Africa’s deft handling of Zimbabwe’s ‘coup’

The sight of a civilian populace wildly cheering soldiers clinging to a tank is the standard fare of coups d’état. In Africa, which has had a troubling tradition of the military overthrowing civilian administrations, it’s a jubilation that historically has rarely lasted for long, with the new rulers soon proving to be at least as venal and oppressive as those they have replaced.

The Zimbabwe military’s slow-motion, week-long, eviction of the man who has ruled that landlocked southern African state for its entire 37 years of existence as an independent nation came to an abrupt and almost banal end on Tuesday night. After a week of determined resistance, President Robert Mugabe suddenly folded his hand and resigned with immediate effect, by means of a letter read out in the nation’s Parliament, just as impeachment proceedings were starting.