by Guy Arnold
A new constitution established a two-man executive, the President and the Prime Minister, in this case Alphonse Massamba-Debat and Pascal Lissouba respectively. This government marked a break with the earlier pro-Western approach and a swing towards a revolutionary policy. The National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) was formed in 1964 and its youth wing, Jeunesse du Mouvement National de la Révolution (JMNR) created a paramilitary force, which became increasingly powerful. The government launched the country’s first five-year plan for 1964–68. An attempted military coup in 1966 failed. This led to an increase in the influence of the JMNR over the next two years and the development of a ‘people’s militia’ led by Cuban and Chinese instructors. The result was another confrontation with the army in August–September 1968. Violence erupted on 30 August, and on 4 September President Massamba-Debat resigned. The commander-in-chief of the army, Captain Marien Ngouabi, became the President of the National Council of the Revolution, which set up a provisional government under Captain Raoul Alfred. At the end of the year, however, the army took full control and Ngouabi became head of state. The sequence of events is instructive. A right-wing authoritarian president, Youlou, attempts to create a one-party state and consolidate his power. He is thwarted by a popular uprising and democracy continues, with the leadership veering sharply to the left. The French, who might well have considered Youlou as more sympathetic to their interests, nonetheless stood back and did not deploy their forces in the Congo to keep Youlou in power. The radical youth wing then creates a militia, calling for Cuban and Chinese assistance with training, and this frightens the regular army, which sees itself being replaced, so the army takes over and the country gets a one-party (military) system after all.
Events in neighbouring Gabon were undoubtedly influenced by the occurrences in Congo (Brazzaville) during 1963. Léon M’Ba was the first President of independent Gabon and his foreign minister was Jean Hilaire-Aubaume. Both men were from the Fang tribe but Aubaume was the more radical and they soon fell out. M’ba began to reduce Aubaume’s influence and on 17 February 1964, supported by the military, Aubaume ousted M’Ba in a coup; the army set up a Revolutionary Committee under Aubaume. President M’Ba, the President of the Assembly, and several other ministers were taken prisoner while French and Gabonese staff officers were disarmed. The coup-makers took control of the airport, the post office and the railway station in Libreville but did not block the airport runways. They also released 450 prisoners who at once set about pillaging so that some had to be rearrested. A broadcast by one of the military coup-makers claimed the Army had ‘put an end to the police regime’. M’Ba, reportedly at gunpoint, announced that he had resigned. However, French troops from Dakar and Brazzaville were flown into Gabon where they seized strategic points and by the evening of 19 February President M’Ba was back in Libreville from Lambaréné where he had been held. There was little resistance to the French forces: a total of 27 people were killed and 44 wounded. The 150 French soldiers who had been stationed in Gabon were now reinforced; the Gabon army numbered only 600.
The French intervention was highly significant and was compared with the British intervention in East Africa the previous January and the non-intervention of France in Congo (Brazzaville) the previous August 1963 when Youlou was ousted. A French statement claimed that the subversive group, which had attempted to oust M’Ba, had not had the support of the Gabonese people. France had an obligation to give assistance to the legal government of Gabon as a result of its standing defence agreement with that country. M’Ba’s vice-president, M. Yembib, had requested help through the French Embassy while M’Ba was in captivity. At the time of the coup M’Ba was one of the staunchest friends of France then remaining in Africa; the opposition had been trying to prevent him establishing a one-party state. No doubt France’s readiness to intervene was influenced by the fact that Gabon, with a small population of only 500,000, was one of the wealthiest states in Africa and the richest French-speaking state with per capita exports of US$100, a balance of payments surplus and a balanced budget. Oil was its most profitable export and by 1962 it was producing 800,000 tons a year. The oil was exploited by the Société des Pétroles d’Afrique Equatoriale in which the French state-controlled Bureau de Recherche de Pétrole held a 43 per cent stake while the French Caisse Centrale de Cooperation Economique held another 14.5 per cent. On the whole French-speaking African states, including Niger, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal, were favourable to the French intervention. M’Ba then ruled without further troubles until his death in 1967 when Vice-President Albert-Bernard Bongo succeeded him. On 12 March 1968 Bongo instituted one-party government and created a single new party, the Parti Démocratique Gabonais.
In Chad confrontation between the Black south and the Muslim north would increase rapidly after independence in 1960 to lead to nearly 30 years of civil war that would be immensely prolonged as a result of French military support for the south and (after 1969) Libyan interventions under Gaddafi in the north. Francois Tombalbaye, Chad’s first president, managed with French help to hold onto power through the 1960s.
Central African Republic became independent in 1960 under David Dacko, who presided over a stagnating economy and a deteriorating financial system. On 31 December 1965 the military, led by Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the Army Chief of Staff, overthrew President Dacko who was placed under arrest. Bokassa justified his coup on the grounds that the government was guilty of profiteering and corruption as well as turning to Communist China. On 6 January 1966 Bokassa gave all the ex-members of Dacko’s government eight days to declare their support for the new regime, after which they would be regarded as dangers to the state. The revolutionary council announced a campaign to ‘clean up morals’: there was to be no drum playing or lying in the sun except on Saturdays and Sundays. Diplomatic relations with China were broken off.
