by Guy Arnold
By the end of the decade it was legitimate to ask just how successful the IMF-sponsored economic recovery had been. In his New Year’s broadcast to the nation on 2 January 1990, Rawlings said: ‘I should be the first to admit that the Economic Recovery Programme has not provided all the answers to our national problems. In spite of all the international acclaim it has received, the effects of its gains remain to be felt in most households and pockets.’ After eight years of recovery and macro-economic growth, the vast majority of Ghanaians were still very poor.19 Pressures for a return to party politics grew during the year and in July a national seminar on democracy was held and a new Movement for Freedom and Justice launched a campaign for a return to democracy. Rawlings said he would not oppose a return to democracy if that was what Ghanaians wanted. Outside Ghana Rawlings had achieved great popularity among ordinary people who wanted to see genuine change in their countries. These included the people of Côte d’Ivoire and Togo as well as in Burkina Faso, especially under its own revolutionary leader Capt. Sankara who became a close ally of Rawlings. This popularity arose especially from his stand against corruption and readiness to bring to justice – people’s justice – the country’s former leaders. Rawlings had also established close relations with Libya’s volatile leader Gaddafi, to the considerable irritation of Washington.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS IN WEST AFRICA: ECONOMICS, COUPS AND DEMOCRACY
Small size was never any bar to political upheavals and a number of the countries of West Africa, which were small in both size and population, were politically volatile and subject to recurring upheavals. In Benin President Mathieu Kérékou came to power by coup in 1972 and initiated a strong anti-French line while making Marxism-Leninism the country’s official ideology. He survived a French-inspired raid on Cotonou in 1977 that was led by the notorious French mercenary Bob Denard. He would remain firmly entrenched through the 1980s yet, despite adopting a Marxist line, Kérékou discovered that relations with France remained the most important external factor for Benin and these were to improve after 1981 when François Mitterand came to power in France. The decision of Nigeria in 1984 to close its border with Benin in order to reduce smuggling produced recession and hardship and provoked student unrest when the government announced that students would no longer be guaranteed jobs by the state. By 1986 the continuing deterioration of the economy forced the government to approach the IMF and begin a move towards Western economic norms in order to overcome its problems. Kérékou then began to cultivate good relations with conservative Côte d’Ivoire while cutting his links with Libya. Growing dissatisfaction with Kérékou’s rule and widespread corruption led to a number of strikes and student protests in 1989, prompting Kérékou to move towards multipartyism in 1990 when he renounced the Marxist-Leninist policies he had initiated in 1974. He called a national conference to draft a new constitution. Presidential and parliamentary elections were held in March 1991 and after 18 years in power Kerekou was defeated by his Prime Minister, Nicephore Soglo, who became the country’s new President.
Upper Volta began the 1980s with a military coup that replaced President Sangoule Lamizana (who himself had come to power by coup) with Col. Saye Zerbo, who established a Comité Militaire de Redressement pour le Progrès National (CMRPN), which banned all political activities. It was an all too familiar development. Three troubled years of confrontation between government and unions followed. On 7 November 1982 another coup by NCOs led to a brief year under a new Conseil de Salut du Peuple (CSP) under Surgeon Maj. Jean-Baptiste Ouedrago. Then on 4 August 1983 yet another coup brought Capt. Thomas Sankara to power. He established a Conseil National de la Révolution (CNR) and really was a revolutionary. He appointed Blaise Compaoré, who had assisted his coup, Minister of State to the Presidency. He initiated a series of radical reforms including a purge of the armed forces and the creation of ‘people’s tribunals’ to try former officials accused of corruption (in this he copied Jerry Rawlings in Ghana). In 1984 he renamed the country Burkina Faso. Sankara’s radicalism had a growing impact upon Francophone Africa and he established close relations with the only radical leader in Anglophone Africa, Jerry Rawlings; the two men discussed a possible union of their countries. However, by 1987 the coalition of the left that Sankara led began to disintegrate and a power struggle between Sankara and Compaoré ensued. On 15 October 1987 the commando unit that had brought Sankara to power assassinated him and 13 of his close associates and Compaoré seized power and proclaimed a ‘popular front’. His coup was welcomed by neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire and Togo, both of which had feared Sankara’s radicalism. Compaoré initiated economic reforms that included state capitalism. He encouraged the business community and began negotiations with the IMF (these had been suspended under Sankara) and with France. A draft constitution that would create a multiparty state was announced in 1990. However, Compaoré failed to achieve good relations with most of his neighbours – he gave secret support to Charles Taylor, the Liberian rebel leader – and found that his image was permanently tarnished by his murder of the popular Sankara.
