Topic: Another Coup in Africa: What is the economic effect? (Read 883 times)

Democracy originally is the government of the people. Whether the administration is fair or not. The masses have every right to speak up. This cannot be achieved under a military rule where rights and freedom are restricted.  No matter the form it comes with, military government should not be an option.  The primary duty of the military is protection of lives and properties of citizens. They should stick to their duty. A country will do well where there is separation of power.  No institution of government should be made powerful.  Abuse will become inevitable if any institution is made powerful.

Take Pol Pot for example - Cambodian politician and statesman, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (1963-1981), Prime Minister of Kampuchea (1976-1979), leader of the Khmer Rouge movement. Tell us how he was brought to power by the US ?

The Massacre at Vučitrnu (Alb. Masakra e Vushtrrisë, Serbian Masakr u Vučitrnu) was a massacre of Kosovo Albanians carried out by Serbian police officers on the evening of May 2, 1999. Serbs - State Department officials?

Genocide in Rwanda, officially called genocide against Tutsis (Rwanda) - genocide of Rwandan Tutsis April 6 - July 18, 1994, carried out by order of the Hutu government. Is this the hand of Britain ?

Central African Republic and Jean-Bedel Bokassa is a typical representative of France ?

.....

I could go on for a long time, but you don't want the truth, you want empty air and accusations of the Western, developed world....

Countries in Africa are only making improvements in the economic sector so that they can become better so things like peace may be ignored by most of the countries there. Because their main goal is to eradicate difficulties in the economic sector by continuing to manage the important resources that exist there, especially now that inflation still occurs frequently in most countries, making some countries have to try to continue fighting this with their own abilities.

It will indeed be difficult for Africa to have peace, this is because the economic gap is very high, and in my opinion the conflicts that occur in several countries will certainly make economic problems even more complicated, it is natural that inflation in many African countries will increase significantly and what will the countries that once colonized do? like france is for its own sake.

The coup always target the government and build the new government using the people and army support.But the problem in the coup is they act like the monopoly and military rule in the country,for certain things the military government will be good.But the coup are less knowledge about the administration,So they can’t hold the government for the longer period.The best way of the government to the people is  democratic government,but the government should work for the people.But most of the democratic government was running for the self benefit.

Thank you for the information, I really didn’t know about some people and their contribution to the DEVELOPMENT and CHANGE of their countries.
But there are nuances...
1. Thomas Sankara. I agree, he launched reforms in the country...but was soon killed by the “Durg” Blaise Compaoré. After which many more coups took place in the country, as a result the country can hardly be called changing for the better.
2. Blaise Compaoré - I completely agree here, the man managed to improve the economy and wisely manage the country's rich resources. Not perfect, but compared to many others it’s very good.
3. Murtala Muhammad. I found no information about his reforms. But I found an explanation for the temporary positive effect - “Having become the head of state, Murtala Muhammad inherited a huge amount of oil and petroleum resources, as well as huge but untapped reserves of natural gas.” . Perhaps you can clarify what reforms he led and carried out?
4. Muammar Gaddafi is a very controversial figure. On the one hand - the “father of the nation”, on the other hand, the man behind the beautiful picture had a lot of grief. Killed by his own “loving citizens”... I read a lot of different stories about him, some positive but also many very negative.

These are 4 characters for the entire continent, for the entire 20/21st century. Most of the other coups unfortunately did not produce anything positive. I looked for information, but couldn't find it...

Please do not take my answer as an attempt to offend you, this is just the overall picture. It seems that there were individuals who wanted to bring benefit and progress to their countries, but there were really only a few of them, and the further situation did not develop in the best way.

With hope for understanding!

They always make us believe that the new government will do better but at the end, they turn out to be like the former or even worse. How will things go well when there is no separation of power? There will be too much power vested in the hands of the military which is not healthy for any government. It will only be fair if the new government will do things constitutionally for the benefit of all.
Let's just keep our fingers crossed.  Who knows, this might be a turning point for Gabon and other African countries who have experienced coup.

This is if the military will really do what the civilian government couldn't do because for sometime now I have heard about some military coup that had taking place in some countries in Africa but I haven't heard any significant change in this country.  To me I feel the reason for most of the coup happening in Africa is as a result of revenge or disagreement between military and the government,  it wasn't done because they have good agenda of rebuilding the economy. It was only some years back that I know of coups in Africa that affected the economy for good, but this recent coup no good change or effect in the economy.

Sadly at this point, another coup has an almost negligible effect on the general prosperity of Africa. It seems to run through the veins of the continent that even democratic leaning countries are so fragile, they can be overthrown with pressure applied in the right (or wrong) places. To countries like Russia, where the governments are considered either vulnerable to manipulation or can be setup for a coup, they benefit from injecting their mercenaries in and profit from the highest bidder - almost as if it's a new industry they are creating. They'll definitely get paid first as well, when they are positioned to "guard" key locations like diamond mines or similar, so the politicians simply get brushed aside if they do not agree.

From my own point of view I agreed with some public opinion which are of the view that France had continue to exploit those countries resources without replicating it with massive infrastructural development instead they continue to enrich the few corrupt civilian rulers this had been going on for years, civilian leaders are very corrupt using all their mineral proceeds obtained from France by investing in abroad at the expense of growing numbers of unemployed youths, rapid infrastructural decay without redress this is absolutely unacceptable and consequently brought about the coup that had taken place which was widely accepted by the citizens in those countries.

