On Wednesday, August 30, Gabon went through a coup overnight. The Gabonese military placed recently re-elected president Ali Bongo under house arrest, establishing the military’s Republican Guard Chief as the country’s new leader. What we are witnessing could be a new beginning for the country or a civil war.
© AFP/Gabon24
This is the eighth coup in West and Central Africa since 2020. All of those nations were once ruled by the French. Africa is struggling. Niger just underwent an attempted coup, and Sudan is still in a bloody civil war that many analysts believe is ‘spiraling out of control.’ While you would think there would be cries for war and an uprising in the streets of Gabon, the opposite has been occurring. The people have been celebrating. Why is that? Ali Bongo’s father ruled Gabon for over 41 years, and the people believe his family has been using the country’s natural resources to obtain wealth. Investigators have found a potential $92 million worth of property in France linked to the family. There is a reason for people to be celebrating. The new leader was even quoted thanking the army, stating, “Finally, we’ve been waiting a long time for this.
Unfortunately, coups are becoming commonplace within the region. The African Union is struggling to address the coups and prevent them from happening. The Chairperson of the AU, Moussa Faki Mahamat, has strongly condemned the coup in Gabon, but we have seen from the past that the African Union takes little to no action. The African Standby Force has rarely been called upon to mitigate peace using its peacekeeping force. In the case of the Sudanese civil war, it took the United States and Saudi Arabia to negotiate the cease-fire. The coups in Africa are not going to end until we see the ability of the African Union to govern itself and show action.
The African Union’s first course of action in an attempted coup should be to send its representatives to the affected nation to establish a diplomatic dialogue and find solutions, such as hosting a new round of elections. If a coup ends in violence or a civil war breaks out, the African Standby Force should be deployed to prevent more violence from occurring. We have never seen such actions take place. Without action and consequences, coups and violence will continue to occur across Africa. The United States and Europe can work with the African Union to train soldiers and diplomats on peacekeeping matters. But the African Union needs to start on its own. Without such measures, the trend of coups in Africa will continue to rise, creating more chaos.
Author: Joshua Cheatham