In 1982 President Ahmadou Ahidjo, who had been President of Cameroon since independence in 1960, resigned, to be succeeded by his Prime Minister Paul Biya. However, Ahidjo remained as chairman of the only party, the Union Nationale Camerounaise (UNC) and this produced a state of friction with his successor that was only resolved when Ahidjo retired to France in 1984. In January 1984 Biya was re-elected President with 99.88 per cent of the votes cast. Later that year there was a coup attempt by the republican guard but Biya was saved by the loyalty of the army. A total of 46 plotters were later executed. In 1985 Biya renamed UNC the Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais (RDPC) finally ending the Ahidjo influence. Moves towards greater democracy were initiated in 1986 with local elections up to department level that included a choice of candidates. A general election for the National Assembly was held in April 1988 and of 180 elected members, 153 were new. Biya, however, was sole presidential candidate and received 98.75 per cent of the votes cast. Growing demands for greater political freedom and a return to full multipartyism led Biya to allow multiparty elections in 1992 which were only narrowly won by Biya’s RDPC.
The former Portuguese islands of Cape Verde became independent in 1975 as one of Africa’s poorest mini-states. It faced two major problems: what political relations it should establish with Guinea-Bissau on the mainland (the two colonies had acted as one in opposing Portuguese rule); and the urgent needs of its minuscule and unsustainable economy. In January 1977 a Council of Unity had been set up to work out a formula of unity between the two states but already by then it was becoming clear that they would go their separate ways. However, three years later in November 1980 a coup in Guinea-Bissau led to the overthrow of its President Luis Cabral (who was a Cape Verdean) and this ended the unity talks. Early in 1981 the Cape Verde branch of the PAIGC, the joint political party with Guinea-Bissau, renamed itself the Partido Africano da Independência de Cabo Verde (PAICV). President Pereira was re-elected in February 1981 and articles in the constitution relating to Guinea-Bissau were deleted. Relations with Guinea-Bissau that had been broken at the time of the coup were resumed in June 1982, after Cabral had been released from detention, following mediation by President Samora Machel of Mozambique. Cape Verde suffered from drought through the 1980s and this limited development while the economy depended upon regular inflows of aid. Cape Verde, which was a one-party state from independence through to 1990, maintained good relations with Portugal and the US. In March 1990, however, the PAICV altered the one-party state constitution to allow multiparty elections, which were held in January 1991. The ruling PAICV was defeated by the new Movimento para a Democracia (MPD), which gained 68 per cent of the vote and 56 of the 79 seats in the National People’s Assembly.
President of Côte d’Ivoire since independence in 1960, Felix Houphouët-Boigny was one of the longest serving of all Africa’s first independence leaders. In September 1980, aged 75, he
won his fifth presidential election but faced the new decade during an increasingly difficult time for his country. By then Houphouët-Boigny had come to be seen as a political survivor from a past age. The rapid economic growth that Côte d’Ivoire had enjoyed during the 1960s and 1970s, which had made it the success story of Francophone West Africa, was replaced by stagnation. The economy, which had become dependent upon the export of agricultural commodities, had become vulnerable. There was a coup attempt in 1980. Increasingly, Ivorians wanted to know who would succeed Houphouët-Boigny, but he was in no hurry to name his successor and maintained the status quo throughout the 1980s, though only at the price of student unrest, the passing of a series of anti-corruption laws in 1984, careful control of the press and the absence of any real political debate. In October 1985 Houphouët-Boigny was re-elected President – he was sole candidate – with 100 per cent of the votes. The following month 546 Parti Démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) candidates contested 175 seats for the assembly and only 64 of the sitting members were returned. In July 1986 Houphouët-Boigny appointed a new cabinet that included a number of younger ministers. A crisis arose in 1987 when the secondary school teachers union (SYNESCI) criticized government policy and a number of government-supported teachers seized the union headquarters. Three union leaders were arrested and others were sent to military camps for re-education, a form of treatment most people would associate with the Chinese People’s Republic rather than with the most conservative Francophone regime on the continent.
