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A few days after the Guinean military offensive in Guinea at the end of September, people from the salty West African country rallied to the streets to celebrate.
This year in sub-Saharan Africa there has been more violence than at any other time in the last two decades and that the people of Guinea appreciated the departure of President Alpha Condé and showed how much respect for democracy has declined, said Martin Ziguele. leader of the opposition in the Central African Republic, a country that has also had three major terrorists since 1966.
“You see young people in the streets clapping their hands, why?” he added. “In a country where there is no water, no electricity, every day you ask, what can the government do to solve my problem?”
There have been five terrorists in sub-Saharan Africa since August last year – Mali in August 2020, Chad in April 2021, Mali again in May 2021, Guinea in September and Sudan last month. While this is in stark contrast to the African state’s coup d’etat – in the 1970’s there were 25 successful terrorists – observers say things are in place for the military to begin seizing power.
Terrorists in Guinea and Mali were driven by disunity and unpopular democratically elected leaders, said Idayat Hassan, head of the Abuja-based Center for Democracy and Development.
“The failure of democracy to bring development to the people has forced Africans to adopt terrorists,” he added. The terrorists show “a dangerous attitude that elections, as well as democracy, do not live up to their promises and do not reflect the will of the people,” said Ayisha Osori, a former head of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.
In Guinea, Condé tarnished his reputation as a long-time opposition leader and a bitter enemy in the face of legal changes that allowed him to run, and win, for the third time in March. Six months later, he was fired by a militia group that claimed to be the leader of the population.
In Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was elected in 2013 after a series of terrorist attacks and amid growing insecurity. He continued to elect his relatives to senior positions, amid widespread corruption ideas, when jihadist terrorists affected the country. In March last year, he went ahead with a rigged election in which most of the people of Mali were unable to cast their ballots, sparking a protest rally six months later.
In Sudan many people oppose the plot. Last week the army chief announced the launch of a new independent body, a major electoral body, with the military strengthening its power. Two years after the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir and the establishment of a revolutionary government and the civilian population, democratic protests continued to flood the streets of Khartoum. “The military needs to realize that this does not work,” said Hajooj Kuka, a violent and filmmaker in Sudan. “Although we hate government. . . What the military does not realize is that we have not won in a democracy. ”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has lamented the “coups d’état”, and urged the Security Council to take action to stop it, but those who have committed the crimes have been subjected to minor or minor consequences from the African Union.
The AU is a bloc in West Africa Ecowas, which has imposed sanctions, “they have lost their integrity and attracted attention, because of the differences between the beliefs they are trying to promote and their views on the culture when one of them manifests itself,” said David Zounmenou, a consultant. senior at ISS.
“People are tired of what the AU did after the coup, because they say: why not take action when these guys are creating instability, killing their citizens, weakening organizations, reforming the law – all of which led to a revolution.”
In an interview with CNN in October, Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio said that the regional leaders who were arrested were found to be involved in the involvement of the perpetrators.
“Guinea is a neighbor, we are together according to geography, and we do a lot of things together, we have a security breach, I have to fix it,” he said.
Bio itself is an example of the controversy that exists in terms of democracy from local leaders. As president Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria heavyweight, he is a former soldier of many terrorists and once served as the country’s military leader.
France, which was a colonial power in the three countries where leaders were ousted, also responded “uncontrollably” to the militants, “said Issaka Souaré, head of West Africa program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Given the uncertainty and ambiguity of the answers, there are many leaders who are at risk of invasion in West and Central Africa in particular, says Zounmenou.
He points to kings of families like Obiangs in Equatorial Guinea or Gnassingbés in Togo, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville, who took power in 1997, and more leaders such as Benin Patrice Talon, who won 86 percent of the vote in the April election when all opposition was in power. banned.
“These are countries where the establishment of democratic institutions has been hampered by the takeover of power, as well as the use of the military to punish or destroy any political ambition,” he said.
“When civilian methods are not linked to the transfer of power, only violence can be eliminated, and this can be eliminated from the military.”
Additional reports from Chelsea Bruce-Lockhart
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