Coups and Condemnations: The United Nations, West African Coups, and Dipomacy
Coup d’états are one of the most interesting events in political theory. Coup d’états, coups as they are often informally known, are essentially “a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics” especially in the context of a “violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group”. Thousands of examples exist throughout history, ranging across every corner of the globe; some are bloodless while others spark entire wars and conflicts that claim many lives, damage countless properties. Today, in more recent memory, coups are a “key feature” in modern politics.
Despite these political events being somewhat common, they still are heavily covered and quite rightly given these are newsworthy events that can significantly change the political, social, and economic makeup of a nation-state.
Throughout late 2021 and in January of 2022, there have been intense political developments throughout the continent of Africa. Numerous coups have taken place which have severely destabilized the region and place millions of lives at risk from war, famine, despotic governments, potential invasion by other nation-states, or general chaos.
In the aftermath of the death of longtime Chadian President Idriss Deby in April of 2021, the nation has undergone immense political and social strife. In May of 2021, the country of Mali underwent a military coup, their second in under a year, performed in response to the government’s failure to protect its citizenry from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaeda.
In October of 2021, “Sudan’s top general orchestrated the power grab, detaining the civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok and other civilian leaders, and firing ambassadors who resisted the takeover”. However, he was later brought back in agreement with military leaders only to eventually resign in January; all of this was on the cusp of a potential transitioning of Sudan into a functioning democracy.
Also in October of that year, Guinea’s autocratic, abusive, and corrupt president Alpha Condé was overthrown by Guinean Special Forces Colonel Mamady Doumbouya who, despite being accused of committing war crimes, has seemingly begun a transition to civilian rule.
More recently in January and February of 2022, both Burkina Faso and Guinea-Bissau have experienced attempts at violent overthrowing. Burkina Faso’s was successful, installing the coup leader (a military officer) as president while the coup against Guinea-Bissau’s president and government was unsuccessful, leaving eleven dead.
It is clear that, in the past few months, Africa is undergoing a series of violent transitions of power, most often into the hands of a select few within their respective militaries.
While some cases, such as that of Guinea, could be moving forward towards a potentially democratic civilian government, other experts on African politics and security, like Judd Devermont at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, caution that “Doumbouya’s age, temperament, and admiration for the region’s past coup leaders bode poorly for Guinea’s transition to civilian rule…Doumbouya and the [ruling junta] probably will use the same coup playbook perfected by [other recent African coupists], parroting the 18-month transition timeline and pledge to rewrite the constitution to placate the international community”.
Devermont raises a perfect point here; many of these coup leaders are stating similar reasons for taking matters into their own hands, yet have little in their personal or career history or in their actions while in charge that signify a desire to change their nation-states to a civilian led democracy. Furthermore, Devermont states, “If Guinea’s neighbors and external partners quietly accept these conditions, it will serve as a signal to ambitious soldiers in Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, and Niger—to name just a few potential candidates—that there are limited consequences for seizing power”.
While the fear that multiple coups will occur in the region like a contagion is misplaced, it is very real that coups (at least in Africa) function in something like waves. Just recently, the African Union (AU) met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in which every leader “condemned unequivocally...the wave of unconstitutional changes of government”. However, this did not come without criticism from certain parties.
The causes of these coups is multiple, especially given the massive differences between all of these nations and their respective coups. The Indian based think tank Observer Research Foundation found there to be two main reasons why these coups are occurring so frequently, writing, “Most of these coups are taking place in countries that are transitioning to democracy after decades of authoritarian rule…the growing number of military coups could be attributed to the militaries’ desire to protect, rather than change the status quo, when their entrenched powers and privileges are threatened. Poorly-funded and under-resourced militaries are another reason why coups have been a recurring event in Africa, especially in the Sahelian region. The task of tackling the rising spate of extremist violence without proper combat readiness, i.e., insufficient training, weaponry, resources, and funds have placed an unsustainable burden on African militaries”.
This can be seen quite clearly with the Malian example in May of 2021 and the Sudan example in October of the same year. In these cases, there was public unrest and dissatisfaction with the government in addition to a coup which seemed to halt the transition to a democratic government.
These coups pose a serious national and international security risk, not only to the West African region or the continent of Africa as a whole, but to the entire world. However, many within these countries where these coups are taking place are incredibly excited for these new military-run governments, with Politico documenting: “After last week’s coup in Burkina Faso, people across the country lauded the military takeover, saying it was overdue. In Mali, thousands of protesters took to the streets in support of the ruling military after the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, imposed sanctions over delayed elections”. Al-Jazeera reported as well that, “…pro-military demonstrators [took] to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, to protest against a UN attempting to resolve [the] political crisis” protesting outside of the United Nations Integrate Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) building.
The reason for this, in my perspective, is the lack of international or official response to these events.
In many ways, the United Nations has taken a passive stance against these coups and, in the way of outright condemnation, has been minimal. The International Crisis Group reported that, ambassadors from the UN Security Council, upon hearing of the Sudanese coup, “briefly wondered whether they could hold an impromptu Council meeting on the crisis” before deciding “not to do so” and releasing a relatively tame press statement while not even acknowledging the other coups in Chad and Guinea when they occurred.
Historically, the UN has engaged in an “uneven evolution of the anti-coup norm” and are “highly inconsistent in their enforcement of it over time”, in fact “[responding] to fewer than a quarter of the coups that have taken place”. In June of last year, the UN responded to the military coup in Myanmar, “condemning the junta and calling for the return of a democratic government in Myanmar” while also urging “all [UN] Member States to prevent the flow of arms into Myanmar”. Many media outlets reported this as it is incredibly rare for the UN to take such a decisive and blatant role in condemning a coup.
In regards to the coups in West Africa, the UN ultimately remained silent, refusing “to condemn the military takeover in Burkina Faso last month or call it a coup, instead adopting a weak statement expressing “serious concern about the unconstitutional change of government” in the West African nation”.
This policy of abstaining from condemning coups or selectively condemning some while allowing others to go unnoticed is poor from the international community’s standpoint. The UN has immense legal faculties at their disposal and can engage in many policies, take multiple forms of both direct and indirect action, and maneuver in hundreds of ways to try and deter coups while also ensuring that democratic principles are upheld and appropriately followed.
The call for condemnation is an incredibly powerful tool that can increase political pressure upon a nation-state to either adapt or significantly alter their current trajectory, arguably the most powerful legal tool in the arsenal of the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. Furthermore, the UN could put political pressure upon individual nation-states within the General Assembly to impose targeted sanctions that directly affect these nations, implementing these with the stipulations that democratic reforms be instituted and made within a set amount of time. As well, the General Assembly could legally refuse “to approve the credentials of the representatives of the military junta” provided the Credentials Committee find that the junta consistently violated the “fundamental principles and peremptory norms of international human rights law [and showed] blatant disregard for the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter”.
There is an abundance of legal options available to the United Nations in bringing about legitimate good governance and strong democratic nations within Africa. However, the real push towards actually making for a democratic continent will start with the superpowers (e.g., America) that are members of the UN and actually working in coordination with one another to bring about real, sustained, and legitimate change throughout West Africa.