In my country there have been many coups by fascists in the past and we are still facing this danger. Each coup took our country back 10 years in terms of economic and social life. Thanks to God, there has not been a coup for the last 20 years and the last coup was stopped by our people standing against the tanks. Some of those who stood against the tanks lost their lives. We really fought a great struggle and won our freedom.

https://image.yenisafak.com/resim/upload/wiki/198f2eeb6c3fbe8fresized_a9dbc6852fa6fasasa_.jpg

We cannot talk about peace unless we send the barbarians who do not respect the results of democracy to the bottom of hell. Damn all coups, whether pro-Western or pro-Eastern. There is no sign that the new government that comes with a coup will be better than the old one. We can only survive if we preserve the culture of democracy and make it widespread.

I will accept that the focus of any government (military or civilian), should be to uplift the living conditions of the people.  But we have seen in Africa is the opposite because most military coups brought more suffering to the people. It brought corruption and extra judicial killings.

But your stance that no coup in Africa has led to the development of the country is not factual.

You need to read about the coup carried out by Thomas Sankara that turned Burkina Faso into a Pan-African state
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara

Check the coup of Jerry Rawlings that improved the Ghanaian economy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rawlings

Libyans are still regretting the killing of Muammar Gaddafi by a Western-backed insurrection. Libya was better than some European nations when Gaddafi was in power and he will be forever remembered as a great military leader.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi

Murtala Muhammed is celebrated as one of the best Nigerian leaders but he was a military head of state. He changed almost all the sectors of Nigeria positively in a few months.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murtala_Muhammed

I am not well-versed in the history of coups and in Africa but what I want to ask is would you rather have a country that is being run by "puppets" than by a nationalistic leader? I mean it's been pretty much established that the former President is heavily influenced by the French Government. No military takeover succeeded before as you said and maybe that's because they didn't get support from other countries. It could be different this time with the increasing presence of China.

Coups in Africa are usually for selfish reasons.  No Successful coup has benefited the common man. There is no guarantee right now that the new government will do better. The citizens are already enduring the harsh economy of the the state. Restricting some of their fundamental rights (which is very common in a military regime) is another burden altogether. No one is certain about what the new day brings as the military head of state can issue a decree any moment to counter what the previous government had on ground.

Businesses cannot strive in such an environment.  Foreign investors and tourists will not find the country attractive for business or recreation. The whole political and economic environment is tensed up. No coup has worked in favour of Africa

I saw that video too. And the reaction of the "Minister of Finance" is quite expected - working in a corrupt scheme, it is difficult to give an honest report, and not giving one is a death penalty. In short, they will be shot either for corruption or for hiding corruption. There should be punishment, and it should be such that it would be more profitable not to commit a crime than to be punished for it.
But "showboating" As a technician, I can say a phrase that well describes my thought: it is not so important the error of the system as the reaction of the system to the error. I.e. what we need from the new government is not a "show with punishment", but a real plan to bring the country out of the critical situation of corruption and a declining economy. But... I haven't heard a word of such a plan from the "new president". I'm afraid it will end with the next coup, where the current government will be punished... and so on in a circle.....

I can't really remember, their was this coup that happened recently and the new government gave the finance minister during the old government 48hours if not mistaken to come and give account on how money was spent during the old government regime which he was crying on a live television because he doesn't know how to go about to give account.  From the coup we have been  seeing so far we see the reactions of the people how happy they are, I know most coup haven't change the system totally but a transition government is far better than previous government in terms of corruption.

If a country's government was corrupt, cared only about its own profit and spit on the people of the country - I agree, such a government should be stripped of power.
Another question is what does the new government offer to the people?
No offense, but I have not yet seen a single coup in African countries, where as a result of such a change of power the situation would have changed really for the better, for the country, for the population, and not for the "new government".
Perhaps I have not studied history in depth, I would be grateful if you could provide other information.

A coup whether successful or not carries with it effects and omens in a sense. For the most part, these coups are a testament or an after-effect of a community/tribe/group of people under a single banner's dismay of the current system with which the government operates. So much so that the only thing they see that would answer this is the head of the country's leader. That itself is a symptom, the fact that they are not satisfied with what they are being given, shows that the country is either both incapable of providing these people what they want, or just simply unwilling, both unwise choices if I do say so myself.

A coup would also weaken the country's military defense, instead of investing these people to train for bigger wars, they are left to fend off the attacks, which will expend them, weaken them by the numbers, and may even cook their morale to a point that a few of them may join the militant action as well.

Coups carry with it a lot of effects, not just economic. Economy will be hit first, but it will be the last one standing as well.

I look at those numbers and wonder just how democratic they’ve been in Gabon and wonder if any of the European country truly practice such democracy?
It seems like it’s an Africa arise session and this can be done only through the military, taking back their country from the hands and plots of neocolonialism that continues in the form of resources. Before now, it was about human resource but now, it’s all natural resources. Africa can’t keep been a raw material extract epicenter.

Africa needs to develop and be able to use these resources to better Africa and the condition of living in Africa. Just how do a people produce that which stabilizes other nations and them themselves lives in poverty and unbalanced societies. Where waders prefer ruling their people from a foreign country! It’s just absurd.

I just hope these military guys don’t go corrupt as the formal democrats. It’s there’s to decide and so, let Gabon decide.

This time I think they got it right removing the government leaders of their country especially the countries in Saheel. Governments in those regions like that of Niger are backed by France. These countries are still colonized by France and they are now removing France's military from their countries. 

France embassy took terrible embarrassment when the junta cut their electricity and water supply eventually kicking them out. And they are also planning to kick out the US military too. Somehow the governments of those countries find Russia and China to be their new partners.