
The reckless plot to overthrow Africa's most absurd dictator - ptbello
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/how-former-us-army-officer-launched-disastrous-coup-the-gambia
======
rdl
This reminds me of the Wonga Coup ([http://www.amazon.com/The-Wonga-Coup-
Ruthless-Determination/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Wonga-Coup-Ruthless-
Determination/dp/1586485008)), the Mark Thatcher operation to try to "regime
change" Equatorial Guinea, a small, oil-rich country with a non-democratic
government.

I'm kind of surprised these kind of operations aren't more frequently
attempted. Plus, it would be relatively easy to "succeed" in the very short
term -- the problem is in few cases would there be long term better governance
as a result.

~~~
notahacker
There's also Frederick Forsyth's "The Dogs of War", a work of fiction which
may have been part of the inspiration behind both plots (Forsyth was rumoured
to have mingled with people preparing an _actual_ coup in Equatorial Guinea
whilst researching the book)

The history of post colonial governance in many African countries _is_ a
regular sequence of coups and coup attempts; it's a fair assumption that
moneyed Western interests have played a role in sponsoring many of them and
simply found existing local opposition groups and ambitious military generals
to be a less risky option for conducting operations than foreign mercenaries.

~~~
smacktoward
The history of this type of thing goes back even farther, to the mid-19th
century -- see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_%28military%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_%28military%29).

(Back then it was Caribbean and Latin American states that were the usual
targets, rather than African ones. But the same logic applies -- the targets
were still relatively new post-colonial states, it's just that the colonial
power that had most recently been losing its grip was Spain.)

------
jessaustin
I'm not exactly _surprised_ that the CIA informed their torture-buddy Yahya
Jammeh of the coup plans, but I am still sickened by it. If you fight evil
African dictators, never talk on the phone, never post on social networks.

~~~
wging
The article I read didn't indicate that the CIA tipped off Jammeh. Where did
you read this?

~~~
jessaustin
TFA:

 _The [FBI] alerted the State Department, the Post reported, which in turn
“secretly tipped off” an unnamed west African country – generally presumed to
be Senegal – in the hope that it would intercept Sanneh. The coup plotters
suspect that the information instead ended up in Jammeh’s hands. “When we, the
people in prison right now, are going through this ordeal, Gambians are
thinking: is the US hiding something?” Faal said. Later, after the Post story
appeared, Faal added, “I would go so far as saying they killed Njaga. They are
responsible for that.”_

Article linked from TFA [0]:

 _I’m failing to see the friendly aspect of this all, save for the fact that
Gambia and the Jammeh regime participated with the US in the CIA torture
programme,” said Smith._

FBI and State knew about it, so obviously CIA did as well. (Presumably from
NSA's extensive domestic monitoring, but I digress...) CIA had a previous
relationship with Jammeh from their torture dungeons operated in the Gambia.
The presidential guards were lying in ambush and knew the plan and timing of
the attempted coup exactly. They only attacked the presidential palace because
a planned Jammeh holiday trip to the countryside was cancelled at the last
moment. I think we can read between the lines here.

[0] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/07/gambia-
failed-c...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/07/gambia-failed-coup-
encourage-president-jammeh)

------
pessimizer
It wasn't "doomed to fail" except in retrospect. The regime was tipped off as
part of the continuing US policy to make sure that the dictators of the world
die of old age.

~~~
jandrese
Even if they had taken out the president, all of his political appointments
would still be there. The most likely outcome is being immediately killed by
the old military and replaced by some general mostly interested in keeping the
status quo.

If they couldn't manage to get enough people, especially locals, for the coup
what chance did they have of collecting enough loyal people to rule the
country and transition it to Democracy?

~~~
mehwoot
Well presumably rounding up support locally whilst still trying to stay
undetected is pretty hard. Realistically you'd probably only want to have
enough people for the plan to succeed informed, any more and the chance of
detection rises.

As it was, the U.S. tipped them off anyway and they were waiting for them, so
they probably would have needed a lot of people to succeed.

