There is this interesting speech by Thabo Mbeki. The is on the benefit of Coup in Africa. Coup is when you take up weapons to over throw a president of a country.
We all know that at least three French speaking African countries have experience coup. These countries are Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. These countries have toppled their government recently. People a wondering why these coup. They are asking if this coup is right or wrong.
Thabo Mbeki has some things to say about this. From here down we will look at what he had to say.
A few years back. While Mbeki was the president of South Africa. South Africa had to work with Côte d’Ivoire, One of the things that they found out was that Côte d’Ivoire had an agreement with France. This agreement was signed at the point of independence with France. This agreement was for France to maintain the presence of a military barracks in Abidjan.
The commander of the this French troops in Abidjan, had the right and power to intervene in any situation that he felt the security of France or Côte d’Ivoire is threatened. By intervention, he had the power to take over the public station broadcasting service of Côte d’Ivoire to announce whatever he liked. This is one of the twelve or eleven agreements France made Côte d’Ivoire to sign during independence. Agreements such as this was signed by many Francophone countries in Africa with France at independence.
Mali of recent had just repudiated all of this agreements.
This agreement gave description of how these francophone countries must without choice bank their generated foreign currency in Paris. CFA franc is the currency forced on the Francophone countries in Africa to guarantee their currency. These Francophone countries in Africa had to pay an interest to France for using the CFA franc.
What is happening in Francophone countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso is a rebellion against French Neo-Colonialism. The purpose of this coup is not just to remove the elected president. What separates this coup from other coup is its rebellion against French Neo-Colonialism. A rebellion whereby this young soldiers refuse to allow their politics to respected this 12 or 11 point agreements signed by their country with France during the independence from France. All this French Neo-Colonialism must end.
So now we can see the big confrontation between these African countries and France. It is a very convenient for Western countries to label these recent coup in Africa as a system to remove democratically elected president. Though this is deeper than what it portrays itself to be. The reality is these young African generations have had enough.
The African Union AU has a standard policy. The policy that governments considered illegal are not recognized, especially military government. Above all a government that is set to kick out neo-colonialism. There is a situation. A situation where Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger decided to walk out of Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS. It is necessary for us to understand the objective reality of what exactly is happening. Because these are not just young soldiers who are hungry for power. That is why they talk about Thomas Sankara, who took power by Coup D’état. Sankara understood this particular issue. This issue of the need to destroy Neo-Colonialism. This is exactly what these young soldiers are saying.
What does Africa do with this Soldiers. Africa has a challenge or problem. A problem of answering this question.
