Dahomey: A Seasonal Coup

Dahomey, the birthplace of voodoo, undergoes a peculiar seasonal ritual. Ever since it gained independence from France in 1960, the tiny country of 2,300,000 people has regularly tossed out its government during the pre-Christmas season in odd-numbered years. Usually, the man who has served as chief bouncer is a general named Christophe Soglo, 58. Last week, right on schedule, Dahomey had its fourth coup in seven years. This time, it was a total surprise to Soglo, who was himself thrown out as President by a junta of his younger army subordinates.

Once ruled by powerful ancient kings, Dahomey is the cradle of the Haitian voodoo gods that African slaves brought with them to the Caribbean. While many a Dahoman politician still consults his feticheur as he would a staff aide, General Soglo's own particular fetishes were not of the traditional kind. He lately had taken to pinching real dolls rather than wooden ones, including an overripe Elizabeth Taylor when she was in Dahomey early this year to film The Comedians. The sturdy strongman also had a habit of belching rather loudly at state banquets, at times has urged the men in his audience to go home and make love to their wives because Dahomey is underpopulated.

Cheeses & Castor Oil. But Soglo's downfall really began when he tried to do something about Dahomey's stagnant economy. Though it lacks any natural resources, the Pennsylvania-sized country has an overabundance of disgruntled intellectuals who once were civil servants in other nations of French West Africa but were booted out when those countries achieved independence. Soglo launched an austerity program that embittered his top-heavy government's 12,000 civil servants, who crowd the cafes of Dahomey's commercial capital, Cotonou. He cut salaries by 30%, froze recruitment and promotion in the civil service and did away with air conditioning in government offices.

With such paltry exports as palm-tree products and castor oil, Dahomey cannot pay for the large quantities of French meats, wines, cheeses and "Gervais" ice cream that are normally among the prized imports of Dahomey's elite. Nor can its poor people, who live mostly in thatched huts or in bamboo huts set on stilts in muddy lagoons, afford the $3,000,000 presidential palace that its rulers have built, or the four-lane, sodium-lit boulevard that runs along Cotonou's seaside edge into an empty field of sand and weeds.

Sidewalk Message. A reluctant France foots the bill for nearly one-fifth of its prodigal offspring's $29 million annual budget. When Soglo returned from a trip to France last month, he brought the message that "Dahomey will not in the least relax austerity."