WHEN DEFENCE PACTS HAVE NOT WORKED
Before discussing this, it must be kept
in mind that (as will be evident later on in our discussion) most defence pacts
are not signed specifically for the purpose of preventing or crushing coups or
‘controlling’ the military. Thus, it is unfair to evaluate them with this
mono-dimensional outcome in mind. However, there are historical examples
of situations in which African coups took place in the full view of defence
pact troops. Or an invitation to a formal ally to send in troops was turned
down, or a formal invitation to an informal ally could not be made because the
government structure was in disarray. Libya offers a good example of this.
Libya
Britain, which had dramatically gone to
the rescue of Nyerere, Kenyatta and Obote in 1964, refused to help King Idris
of Libya (with whom she had a formal twenty year defence pact) when Captain
Qaddafi and others overthrew the latter on September 1st, 1969. According
to previously secret files released by the Public Record Office, the
recommendation against intervention came from the Foreign
Office. Then Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart cited the weakness of
popular support in the capital for Idris (who was in Turkey for medical
treatment and vacation), ambivalence and incompetence on the part of the King
(who even signaled his willingness to abdicate), and the larger danger to
British interests in the Middle East of a misguided and violent intervention to
restore a weak government so late in the game. "It seems to us
that in this event the sooner we get on terms with the revolutionary
government, the greater are the chances of protecting our essential interests
in Libya,” Stewart wrote. (Britain-Libya Relations Revealed.
http://www.lafa.org/News-Dec1999.htm )
The United States also prevaricated,
based in part on a previous understanding to limit intervention to defence
against external invasion from Nasser’s Egypt. (U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on U.S. Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, _Morocco and
Libya_, Hearings, 20 July 1970)
There is no doubt that the Qaddafi coup
would quite easily have been put down militarily if Britain (supported by the
US) wanted to do so although the UK Defense Review in 1965 had led to the
elimination of logistic stockpiles from Cyprus and withdrawal of all British
ships from the Mediterranean. A Canberra strike force was left at
Akrotiri as a deterrent, supported by the Cyrenaica defense
force. In spite of prior cutbacks mutually agreed to by both governments,
there was still one armored reconnaissance squadron and one Infantry Company in
the Benghazi area. Indeed, it was an open secret for months
that a coup was in the offing. Over the preceding six months, the
American Air Force base at Wheelus and units in Tripolitania were stocked up
with weapons and ammunition for just such an eventuality.
King Idris was fully briefed about it and
on at least one occasion, was even approached by British officers for
permission to arrest all the plotters when they gathered in one location to
refine their plans. However, he declined, citing fear of casualties
and potential popular backlash. Idris was also advised not to
travel out of the country when he did and was offered the opportunity to obtain
medical treatment at the British and American bases within
Libya. Although his own sister had been treated locally by an
American physician, he refused this advice too, perhaps concerned about his
image in the Arab nationalist press (personal communication, Colonel John
Eady, USAF rtd. In 1969 Colonel Eady served as a Major at Wheelus
Air Force Base in Libya and personally witnessed events during the Qaddafi
coup). After the plotters launched the coup, dubbed ‘Operation
Jerusalem’, however, Idris called for help. During the first
three days after Captain Qaddafi made his announcement over Benghazi radio at
least three American squadrons fully loaded with munitions and provided with
target designation were on immediate launch alert at the Wheelus Base awaiting
a final decision by Britain. The US, preoccupied with Nasser’s threat and the
bigger Cold War picture, considered Britain the primary signatory to the
Defense Treaty with Libya.
In the absence of a commitment by Britain
to intervene, the American planes were stood down. Some historians
have been so perplexed by the events that they have even suggested that perhaps
Qaddafi was acting out a script that Britain desired (Hizb ut-Tahrir: Was
Britain Behind Qaddafi's Coup? Khilafah Magazine, June
1991). Perhaps closer to the truth, however, may be an observation
by Geoffrey Arthur of the British Foreign Office during US/UK talks on Libya in
March 1966. He said that “apart from defense treaty, US and UK
interests in Libya essentially similar, politically and militarily, without any
strong emotional involvement by either.” (FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED
STATES 1964-1968, Volume XXIV Africa: 78. Telegram from the Embassy in the
United Kingdom to the Department of State/1/.London, March 9,1966,
1835Z. http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/vol_xxiv/h.html
Nigeria
A defense pact may also fail to mature or
might even dissolve on the basis of dynamic political changes or ethnic
tensions within signatory countries and/or shifts in the threat
environment. Nigeria provides a good example of ethnic competition
for internal control of the state and its effects on negotiations for external
defense pacts. The Anglo-Nigerian Defense Pact was ratified by the
Nigerian Parliament in November 1960 in spite of public opposition. To
this day, it remains a mystery whether an alleged mutiny in the 1st Queens
Own Nigeria Regiment at Enugu shortly after independence on October 1, perhaps
influenced by events in the Congo, played any role in influencing parliament to
ratify it. The mutiny was quickly nipped in the bud by British
officers and has hardly ever been acknowledged or discussed in Nigeria since
then.