The tiny, impoverished Spanish territory of Spanish Guinea became independent, as Equatorial Guinea, in 1968 after 10 years in which Spain had attempted to turn black Guineans into Spaniards. Francisco Macias Nguema became the country’s first president. There was an abortive coup against him in 1969 launched by his Foreign Minister, Atanasio Ndong, who however was killed. Then, on 2 February 1970 all political parties were fused in the Partido Unico Nacional (PUN) and President Nguema emerged as an authoritarian, ruthless dictatorial ruler.
THE HORN OF AFRICA
One of the earliest attempted coups of the independence era came on 14 December 1960 when a broadcast from Addis Ababa said Crown Prince Asfa Wassan was heading a new government following a coup. At the time, Emperor Haile Selassie was on a state visit to Brazil. The following day the Crown Prince was proclaimed king (negus). Fighting started after Col. Mengistu, the chief of staff, had issued a proclamation stating that the armed forces remained loyal to Haile Selassie. On 16 December Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa where he was met by a guard of honour of army, navy, air force and police. The national anthem was sung and the crowds shouted long live Haile Selassie. However, 5,000 dissident members of the Imperial Guard refused to surrender and their stronghold was bombed and machine-gunned. Haile Selassie promised an amnesty to all who admitted error and said that statements by the Crown Prince had been made under duress. Casualties were substantial: 29 members of the armed forces were killed and 43 wounded; 121 civilians were killed and 442 wounded; 174 members of the dissident Imperial Guard were killed and 300 wounded. The Emperor received messages of support from Liberia, Sudan, Britain, Yugoslavia, the US and the USSR and all the Ethiopian missions abroad except from the Chargé d’Affaires in Stockholm who had been dismissed. However, the revolt had been fuelled by a number of grievances including poverty and the lack of advancement of non-aristocrats, for in many ways Ethiopia remained a feudal state and Haile Selassie’s approach to reform was one of extreme caution. As The Times said: ‘Yet the coup failed – perhaps fundamentally because it came too soon. The Emperor, therefore, at the age of 68 has w
on more time to bring his country into line with African developments.’17
The nature of Somali society, with its divisive clan rivalries, made rule through a party system difficult at the best of times. There was a further complication arising out of the merger of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland in 1960, to form an independent Somalia upon the structures of two distinct colonial systems which, among other things, had left behind two languages, English and Italian. By 1969 there was an upsurge of clan rivalries following the failure of Somalia’s policy of unification to take over those parts of Kenya and Ethiopia which it claimed. In 1967 President Kaunda of Zambia mediated a détente with both Ethiopia and Kenya.
Over 1,000 candidates contested the 123 seats in the 1969 elections in which the Somali Youth League (SYL) won a majority (with the help of gerrymandering). Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal was re-appointed Prime Minister by President Abdirashid Ali Shirmake and a clan coalition government was formed; all but one member of the opposition members then crossed the floor of the house to join the government and, hopefully, to get jobs for themselves, with the result that Somalia became a de facto one-party state. This apparent monolithic support for the government was an illusion, self-seeking splinter groups rather than party supporters made up the assembly. The hundreds of disappointed candidates were another factor and the public at large became increasingly discontented, a discontent that was aggravated by the autocratic style now employed by the President and Prime Minister.
On 15 October 1969 President Shirmake was assassinated in a factional quarrel. The Prime Minister, who was abroad at the time, hurried back to Mogadishu in order to ensure the election of a new president favourable to himself. On 21 October, when it appeared that the assembly would do as Egal wanted, the army seized control in a bloodless coup. The coup was brilliantly organized; Gen. Karshel, the police commandant, was arrested but won his freedom when he promised police support for the army. Members of the government were detained, the National Assembly was dissolved and the Constitution suspended. A Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) was formed, composed of members of the army and police. The SRC renamed the country the Somali Democratic Republic and the President of the SRC, Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Siad Barre, became head of state. The SRC announced that all those arrested would stand trial, mainly for corruption. Over Somali radio it was announced that the coup had been achieved without injury or loss of life and that the army and police would struggle against corruption amongst the leaders of the country. The SRC said it would develop Somalia as a socialist country and, though political parties were banned, democratic elections would be held ‘at an appropriate moment’. The country, an amalgam of British Somaliland and the Italian-administered Somalia, had faced immense difficulties welding the two systems together. Civil service appointments had been based upon patronage and it was in urgent need of aid. Now, as it soon became clear, it was to be ruled by a strong man.
