At UN, Guinea’s junta leader defends coups in Africa and rebuffs the West
- Guinea is among several countries to have seen coups since 2020, along with Mali, Burkina Faso and this year, Niger and Gabon
- The coups have been strongly condemned by the United Nations and Western powers such as the US and France
The recent coups in Africa are attempts by militaries to save their countries from presidents’ “broken promises”, the head of Guinea’s junta said as he rebuffed the West for boxing in the continent of more than 1 billion people.
Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, who was sworn in as Guinea’s interim president following the coup in 2021, told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that beyond condemning the coups, global leaders must also “look to and address the deep-rooted causes”.
“The putschist is not only the person who takes up arms to overthrow a regime,” he told the gathering of world leaders in New York. “I want us all to be well aware of the fact that the real putschists, the most numerous, are those who avoid any condemnation – they are those … who cheat to manipulate the text of the constitution in order to stay in power eternally.”
Guinea is one of several nations in West and Central Africa that have experienced eight coups since 2020, including two – Niger and Gabon – in recent months.
The military takeovers, sometimes celebrated by citizens in those countries and condemned by international organisations and foreign countries, have raised concern about the stability of the continent, whose young population of at least 1.3 billion is set to double by 2050 and make up a quarter of the planet’s people.