However, on January 21, 1962 the Prime
Minister suddenly abrogated the pact without reference to Cabinet or
Parliament. It had initially been proposed by British Defense Minister,
Duncan Sandys, in 1958. Driven by the fallout of the 1956 Suez crisis,
his motivation was to gain a military base in Kano as an option to those in
Cairo, Tripoli and Khartoum. On the domestic front, however, there was
little support for either a British military base or over-flying rights.
Nonetheless, among Northern People’s Congress (NPC) politicians, the
utility of British military back-up as a balancing force against the then
southern dominated Nigerian Army officer corps and/or Action Group (western
region) subversives was key. External factors were also decisive.
There were tensions with Ghana's Soviet allied Kwame Nkrumah over
policy. Disagreements with France over nuclear tests in the Sahara as well
its designs on British Cameroon also loomed large. It was not reassuring
that France had a defense pact with Cameroon . With time, however,
internal and external conditions changed. On the British side, new
leadership (Harold Watkinson) had emerged in the Defense ministry, new
technical breakthroughs had made for longer-range British aircraft, and
economic travails did not favor expensive new capital projects.
Furthermore, Watkinson felt that other than the base (which Nigeria did not
want anyway) all the other components of the pact could be achieved
informally. Thus, he reassured his Nigerian counterpart in October 1961
that Britain would not object to the abrogation of the treaty (Idang,
Gordon J. "The Politics of Nigerian Foreign Policy: The Ratification and
Renunciation of the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement." African Studies
Review Bulletin 13, 2 (September 1970): 227-51.).
On
the Nigerian side, there had been demonstrations on the streets against the
pact, rapid Nigerianization of the officer corps was in progress, and the
relationship with Cameroon had improved after the British Cameroon plebiscite.
Nigeria had also acquired more confidence on the African and world stage and Cold
War tensions had eased somewhat. Difficulties with the NPC
(Northern)/ NCNC (Eastern) alliance led the Prime Minister (who was a
northerner) to seek rapprochement with the opposition Action Group (AG). The
AG had opposed the pact all along in part because Chief Obafemi Awolowo
(the Yoruba opposition leader), was reportedly bitter that the British
Governor-General allegedly called Tafawa Balewa and asked him to form a
government before the final results of the December 1959 elections were
in (Ayo Rosiji. Man with Vision by Nina E. Mba. 1992 Spectrum
Books). In Action Group (Western regional) circles at that
time, there were rumors that the 1958 Constitutional Conference in London might
have been placed under covert surveillance and manipulated by British
Intelligence and that Nigeria's independence elections may have been
rigged. The day after abrogation, and two weeks before the annual
congress of the AG in Jos, Balewa invited the AG to join him in
government. Nevertheless, Chief Awolowo (Awo) refused, leading to a split
in the Action Group. These events were followed by a failed Ghanaian
backed attempt to use civilian militia to overthrow the Balewa government on
September 22,1962, a series of crises in the western region and eventually,
Nigeria's first successful military coup d'Etat in
1966. Although there was no longer a defense pact, the Balewa
government was tipped off about both coups by British sources but reacted to
them differently with different results.
In 1962, the alleged conspirators were
preemptively arrested and charged to court for treasonable felony. Balewa,
however, brushed off hints about the second coup. And in the state
of confusion that reigned after his abduction on January 15, the refusal of the
President of the Senate (Nwafor Orizu, an ethnic Igbo from the NCNC - who was
also the acting President) to accept the appointment by the NPC dominated
cabinet of an interim Prime Minister (Dipcharima, a northerner) closed whatever
option remained to formally invite British troops in (with or without a pact)
(Shehu Shagari: Beckoned to Serve. Heinemann Educational Books
2001). With no constitutional provision for such a move, Orizu chose
to ‘hand over’ under pressure to the Army Chief, Major Gen
Ironsi, (also of Igbo origin) allegedly to give him needed authority
to put down the mutiny (by junior officers, mainly of Igbo
origin). Along with the killings that accompanied the coup, this
fateful decision, which Orizu later defended as ‘patriotic’, ushered in a very
bloody chapter in Nigerian history (Nwafor Orizu: Liberty
Or Chains — Africa Must Be (Autobiography). Excerpted in
Vanguard - Reminiscences; Nigeria’s First Military Coup
and Why we Handed Over. Sat, 24 Apr 1999 (www.afbis.com/vanguard)).
