By Chakamwe Chakamwe

MANY political analysts and commentators, especially those from the anti-Zimbabwe brigade, are still scratching their heads, desperately trying to find the right words or phrases to describe the action taken by the army in Zimbabwean politics in November.
The Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) described their action simply as, an exercise to get rid of criminals in ZANU PF surrounding the then president who were slowly driving the country towards instability.
And true to their word, the army got rid of the political criminals, who today are either facing criminal charges before the courts or have skipped the country running away from justice.
But the anti Zimbabwe brigade don’t want to know.
While they describe the army’s action last November as having been ‘unusual’, they try, the best way they can, to associate the army action referred to above, with the word ‘coup’.
And so you hear them say there was a ‘sweet coup’ or ‘soft coup’ in Zimbabwe.
It is the aim of this article, to show that the army action in Zimbabwe in November was, ‘no coup’ at all but as already mentioned above, an exercise to get rid of political criminals in ZANU PF who were busy driving the country towards anarchy.
To achieve this, we shall give examples of countries where real ‘coups’ occurred.
First things first.
What is a ‘coup’?
The Collins School Dictionary says a ‘coup’ is a French word which means a ‘blow’.
The word therefore is loaded with violent action.
The dictionary quoted above goes on to say: “When there is a coup, a group of people seize power in a country.”
And here the accent is on the word ‘seize’.
Now can anyone say a group of soldiers seized power in Zimbabwe in November?
Can anyone say the army used violence against former President Robert Mugabe, and seized power from him?
Let us shelve the answering of the above two questions now and instead learn what really happens when a military coup takes place.
We are going to start with the Idi Amin ‘coup’ in Uganda followed by Portugal’s armed forces coup and lastly, the Ghana coup during Kwame Nkurumah’s time as president.
In January 1971, Milton Obote, the then president of Uganda, departed for the 1971 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Singapore.
While Obote was out in Singapore, the Ugandan army commander, Idi Amin, staged a military ‘coup’ and seized power.
He attacked strategic targets in Kampala, the capital city, and the airport at Entebbe.
Amin’s troops easily overcame the disorganised opposition to the coup.
Once Amin had succeeded in staging the military coup, he went on to set up his own military government in place of the deposed Obote one.
“He renamed Government House ‘The Command Post’, instituted an advisory defence council composed of military commanders, placed military tribunals above the system of civil law and informed the newly-inducted civilian ministers that they would be subject to military discipline.
Uganda then became a military dictatorship which was in effect, governed from a collection of military barracks scattered across the country where battalion commanders, acting like warlords, represented the coercive arm of the government.
Now, here you have a very good example of a military coup. In this case, the former head of state was totally eliminated from power once the coup had taken place and thereafter the new government was run by the military.
The Idi Amin coup typifies what a real military coup is all about.
In 1933 the Portuguese Government was recast and renamed ‘Estado Novo’ (New State).
And one Antonio Salazar was named as President of the Council of Ministers and the country until 1968 when he left office.
He was replaced by Marcello Caetano.
With the passage of time, a group of Portuguese low-ranking officers organised in the armed forces movement rose to overthrow the Caetano regime in April 1974 accusing it of dictatorship and authoritarianism.
The armed forces movement took over the country and announced that the revolution had started.
Caetano ran away and eventually found refuge in the main Lisbon military police station.
This building was then surrounded by the armed forces which pressured him to cede power to an army general, one General Spinola.
After Caetano had ceded power, he fled to Brazil where he spent the rest of his life.
This is what happens when a military coup takes place.
After that military coup in Lisbon on April 25 1974, power was taken by a military junta – the National Salvation Junta and Portugal went through a turbulent period.
Here again we have a typical military coup.
The military took over the running of government.
Civilian rule only came after almost two years.
Turning to Kwame Nkrumah.
On February 24 1966 the first President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah was removed from office through a military coup.
On that day, Nkrumah was away in Hanoi at the invitation of President Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam.
The masterminds of the 1966 coup were Colonel E. K. Kotoka, Major A. A. Africa and Mr J. W. K Harley, the then inspector general of police.
That bloody coup that toppled the First Constitution of Ghana was code named ‘Operation Old Chop’.
Dr Nkurumah was exiled to Ivory Coast.
He never came back to Ghana.
Meanwhile, the military coup plotters ‘tilted themselves the National Liberation Council and ruled as a military government for three years’.
Yes a military government, headed by soldiers, took over the government and ran it a solid three years.
Here again is a classic case of a military coup.
The new Ghana military government tore the country’s Constitution and went on to rule by decree.
Now we can come back to the questions we asked earlier on.
In the light of the above experiences of military coups, we have highlighted above, can anyone in his right mind say what happened in Uganda, Portugal and Ghana has any relationship to what happened in Zimbabwe in November?
Let us be clear here.
As we have seen above, a ‘coup’ is never ‘sweet’ or ‘soft’.
Therefore, whoever says there was a coup of any description in Zimbabwe is being mischievous.
There was never a coup of any description in November in Zimbabwe.