Showing 1 - 10 of 33
Democracy survives crucial test in Senegal
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/04/2024
» The crisis in Senegal, the one country in West Africa that has never had a military coup, has passed. Few people outside Africa were paying close attention to it, but I'm sure you will be pleased to know that democracy has survived.
Sahel coups are just another 'Great Game'
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/08/2023
» If you are a democratically elected leader in one of Africa's Sahel countries -- let's say, Niger -- and you suspect that the army is plotting to overthrow you, what's the best countermeasure? Should you:
Why won't Putin go to South Africa?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/07/2023
» Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he won't be going to South Africa for next month's summit of the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), although all the other leaders will be there. In fact, another couple of dozen national leaders who want to join the club will also be there. Why is Mr Putin staying away?
Prigozhin and the aftermath of Russian folly
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/06/2023
» 'I said to Putin: 'We could waste [Prigozhin], no problem. If not on the first try, then on the second.' I told him: 'Don't do this'," said Aleksander Lukashenko, long-ruling dictator of Belarus, clearly delighted at having upstaged his arrogant Russian counterpart. The worm had turned, and it was the Russian dictator who needed help.
Thailand: Back around in the circle again?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/05/2023
» There have been occasional violent episodes in Thai politics and one recent massacre (2010), but the struggle for a genuine democracy has usually been relatively restrained. Maybe that is why it has lasted so long.
Sudan: Thieves fall out and the people suffer
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/04/2023
» It's a pity that both sides can't lose in the war that broke out between rival generals in Sudan on Saturday, but the best that the 48 million Sudanese can hope for now is that one side loses quickly. Beyond that, it's all bad: the rival generals both want to strangle the democratic revolution that began in Khartoum four years ago.
Pakistan bound for crisis amid changed reality
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/04/2023
» Last year US President Joe Biden called Pakistan "one of the most dangerous countries in the world", presumably because of its potentially lethal cocktail of nuclear weapons and unstable politics. But somehow it staggers on endlessly, never resolving its permanent political crisis but never quite exploding either.
2 failed populist coups: Compare and contrast
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/01/2023
» Pundits are making much of the similarities between the attempted coup in Washington by Trump supporters two years ago and the one by Bolsonaro supporters in Brasilia on Jan 8, but they are missing the biggest one. These debacles were the most incompetent and half-hearted attempts to seize power illegally in the history of the world.
Coups are all the rage again in beleaguered Africa
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/02/2022
» Military coups are back in fashion in Africa. There have been over 200 attempted coups in the continent since 1960, about half of them successful, but in the past two decades they had dropped to only two a year. Last year saw six, however, and there have been two already this year. The latest in Guinea-Bissau.
Recycled wars of benighted Afghanistan
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/08/2021
» In the year 2000, five years after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, nobody elsewhere cared what happened in that land-locked, benighted country. It was ruled by angry rural fanatics who tormented the local people with their demented rules for proper "Islamic" behaviour, but it was not a military or diplomatic priority for anybody.