Coups and junta rule must be condemned

One of the fundamental principles which the participants in the Arab Spring fought for is the retreat of armies from political power, and their replacement by properly elected civilian leaders. 
Egypt is the prime illustration.

Since the coup d’etat in 1952 which resulted in the overthrow of King Farouk by Colonel Nasser, the army has been in power for over 50 years until Murbarak resigned in March 2011.

Morsi (left) was elected as the first non-military president in modern Egyptian history in June 2012, receiving 52 percent of the popular vote. His was a four-year term, with the next election scheduled under the new constitution in 2016.

However unpopular Morsi temporarily was - even the most popular president  or prime minister suffers temporary periods of unpopularity but is often re-elected - there is absolutely no justification for the army to carry out a coup d’etat and replace him by force. The army’s true role is in the barracks, and they should remain there permanently.

Post-World War II history is replete with nations securing independence from their colonial masters very quickly falling into the hands of their military. Asian countries emerging from British rule like Pakistan, Burma and Bangladesh have had lengthy spells of army rule.

Among our neighbours, the October 1965 coup which removed President Sukarno from office resulted in at least half a million deaths under General Suharto(right).

Coups are so frequent in Thailand that the military has probably governed longer than civilian politicians.

Africa perhaps has the saddest tale. Whether it is Nigeria, Uganda, Congo, Ivory Coast or Libya, the ‘man on horseback’ (to quote the title of a seminal book by a political scientist, Samuel Finer) has brutally and corruptly plundered and misruled.

A new term ‘kleptocrazy’ was coined to describe the scale and magnitude of a typical African general’s looting of his nation, and the transfer of wealth to Swiss accounts.

Central and South America were not spared either. Nearly every nation in the two regions were under brutal military rule, including the leading nations of Brazil and Argentina; in the latter, ‘dirty war’ conducted by the military included throwing thousands of dissidents who were still alive from planes and helicopters into the high seas. 

The consequences of General Pinochet’s murderous regime continue to haunt Chile which, even after 40 years, has not fully recovered from the scars of army rule. Nixon, Kissinger and the CIA were all involved in the conspiracy to eliminate the democratically-elected Chilean head, President Allende in 1973.

Thereafter, the CIA organised ‘Operation Condor’ in the mid-1970s with right-wing national security agencies in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay (the southern cone of South America) which resulted in the death of some 60,000 civilians.

Limitations of military rule

Military coups have also occurred in ‘civilised’ Western Europe, which claimed it had proper democracies superior to Soviet controlled satellite states in Eastern Europe. Yet, in 1966 the Army grabbed power in Greece - the cradle of democracy - and brutally repressed thousands of their citizenry.

Hence, the universal record of military rule in the second half of the 20th century has been dismal: ultimately, the army just cannot govern. This is hardly surprising: it is in the nature of the military, built on command, hierarchy and discipline.

Generals and colonels do not understand democracy, the right to opposing views and civil liberty.  One has to obey army command, refusal invites being shot at. It is as simple as that.

Furthermore, the military has never come to grips with managing an economy, and other pressing requirements of modern state governance. Once in power, they are most reluctant to depart.

And even when they leave the political scene, they continue to play the role of ultimate arbiter. Military rule inevitably breeds massive corruption, and the common man is always bullied and intimidated.  It has never proved to be for the public good.

One of the greatest blessings that Malaysia has enjoyed as a nation is civilian supremacy and control over our military. This is a hardly appreciated fact. Never once in our post-Merdeka history was there a real threat that the army would take over.

Even after May 13, 1969, the country was temporarily under the rule of the National Operations Council (NOC), which was always under the control of its director, Abdul Razak Hussein and his civilian colleagues from the Alliance coalition. The army chief was just one member in NOC, but in a clear minority.

Malaysians must count their blessings that the army knows its place in national life. Our military forces also seem to take seriously the fact that their commander-in-chief is the Agong, the supreme head of the nation.

Returning to Egypt, one can see the hand of the US military behind the army coup; after all the two armies have enjoyed close relations for over 40 years under Sadat and Murbarak.

Ever since the Muslim Brotherhood formed the majority in Egypt, wider US geo-political and strategic interests dictate, particularly with their paranoia of Islam after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and 9/11 attack in New York, that Egypt was no longer in “safe hands”.  

Hence, the lack of criticism by the US on the downfall of Morsi. Indeed, their media has characterised the change of regime as not being a coup or perhaps a “soft coup”. This is intellectual dishonesty, and adds insult to injury.

From Morsi’s perspective, he has been removed violently from an office which he was democratically elected; that is a coup, by any definition.

Functioning or participatory democracy caters for both majority and minority interests. A true democracy accommodates wide divergence of interests in national life, and changes take place peacefully, and by consensus.

The great danger in Egypt is that the 52 percent majority which has seen its democratically elected leader forcibly driven out of office may resort to violence. Civil war may be the outcome. 

Parallels exit with Algeria where an Islamic party had been victorious at the polls in 1992, only for the army to intervene, nullify the elections and take over the government. The result was civilian deaths by the thousands, with the nation still remaining fractured.

Whenever peaceful change is impossible in a society, violent change becomes inevitable. The Egyptian army is wholly responsible for causing this crisis, and any junta rule, whether by puppets or directly, is doomed to fail.

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TOMMY THOMAS is a lawyer specialising in constitutional law.