Dahomey: A Seasonal Coup

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Teachers and other government workers, who had anticipated that their salary cuts could be restored with French assistance, soon went out on strike. High society in Cotonou boycotted a gala charity ball thrown by Soglo's wife, who had imported two foreign orchestras for the occasion. On one of the city's several sidewalks, someone hastily scribbled the message: "It's time to change the government." Soglo blithely ignored his officers' pleas for talks to settle the general strike. The Dahoman general staff thereupon ordered the army's so-called force de frappe, which consists of six old armored cars and 200 men in World War I helmets, to roll toward Cotonou.

They engineered the coup without even taking the canvas covers off the guns on their vehicles. A "Military Revolutionary Committee" installed Lieut. Colonel Alphonse ("the Paratrooper") Alley, 37, popular chief of staff, as President. Soglo sought asylum in the French embassy, where visitors reported that he was "quite depressed." He will probably want to wait at least until next Christmas before organizing any resistance. At week's end, he flew to Paris, where he will join three ex-Presidents of Dahomey, all coup victims who are now living nicely in the city's fashionable arrondissements.