It remains unknown whether the British
would have responded to an invitation from Acting Prime Minister Dipcharima in
the same way as they did in East Africa two years earlier; but those familiar
with the events of that fateful weekend claim the British had already agreed in
principle to intervene if invited by proper
authority. Interestingly, recently declassified American State
department archives show that American intervention was also contemplated in
Nigerian government circles before the Senate President ‘handed over’ to
General Ironsi. It is noteworthy that while every former British colony in
Africa was offered a defense treaty at the time of independence, it could have
been Awo's feeling that the British had a "secret pact" with the
"North" [rather than Nigeria as a whole] that led to his opposition
to the 1960 defense treaty, rather than the treaty itself. It is on record
that politicians from the Moslem North opposed the initial motion for self-rule
brought before the central legislature in March 1953 and subsequently asked
Britain to permit the North to secede and form a separate colony. But on August
7, 1953 northern delegates to constitutional talks agreed to a loose federal
system, removing one of the obstacles to eventual independence. However,
on August 25, 1956, Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, again publicly
expressed reservations about self-rule in 1959 citing insufficient numbers of
trained northern Nigerians (Thomas F. Brady. Self-Rule Delay Urged
in Nigeria: Northern Leaders Say They Have Not Enough Trained Native
Administrators. New York Times, September 9, 1956.).
In his writings, Awolowo projected some
of his frustrations with these developments with the phrase: "the
problem of the North" (Obafemi Awolowo: Awo: The Autobiography of
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, London, 1960). None of this was helped by
subsequent rumors that on the eve of the independence celebration, the flag of
the northern Sokoto caliphate seized by British troops from Fulani Horsemen in
March 1903, was returned in a formal ceremony. Its inscribed motto
"Victory is with God alone" is said by some to be the motto not only
of the Royal West African Frontier Force but also of the modern Nigerian Army,
written in Ajami character. Looking back, whether, had it not been
abrogated, the Anglo-Nigerian Defense Pact of 1960 would have changed Nigeria's
political destiny will never be known. But it cannot escape attention that
the sympathies of the middle-ranking officers who struck on January 15, 1966
were with the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) - political soul mates
of those who opposed the Anglo-Nigerian Defense Pact of 1960.
Francophone Africa
There are other examples of failed,
abrogated or unimplemented pacts. After France put down the coup attempt
against President Leon Mba of Gabon in 1964, information minister Alain
Peyrefitte initially announced that although unwilling to get involved in local
politics, France was ready to intervene at any time to maintain political
stability in Francophone Africa. He stated: “It is not possible that
a few men carrying machine guns be left free to seize a presidential palace at
any time…..It is precisely because such a threat was foreseeable and foreseen
that the new born states signed accords with France to guard against such
risks.” (Henry Giniger: France affirms a role in
Africa. New York Times, February 27,
1964) However, in response to domestic criticism France became
increasingly ‘neutral’ when faced with coups in countries within its sphere of
influence, preoccupying itself with security and evacuation procedures if the
lives of French citizens were at risk.
This posture by France obviously needs to
be placed in proper perspective, but coincidentally, over the 24 month period
following the Gabon intervention, Burundi, Algeria, Congo (Zaire), Dahomey
(Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Central African Republic, and Togo all had
successful coups. These and other Francophone countries have,
particularly since the decline and eventual end of the Gaullist era, gone on to
experience successful and unsuccessful coups with French soldiers watching (and
the French government usually in the know). These include coups in Niger,
Comoros, and the epileptic mutinies in the Central African Republic (CAR). In
some cases, coups have even occurred with barely disguised French backing such
as in the CAR in 1989. Since most post-coup regimes in Francophone
countries have tended to be even more pro-France and French dependent, the
policy must have served French interests well. To cap it, the use of the French
Foreign Legion reduces the domestic political costs of French foreign
intervention because the soldiers, no matter how many are killed, are
"foreigners on contract" with no ethnic political constituency in France.