Meanwhile, Houphouët-Boigny had been building his vast Basilica (then estimated to cost US$150 million) at his birthplace of Yamoussoukro, the capital designate, and in April 1989 when he visited the Pope in Rome he offered it to him. The project was criticized both inside and outside Côte d’Ivoire because it was felt the money could have been better spent on the country’s development. In 1990, though still in power aged 85, Houphouët-Boigny was increasingly embattled as he faced growing demands for change and was forced to legalize the opposition parties and agree to multiparty elections. Unrest came from students, teachers, farmers and professionals and protests were met with force that included the use of tear gas and firing on the crowds. In May 1990 army recruits went on a rampage in Abidjan; then air force personnel seized the airport and were joined by soldiers. Houphouët-Boigny faced the worst crisis of his long political career. The French garrison was alerted and the troops returned to barracks, but only after concessions about their conditions had been promised by the government. In the October 1990 presidential elections, for the first time, Houphouët-Boigny was opposed by Laurent Gbagbo, the head of the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) although he only obtained 15 per cent of the votes. Later, in multiparty elections, the PDCI still won 163 seats while the FPI won nine and three other small parties one seat each. During 1990 Côte d’Ivoire was put under further strain by the influx of refugees from the civil war in neighbouring Liberia. In September 1990 Pope John Paul II visited Côte d’Ivoire: he dedicated the Basilica at Yamoussoukro (by then the cost had risen to US$200 million) and reluctantly accepted it as a gift to the Vatican.
Despite these troubles, Côte d’Ivoire proved to be one of Africa’s more successful, diversified economies. It derived the greater part of its wealth from the export of agricultural commodities that were equivalent to 36 per cent of GDP. It was the leading world cocoa producer, a major coffee producer and also exported cotton, palm oil, rubber and sugar. Its manufacturing, mining and construction sectors accounted for 20 per cent of GDP but only employed 10 per cent of the workforce. Diamonds were the only mineral of consequence with an output of 600,000 carats in 1990. Offshore oil discovered and exploited in the 1970s had raised false hopes but production diminished sharply during the 1980s. By 1990 the per capita income at US$790 was one of the highest in Africa. But adverse terms of trade forced the government to begin the 1990s with an austerity programme.
By 1980 there was growing opposition in The Gambia to the continued rule of its President Dawda Jawara and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). The opposition had become more radical with the emergence of two parties – the Gambia Socialist Revolutionary Party (GSRP) and the Movement for Justice in Africa – Gambia (MOJA-G). Both parties rejected the idea of parliamentary opposition and advocated more extreme anti-government measures and both appealed to the unemployed and discontented youth. In October 1980 the deputy leader of the paramilitary field force was murdered. The government reacted swiftly to forestall a possible coup and appealed (under the terms of a defence agreement) to Senegal, which sent 150 troops to prevent a revolt. The GSRP and MOJA-G were proscribed and the leaders of MOJA-G were arrested and charged with sedition. The Libyan embassy was closed on the grounds that it maintained contacts with the dissidents. A second, much greater threat to the government arose on 30 July 1981 when Jawara was absent on a trip to Britain. Kukoi Samba Sanyang who had long been an opponent of the PPP joined forces with disaffected members of the field force to seize power. They took control of key points, but in Banjul, the capital, they forfeited any chance of support by issuing weapons indiscriminately and releasing convicts to create widespread violence. Jawara flew back to Dakar and again invoked the assistance of Senegal, which despatched 3,000 troops to The Gambia. The rebels were defeated but 1,000 lives were lost and a further 1,000 dissidents were detained under emergency regulations. Damage to property amounted to £10 million and the country’s hitherto peaceful image was badly damaged. Treason trials lasted to 1984 and though a number of the rebel leaders were condemned to death none were executed.
In the elections of 1982 the PPP took 27 seats, the National Convention Party (NCP) under Sharif Mustapha Dibba three and independents five. In the presidential elections Jawara obtained 137,020 votes and Dibba 50,136. The principal charge levelled at the government through the decade was that of corruption. In the elections of 1987 the PPP took 31 of 36 directly elected seats although the opposition accused the government of electoral irregularities. In 1988 another abortive coup was launched by disaffected Gambians in league with exiles from Senegal. The presence of Senegalese troops in The Gambia through the 1980s posed an interesting political problem. In 1982 the two countries had created the Confederation of Senegambia but by 1989, like so many other moves towards union in Africa, the arrangement was clearly not working and after Senegal had withdrawn its troops that August the Confederation was dissolved in September. The Gambia celebrated 25 years of independence on 18 February 1990. In January 1991 The Gambia and Senegal signed a treaty of friendship and co-operation to replace the defunct confederation.
