The Second Revolution

If ever a revolution swept a continent, it was Black Africa's independence movement, which in one wild decade transformed 28 European colonies into nations. This year, for better or for worse, the continent has taken off on its second revolution, and at a pace even faster than the first. Military coups have overthrown six of the new regimes within the past four months.

The concept of military rule may seem repugnant to the world's established democracies, even when the generals replace such an unfriendly fellow as Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah. It is not necessarily evil in Africa, however. Nigeria, the continent's most populous land and one of its most sophisticated, rocked with cheers when the soldiers took over in January, and Ghanaians were still dancing in the streets last week. Far from being resented as oppressors, Africa's new military rulers are almost unanimously hailed as the saviors of their people. Their revolution was inevitable.

Tyranny & Greed. The reasons are not hard to find. Once they got into power, Africa's heroic independence leaders let their nations down. To the growing disgust of the populations and military alike, the new regimes began restricting political freedoms instead of broadening them, bleeding their nations instead of building them, dividing their peoples instead of uniting them. Nkrumah was a petulant oppressor who demanded constant adulation for himself and the wild schemes that all but sent his country into bankruptcy. In Nigeria, Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, although personally respected, presided over a conspicuously corrupt regime that stayed in power by rigging the census, playing one tribe against another, and cheating at the polls.

Before they were deposed by soldiers, most of the other African politicians had long ago frittered away their mandates in a binge of nepotism, incompetence, tribalism, petty tyranny or greedy corruption--while their countries rotted in anarchy and squalor. Items:

P: In the Congo, President Joseph Kasavubu and ex-Premier Moise Tshombe were locked in a power struggle that had paralyzed the government, threatened to plunge the nation into another senseless civil war. "Political bankruptcy was complete," said Lieut. General Joseph Mobutu, the army commander, after his bloodless coup. "We are going to impose the spirit of discipline."

P: In Dahomey, a running feud between the leaders of the nation's three main tribal groups had brought down two governments in three years. "I am taking over because of the incapacity of the politicians to govern," said Colonel Christophe Soglo when he brought down the third.

P: In the Central African Republic, beset by everything from Chinese subversion to ministerial embezzlement to a staggering civil service payroll of 50,000 (for a population of 1.4 million), President David Dacko was overthrown by Colonel Jean-Bedel Bokassa, his cousin, who announced that he had acted "to head off two other coups, one against me and one against President Dacko."

P: In Upper Volta, President Maurice Yameogo filled his Cabinet with his cousins, lavished money on high living, mansions and travel abroad. When the money ran low, he cut the salaries of his 11,000 government employees--one-third of the nation's wage earners. The result was four days of rioting two months ago, which ended only when Lieut. Colonel Sangoule Lamizane deposed Yameogo and rescinded the pay cuts. "France gives us money, and all we do is waste it," he said.

Guns & Discipline. The wonder is that Africa's military revolution was so long in coming. The stage had long been set for change, and the armies were the only force capable of bringing it about. Opposition politicians were either exiled, imprisoned, scared or bought off, and labor unions were weak. The ar mies, on the other hand, had guns, discipline and communications, and were the only truly national organizations in their divided lands. Their officers, often bright young men educated in the military academies of Europe, had long been symbols of selflessness: they ate simply and rode around in Jeeps while the politicians were accustomed to banquets and Mercedes limousines.

There is, of course, no guarantee that the colonels and generals will be better rulers than the civilians they threw out. They face horrendous economic problems, and their popularity is bound to wear off as the man in the marketplace discovers that he is not going to rise from poverty overnight. One veteran revolutionary is already predicting failure. "These African military coups will not work," said Egypt's Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser last week. "African military men have no political experience, and their economies are too poor to meet the expectations of the people. They cannot last."

Bikes & Funerals. Perhaps not, but they are trying. Ghana's leaders promise that they will cancel many of Nkrumah's overblown industrialization schemes. In Nigeria, General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi was governing Nigeria for the first time in its history as a unified nation instead of a federation of four mutually suspicious parts. The Congo's Mobutu, having decreed efficiency, was having a hard time making his civil service understand what he was talking about. But in the Central African Republic, Colonel Bokassa was fast off the mark with two immediate economic reforms: he reduced the tax on bicycles and announced that the government from now on will pay for all funerals.

Whatever their successes or failures at home, the generals have already proved universally bad news to the Communists. But not for ideological reasons; in Ghana, they despise Marxism only because it was the creed of the despised Nkrumah. The soldiers are not necessarily "conservatives." Nevertheless, they have all been eager to get on good terms with the West; in Ghana, the Central African Republic and Dahomey, they have sent home large delegations of Chinese and Russians.

It is fairly obvious that military coups in Africa, now that the precedent has been set, are only beginning, and any number of nervous politicians are wondering whether they will be the next to fall. One obvious candidate is Guinea, where leftist President Sekou Toure has all but disenfranchised the majority Foulah tribesmen, and is making an even greater mess of his economy than Kwame Nkrumah did in Ghana. Another is Niger, which has grown sullen and restive after Hamani Diori's eight years of corruption and mismanagement. Strife between northerners and southerners keeps tension high in Senegal, Chad, Mauritania and Mali, and has already plunged the Sudan's new civilian government into civil war.

In Cameroun, President Ahmadou Ahidjo is up against a powerful separatist movement. Burundi's last two Prime Ministers have been assassinated, and a police coup was barely avoided last October. Rumors of an impending military coup grew so strong in Uganda last month that Prime Minister Milton Obote's entire Cabinet went into hiding for two days. Obote himself suspended the constitution, closed Parliament, seized all power and fired the army commander.

A few African leaders seem safe, at least for the time being. Foremost among them is Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, 73, former Mau Mau chieftain who is now revered throughout the land as Mzee--the Old One.

The stability of some of his peers is based on flimsier stuff. Gambia, which gained its freedom only last year, is too new and too tiny to give Prime Minister David Kairaba Jawara immediate cause for concern. French troops keep Gabon's President Leon Mba propped up in return for rights to his nation's uranium deposits. In Malawi, Prime Minister Hastings Banda is a demagogue who has banned everything except starvation, remains arrogant only because his army numbers only 800 men and is still commanded by British officers who are happy with the status quo. And, when Bechuanaland becomes independent in September, Prime Minister Seretse Khama will have the ultimate guarantee against being overthrown by a military coup: Bechuanaland will have no army at all.

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