Whatever Happened to Coups, Anyway?

Whatever Happened to Coups, Anyway?

I had a distinct sense of Deja Vu this week at the news that Mali, a large but impoverished Francophone state in north-west Africa, had experienced a military coup d'etat.

The ingredients were familiar enough to  anyone of a certain age or with a long memory - soldiers occupied the Presidential palace and the local TV and radio stations; an elected civilian President  was deposed and went into hiding; a broadcast statement from said soldiers denounced the old regime and announced the formation of  a 'National Committee for the Re-establishment of Democracy' and (somewhat less worthily)  there were reports of troops running amok, looting stores and torching buildings. Coups like this used to happen all the time, but where has the coup gone to recently?

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