The overthrow, eleven days ago, of a “Marxist-Leninist” president in Peru after a autogolpe failed, the phony election of the weekend which is ending in Tunisia and the police super-operation in Germany, on December 7, against apparent “Reich conspirators” illustrate how the notion of a coup d’etat has evolved in the XXIe century.
These are not classic XX putschese century, which often presented themselves as “revolutionary” (South America, Africa), as oligarchic restorations (Haiti, Bolivia) or military-fascists (Chile, Argentina).
There have been obvious cases of foreign intervention against an ideological background and the defense of economic interests: Iran 1953, Santo Domingo 1965, Grenada 1983, to governments overthrown (directly or not) by the United States.
Or conversely at the time of the Cold War: Angola with the victory in 1975 of a communist guerrilla (Cuban intervention) and Afghanistan in 1978 and 1979, with a pro-Soviet putsch followed (20 months later) by direct intervention by the Red Army.
Each century has its style in the destruction of rights and freedoms, human inventiveness being inexhaustible. That said, we find in the XXIe century a few classic coups, with the heavy hand of an army that does not hesitate to drown civil resistance in blood: the Egypt of Al-Sissi in 2013, the Myanmar of Min Aung Hlaing in 2021…
In Africa, the catalog of putschs or quasi-putschs is overwhelming: Mali (2020), Chad and Guinea (2021), Burkina Faso (twice in 2022); fifteen in total since 2000.
The causes are multiple, from an autocrat who clings to power or wants to return to it, to the fight against terrorism (radical Islamism in Mali, Burkina Faso), to inter-ethnic struggles, to foreign interventionism (the pro-Russian Wagner group) . With, sometimes, quirky or fantastical echoes of the anti-colonial struggles of the past.
New scenarios do not replace old forms. Rather, they add to it. Three examples.
Germany is a great democratic country in Europe, an exemplary case of democratic restoration after the dark drift of the 1930s and 1940s, completed after 1989 with the fall of communism.
However, the authorities took very seriously the plot of about fifty people, from the big bourgeoisie, the army, extreme right-wing political circles (including a former deputy): nostalgic for the Reich were training in armaments and planning an attack on the Bundestag.
Commentary by an editorial writer Suddeutsche Zeitung from Munich: “It would be naive and dangerous to take these people for a small band of harmless madmen. […] Among them are former Bundeswehr special forces officers. »
Message of the episode: even in developed Western countries, “democratic fatigue” and the activism of extremist circles pose a threat to institutions. In the United States, isn’t Trumpism a form of putschism?
In Peru, the unfortunate Pedro Castillo, surrounded by the opposition and a revolting Congress, tried to repeat the coup (successful at the time) of Alberto Fujimori, the man who in 1992 had invented theautogolpe (self-coup) and established a lasting dictatorship (until 2000), marked by violence against the opposition and endemic corruption.
The years 2000 and 2010 then saw a succession of presidents from the left and the right, white and indigenous (about ten) who for the most part ended up in prison, on the run abroad or committed suicide (Alan Garcia in 2019). The Castillo episode looks like a farce, but represents a tragedy in a country where representative democracy is discredited.
As for the Tunisia of President Kaïs Saïed, the only country where democracy had survived after the “Arab Spring” of 2011, it did not deliver economic progress despite the freedoms.
Result: the president’s “constitutional coup” in the summer of 2021, although applauded at the time, was followed by a legislative election, this Saturday, where… 8% of registered voters went to vote. The putsch emptied representative democracy of its content, but did not give birth to an effective authoritarian state. New concept: the “powerless dictatorship”?
François Brousseau is an international business analyst at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]