confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Wave of coups upend Sahel security plan
Blue Lines
In the early afternoon of 1 February in Bissau, President Umaro Sissoco Embaló and his cabinet came under armed attack at a government compound. After four hours of shooting, forces loyal to Embaló regained control. Who and what was behind the attack is yet to emerge although Embaló has elliptically referred to a plot by drug barons, insisting that the army remained 100% loyal.
Guinea-Bissau's civilian government narrowly avoided becoming the sixth in Africa to be usurped by the military in the past year. As the shooting broke out in Bissau, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was mulling a response to the expulsion of his ambassador by Mali's military rulers. And in Accra, Ghana's President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was preparing to chair another emergency summit of the Economic Community of West African States, this time on what sanctions to impose on the new military leaders of Burkina Faso.
This wave of putsches follows multiple failures on governance and fighting Islamist insurgents, against a backdrop of weakening economies. Each coup has distinct national causes but there are commonalities such as disenchantment with government performance and old-guard politicians. In Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso, colonels and more junior officers led the coups. And cutting European ties, especially with France, in favour of Russia and sometimes China, is another common theme.