Moreover, in the 1990s, a number of
developments have conspired to further alter French concepts of operations and
strategic thinking about African security assistance. In addition to the
bad experience of the Rwandan crisis of 1994, changes in political
leadership in France and Africa as well as France's post Cold War decision to
downsize its military--making it an all-volunteer force, have affected its
capacity and appetite for interventionist operations abroad.
France now plans to rely less on direct French intervention and more on local
African forces. It will maintain pre positioned supplies and 4,500 - 5,000
troops in five African nations, namely Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Chad, and
Djibouti, down from the previous level of about 7,000. Indeed, the
43rd Marine Infantry Battalion located in the strategic Port Bouet, near
Abidjan, was ordered not to get involved when Cote d'Ivoire
experienced its first successful military coup. The 1999 Christmas
eve coup d'état was triggered by a mutiny in the Ivorien Para-Commando Rapid
Deployment Force (FIRPAC) over living conditions, UN peace-keeping allowances,
and perceptions that ethnicity was the driving force behind promotions. Nor did
the French get involved when civilians subsequently rebelled against the vote
rigging General Guie, forcing him to flee, giving way to the government of
President Laurent Gbagbo less than one year later. It is noteworthy,
however, that France (as well as well meaning West African neighbors) did put
‘defense diplomatic’ pressure on both President Konan Bedie and General Robert
Guie to take political and military steps which could have avoided the
insurrections that eventually removed them from office. Neither of
them responded to advice - which they considered an infringement on
sovereignty. Nor did the French (or Cote d’Ivoire’s West African
neighbors) step in when they got into trouble.
Guinea Bissau
Yet another example of a failed military
defense pact occurred in 1999 in Guinea Bissau. Initial success in putting
down the revolt of General Mane with the assistance of Senegalese and Guinean
troops deployed as part of Operation Gabou ultimately failed because the
government of President Vieira just did not have ‘public’ support. The
"coup" degenerated into a civil war and Mane, supported by
ex-servicemen from the days of independence struggle, ultimately
"won" - although he was subsequently killed slightly over a year
later attempting another putsch against his successors.
Pact Failure due to specific limitations
A defense pact may, by the way it is
structured, discourage intervention in internal affairs of a host
nation. Good examples of this outside of Africa can be drawn from the
successful coups that took place in Turkey in 1960 and 1980 despite Turkey’s
membership in NATO. NATO units cannot be deployed in combat without
notification and consent of ALL members - a situation that can hardly be
achieved in the fast moving tactical situation of a coup. The same can be
said of the Greek coups in 1967 and 1973.
In Africa, sensitivity about sovereignty
has largely rendered regional defense pacts toothless against
coups. This is not to say, however, that security cooperation short
of physical troop deployments during a coup has not occurred. Moreover, while
the very presence of foreign troops may, all by itself, be the reason for a
‘nationalist-patriotic’ coup (as occurred in Papua New Guinea in 1997), the
endorsement of the defense ally may be sought and obtained by coupists.
This is particularly the case if the pre coup regime begins to take domestic
and international policy positions at variance with the interests of its
guarantor-state, as occurred with Diem in South Vietnam in 1963. On the
other hand, physical remoteness of resident foreign troops from the centers of
political power in the host country may put them at a potential disadvantage to
intervene when the government gets into trouble. If the domestic
political leadership is rapidly liquidated, by assassination, for example,
there is little a foreign force can do except make the post-coup government
very uncomfortable or influence the process of succession - as occurred in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2001 and Niger Republic in 1999. This
is one reason why I have elsewhere advocated an out-of-country element of the
democratic leadership chain of command (Omoigui
NA. Perspectives on a Nigerian Defence and Security
Pact. August 10, 1999. Policy Paper Submitted to the
Senate Committee on Defence, National Assembly, Abuja, Nigeria (unpublished)). Lastly,
the defense ally may be too militarily weak, professionally incompetent or
disorganized to protect its host when it matters most - the first twelve hours.
Nigeria’s initial reaction to the overthrow of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of
Sierra Leone, is a case in point. So where does this leave us? It places
things in perspective. It illustrates that mechanisms to ensure
constitutional order have to be comprehensive and redundant, with or without a
defense pact. It does not mean that defense pacts (or invited external
intervention) cannot be effective. They obviously can, as the 1964 mutinies in
East Africa clearly demonstrated.
©Nowa Omoigui
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