Long the bête noire of Paris, Sekou Touré ruled Guinea from independence in 1958 to his death in 1984. During the 1970s Touré had worked to restore good relations with France and had achieved this in the latter years of that decade. In 1979, having renamed Guinea the People’s Revolutionary Republic of Guinea, Touré announced that his government would co-operate with capitalists as well as communists but relations with the USSR then deteriorated as Guinea pursued more open relations with its neighbours Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal and became an active member of the Mano River Union and ECOWAS. On 3 March 1984 Touré died unexpectedly aged 62 and a month later on 3 April the army carried out a coup to pre-empt whatever succession might otherwise have taken place. The military leaders were Col. Lansana Conté, who became President, and Col. Diarra Traoré, who became Prime Minister. The country reverted to its former name of the Republic of Guinea. The new Comité Militaire de Redressement National (CMRN) was faced with a declining economy and a civil service in revolt at restructuring that had been started under Touré. Conté adopted a more open style of government and reversed the repression of the Touré years. In July 1985, when Conté was attending an ECOWAS meeting in Togo, Col. Traoré attempted to seize power in a coup of his own but was thwarted by soldiers loyal to Conté. Traoré and 100 of his supporters were arrested. Ismael Traoré, the half-brother of Sekou Touré, and Diarra Traoré were secretly executed while a
nother 60 were tried and sentenced to death although an amnesty was granted to a total of 67 prisoners in 1988. Conté’s position had been strengthened by the coup attempt against him and he was able to carry out reforms to bring the economy more in line with Western capitalism. On 1 October 1988 Conté announced plans for a return to civilian rule: a two-party framework was to be put in place over a five-year period. The slow pace of these democratic reforms led to unrest that exploded in anti-government demonstrations in Conakry during September 1990. The people’s anger was increased by the economic reforms that had removed subsidies on basic commodities, resulting in huge price rises. Guinea was also affected by the civil war in Liberia, which forced thousands of Guineans to return home.
Until 1980 the PAIGC was the ruling party in both Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde since the two countries intended to merge into one. But there was growing resentment in Guinea-Bissau at the undue degree of influence wielded by Cape Verdeans in the government and on 14 November 1980 the Prime Minister João Vieira mounted a coup to overthrow Luis Cabral. A revolutionary council of nine members replaced the national assembly and state council, which were abolished. The coup reduced the influence of Cape Verdeans and in the islands this was seen as a sign that the proposed merger of the two countries would not take place. There was a political shift to the right. In May 1982 the government postponed elections and in July, following rumours of a coup plot, a number of politicians who had been prominent prior to the 1980 coup were arrested. A new constitution in 1984 strengthened the position of Vieira as head of state although in 1985 senior army officers supported yet another coup plot, this time by Vice-President Col. Paulo Correia. Although the plot failed it weakened Vieira’s position by demonstrating the range of opposition to him. Correia and five other plotters were executed in 1986. From 1983 onwards the government liberalized the economy and by August 1986 had abolished trading restrictions and allowed private traders to import and export goods. The main requirement, however, was to woo Western donors so as to obtain aid and by 1989 the policy had succeeded to the extent that nine nations and 10 international organizations guaranteed sufficient financing to allow Guinea-Bissau to achieve a four per cent growth rate. The elections of June 1989 gave the ruling party a renewed mandate and Vieira was re-elected President with Col. Iafai Camara, the Minister of the Armed Forces, as Vice-President. In September 1990 the PAIGC agreed to begin a move back to multipartyism. A PAIGC congress met in January 1991 and approved ‘integral multipartyism’ and President Vieira told the 425 delegates that in future the PAIGC would no longer be the ruling force in the country. Multiparty elections were scheduled for 1992. Heavily dependent upon aid for its survival, Guinea-Bissau was one of Africa’s smallest economies with a per capita income of only US$180 in 1990, one of the lowest in the world.