From: Ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY JOSEPH ADERO NGALA
NAIROBI-KENYA
MONDAY, APRIL 10, 2012
West Africa has seen a wave of military coups in recent years that some citizens welcomed as jump-starters for faltering constitutional democracies. Professor Adar Korwa, a leading African Scholar in International Relations and who teaches at the United States International University of Africa based in Nairobi says coups in Africa hurt more than they help.
In one of his scholar writings he points out that in 1990 saw a wave of democratization sweep over Africa. In Many places, multiparty politics became the norm, free and fair elections became a reality, not just a dream .People talked of a “new breed” of African leaders.
Fast forward to 2012, a generation of autocratic” president for life” is nearing extinction. The military dictatorships that dominated the I960s, 70s and 80s are a thing of the past. Professor Adar ascertains that the strong constitutional democracy remains a work in progress.
In the interim, West Africa has seen the rise of hybrid species: the transitional military junta, democratization by coup de’tat. Coups are being billed as the restart button for constitutional democracies that hit a rough patch when in fact, experts say, they almost always do more damage than good.
Apollo Munde a Mombasa based lawyer and Master student in international Relation wrote in his thesis about World Trade Organisation (WTO) “very rarely is a coup the best or only option”. He says there are exceptions like Guinea, which in 2009 was emerging from decades of military authoritarian rule, but on the whole coups are dangerous too long term stability.
Mauritania in 2008, Guinea in 2009, Niger in 2010. Mali in 2012 in what some call” coup belt” soldiers are jumping in to full leadership vacuums or uproot elected presidents who illegally try to stay in power.
Munide says each case is unique but the playbook is usually the same. Step one, seizes the media houses, and then attack the presidential palace before crowding in front of a TV camera to declare you are in charge. They promise a “new and improved” democracy rewrite the constitution and ultimately hold election.
That was Mali on March 22 where disgruntled soldiers ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure just weeks before the election that would have marked his retirement. Chaos and intonations condemnations, yet thousands of Malians took to the streets to support the coup.
Ampoulo Beucoun said there was no democracy in Mali and did not care what the international communities say. Now he has signed the agreement to return the power to civilians but has not said when.
On Monday the ominous black flag of an Islamist rebel faction is now flying over Mali’s fabled city of Timbuktu, which over the weekend became the last major government stronghold in the country’s north to fall to the rebel advance.
The news is a worrying development for Mali, where Tuareg rebels took advantage of chaos sparked by a coup in the distant capital of Bamako late last month to claim the three largest northern towns, including Timbuktu.
Latest report coming out from Bamako through some missionaries – a soldier wears a button bearing the image of coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo with the words ‘President, CNRDRE,’ the French acronym by which the ruling junta is known, as he stands guard at junta headquarters in Kati, outside Bamako, Mali Sunday, April 1, 2012.
The leader of Mali’s recent coup says he is reinstating the nation’s previous constitution amid international pressure to restore constitutional order. Early Monday, a member of the military who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter said that he saw a 10-car convoy carrying the rebel Ansar Dine enter the ancient city, located over 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Bamako.
They drove to the Cheikh Fort Sidi Elbakaye military camp in Timbuktu, where they planted their black flag. The rebellion includes an amalgam of Tuareg groups, including a secular faction and an Islamist wing.
In Kidal and Gao, the Islamist faction took the lead early on, and shopkeepers reported that the rebels went from business to business telling merchants to take down pictures deemed un-Islamic. A hairdresser said he was made to take down the photographs he had put up showing different hairstyles because the images showed uncovered women.
On Sunday when the rebels first entered the fabled city of Timbuktu, they were led by the secular National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad, or NMLA, which is fighting for an independent homeland for the traditionally nomadic Tuareg people. Their convoy carrying the NMLA flag was seen speeding into town.
The arrival of Ansar Dine, the Tuareg Islamist faction, is deeply disturbing to the residents of this city that was once a Lonely Planet hotspot and where much of the economy was based on tourism.
In Gao, the largest city in the north which fell to the amalgam of rebel groups on Saturday, residents said that they no longer know who is in charge.
“We don’t even know who controls the city, and who is doing what,” said Muslim preacher. “We see Ansar Dine with their flag. We see the MNLA. We are seeing other Tuareg and Arab groups which deserted from the Malian army.
There are people in military uniforms who have stolen all the cars, even the private cars of civilians. We can’t leave the city. One liter of gasoline is now 1,000 francs ($2) whereas it was 650 francs ($1.3) yesterday.”
The rebellion began in January, after Tuareg fighters who had been on the payroll of ex-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi returned to Mali, bristling with arms. For the first two months, the insurgency advanced into the remote north, taking a dozen small towns, but failing to capture any of the major population centers.
The rebels have been able to take advantage of the power vacuum that was created on March 21, when a military coup in Bamako toppled the country’s democratically elected leader.
As the military junta controlling the south of the country negotiates with regional powers, who are threatening sanctions, the rebels pushed forward, encircling Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu — cities that had never fallen in previous rebellions.
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