How do you plan a coup d'etat?
The answer could come in either of two forms. A coup just happens or meticulous planning goes into it. And then, of course, there are the many kinds of coups which have, especially in modern times, put paid to politics proper across the globe. By that you could mean Asia, Africa and Latin America. Indeed, there was a time when coups were quite the fashionable thing, with some country or the other going through it through the week or the month. Think of 1958 or of 1960. In the former, two coups made noises around the world. There was, in July, the violent overthrow of the monarchy in Iraq, with the coup makers led by Abdel Karim Kassem murdering King Faisal and his prime minister and humiliating their corpses through having those dragged through the streets. In October, Iskandar Mirza and Ayub Khan placed a wobbly Pakistan under martial law. Not a shot was fired, no one was killed and twenty days after the coup, Ayub packed Mirza off to exile. But what happened in Turkey in 1960 was truly blood-curdling. General Kemal Gursel, taking a leaf out of Kassem's book, overthrew the civilian government and had the top leaders of it murdered.
David Hebditch and Ken Connor give you, in this excellent narrative of how men wielding guns can overthrow governments, the various faces that coups can assume. But then you might ask what fundamentally is a coup d'etat? The answer is simple: it is an armed overthrow of a legally constituted government. But what, you might pipe up again, what happens if a legally constituted government happens to working at cross purposes with the citizenry? Would a coup aimed at dislodging it be considered all that bad? Hebditch and Connor may not respond directly to that, but here is how they have segmented coups in their different categories: there are the breakthrough coups and then there are the guardian coups. Lest you think that's about it, here is the third and it is known as a veto coup. There is more, such as bloodless coups and less-blood coups, along with accidental coups. Had enough? But here is another, probably the very last of the categories. It is called the faux coup d'etat. That is the list, all of it. Now, where instances of these many categories pf coups are concerned, first sit back and we will then go on.
It is actually Hebditch and Connor who go on. They inform us that the breakthrough coup was what happened in China in 1911, Egypt in 1952 and Cuba in 1959. And in only Turkey do they spot instances of guardian coups, through1960, 1971 and 1980. For veto coups, you go to Argentina as it was when the military struck in 1943, 1955 and 1976. The bloodless coup and that with less blood are what you think of when you recall the way in which Pervez Musharraf ousted the elected government of Nawaz Sharif in 1999. Accidental coups are what Sierra Leone confronted in 1992 and 1996, while you may chance upon a faux coup d'etat in a country like Equatorial Guinea. So much for coups in terms of definition. Have you ever reflected on some of the rulers overthrown? Think back on Egypt's King Farouk. It was not just that he was a deeply flawed man in moral terms. He was also a reputed kleptomaniac. Known, after the Second World War, as the Thief of Cairo, Farouk earned the dubious distinction of having stolen a ceremonial sword from the Shah of Iran. Shocked? But how would you react when you are also informed that he also snatched a fob-watch from Winston Churchill as the latter was bidding him farewell on the steps of 10 Downing Street?
Farouk was overthrown in July 1952, to the relief of Egyptians. And the Shah of Iran? It was a beautiful moment in 1953 when the Mossadegh saw to it that the young monarch was shown the door. But, of course, the Americans and the British did not appreciate that at all. Iran's oil, yet under London's control, was something the West did not want to be trifled with. And so British and American intelligence got to work. Mossadegh was a communist and so needed to be put out of action! In no time, demonstrations were organized, heavily bankrolled by the CIA, and soon the Shah was back. Twenty six years later, the monarch was not so lucky. The ayatollahs ejected him lock, stock and barrel. That said, has it ever occurred to you that the United States has been deeply involved in nearly every coup of significance around the world? The gory details of the coup that ousted Chile's Salvador Allende need hardly be repeated. And, just so you are unsure about it, the Americans, in the person of Henry Kissinger, were in the know of what was happening in Bangladesh in 1975. Ask Christopher Hitchens.
What is so good or so bad about coups? Well, a good coup is often a revolution. You have Fidel Castro in Cuba to demonstrate that fact. The bad coups have generally occurred in Africa, where even teenagers have emerged as leaders, soon to be gunned down by more responsible power-hungry men. In Latin America, coups have been a whole series of horror stories right from the 1960s and all the way to the late 1980s. The four coups Pakistanis have gone through have been relatively peaceful affairs. In what should have been a decent, human rights-based Bangladesh, coups have simply been another name for endless bloodletting.
Ah, but let us not keep you from making your own assessments of what it is to send governments packing, through the barrels of guns. This work will show the way.
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