When Sudan became independent in 1956 it was already as a country deeply divided between the Muslim north and the Black south, the existing divisions having been emphasized and increased as a result of British policy. Before the 1960s began Sudan experienced its first coup when on 17 November 1958 Gen. Ibrahim Pasha Abboud launched a coup, which he justified on the grounds that political parties and parliamentary democracy had gone for good in Sudan. Subsequently, he assured the country that he would return it to civilian rule as soon as stability was restored – a familiar statement that was to become all too well known through much of Africa during the ensuing decade. Commenting on the coup a month later, The Times correspondent wrote: ‘The parliamentary system is generally dismissed as being corrupt, unworkable and alien. What concerns people generally is not the fact that the soldiers are in power, but whether the soldiers will in fact be able to produce better results. On this score there are naturally doubts, and even humility. For the rest, the regime, though arbitrary, is certainly not tyrannous.’18 Abboud handed power back to the civilians, under pressure, in 1964. However, the decade ended with a second, bloodless coup on 25 May 1969 when a group of army officers and civilians, led by Col. (later Gen.) Gaafar Mohammed Nimeiri, seized power.
EAST AFRICA
The pattern of events that unfolded in the first half of the 1960s in East Africa was substantially different from the series of coups which troubled West Africa or the Horn, though the causes were similar. The army mutinies that occurred in January 1964 in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda were quickly suppressed with timely assistance from Britain. Subsequently, at an early stage of their independence, both Kenyatta of Kenya and Nyerere of Tanganyika were able to come to grips with the problem of how to control their military establishments. First, however, came the revolution on the island of Zanzibar.
Zanzibar became independent on 10 December 1963 and a month later, on 12 January 1964, a revolt by the African majority overthrew the government of Sheikh Muhammad Shamte, the Prime Minister, and the Sultan, as constitutional head of state, was deposed. The strange figure of self-styled ‘Field Marshal’ John Okello emerged as the coup and revolution-maker. However, the leader of the Afro-Shirazi Party, Abeid Karume, became the new head of state and President. He was strongly anti-Arab. The speed with which the new government was recognized by Russia, China and other Communist states set alarm bells ringing in the West. The revolution in Zanzibar acted as a prelude to the army mutinies in Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda and caused crises in all three countries. At first the mutinies were treated as industrial disputes for better pay and conditions and were considered settled after three days. Then the Tanganyikan army mutinied a second time and British assistance was called for – it had not been the first time round even though those in Kenya and Uganda had already been put down with British assistance. This second Tanganyikan mutiny almost turned into a coup. At the heart of the Tanganyikan dispute was the slow pace of Africanization. At independence there were only three African commissioned officers (a further 15 were in training) while a few weeks before the mutiny a request for a crash officer-training programme produced a scheme by the commanding officer (a Briton) that would only have achieved full Africanization over 10 years. In the event, the mutineers were court-martialled and the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) Youth League was instructed by President Nyerere to create a new army.
TANZANIA BECOMES A ONE-PARTY STATE
Prior to the events of January 1964 Tanganyika was preparing to turn itself into a one-party state. In January 1963 the Annual Conference of TANU made a new call for unity and opened its membership to all Tanganyika citizens. It invited those who had campaigned against the party to return to it. TANU decided in principle that Tanganyika should become a one-party state and the President was authorized to appoint a commission to investigate what constitutional or other changes would be required. President Nyerere, who soon also came to be called Mwalimu (the teacher), said at this time: ‘Democracy in Africa or anywhere else, is government by the People. Ideally, it is a form of government whereby the people – ALL the people – settle their affairs through free discussion… And in African society, the traditional method of conducting affairs is by free discussion… The elders sit under the big tree, and talk until they agree.’19 After describing the two-party system, or party basis, of Representative Democracy, Nyerere continued: ‘I am now going to suggest: that where there is one party and that party is identified with the nation as a whole, the foundations of democracy are firmer than they can ever be where you have two or more parties, each representing only a section of the community! … For the politics of a country governed by the two-party system are not, and cannot be, national politics; they are the politics of groups, whose differences, more often than not, are of small concern to the majority of the people…’ Nyerere argued that, unlike European and American parties that came into being to fight particular social and economic causes, ‘Our own parties had a very different origin. They were not formed to challenge any ruling group of our own people; they were formed to challenge the foreig
ners who ruled over us. They were not, therefore, political “parties” – i.e., factions – but nationalist movements. And from the outset they represented the interests and aspirations of the whole nation.’ Nyerere’s core argument was that provided the single party was identified with the nation as a whole, then the foundations of democracy could be firmer and the people could have a greater opportunity to exercise real choice, than where two or more parties existed, each representing only a section of the people. Strengthening his case further, Nyerere said:
I would say that we not only have an opportunity to dispense with the disciplines of the two-party system but that we would be wrong to retain them. I would say that they are not only unnecessary where you have only one party but that they are bound, in time, to prove fatal to democracy. We have already seen how severely these disciplines must limit freedom of expression in a two-party parliament.