sometimes using "democratic elections" or more properly "institutional coups" (1) to install their puppets. This period lasted roughly from the 1970s until today.


As everything changes, new leaders who are not puppies of the former colonial power and who do not have the dependency complex of the colonized have appeared. They have taken advantage of the changes that have taken place in the meantime: the end of the "Cold War", the end of a unipolar world dominated by the West and led by the United States, and the rise of new powers that reflect the interests of their country, globalization, technological advances, in particular the Internet, the dissemination of information, etc.

These new elites want to protect the interests of their countries above all. Democratic advances were implanted and when they encountered insurmountable obstacles, the new rulers resorted to coups. We are exactly in this period and it is such changes that we are witnessing.


Of course the neo-colonial powers are doing everything they can to curb this movement, but the wind of change, as it removed the colonial period, is removing the post-colonial period as well.


Benyounes Saidi


(1) According to the accurate description, by Josep Borrel, head of European diplomacy, of the last "elections" in Gabon by Ali Bongo.

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