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Mathieu Kérékou, Dictator Who Ushered In Democracy in Benin, Dies at 82
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Oct 15, 2015 11:06pm |
| Category | Obituary |
| News Date | Oct 15, 2015 11:00pm |
| Description | Mathieu Kérékou, who seized control of the West African nation of Benin in a military coup in 1972 and proclaimed a one-party Marxist state, but nearly two decades later presided over the region’s first peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy, died on Wednesday in Cotonou, Benin. He was 82.
His death was announced by his elected successor, Thomas Boni Yayi.
Mr. Kérékou led Benin, an impoverished cotton-growing country the size of Pennsylvania on the Gulf of Guinea, in two different guises: as its strongman from 1972 to 1991, and as its democratically elected president from 1996 to 2005. In that transformation, from one to the other, is where is his most enduring legacy lies.
Under pressure from a conference of prominent citizens he had convened, he agreed to hold free elections in 1991 and then agreed to give up power when he lost.
The decision set off an unraveling of one-party rule across West Africa, inspiring movements toward multiparty democracy.
He returned to power in 1996 in a free election and served two terms.
Nicknamed the Chameleon for his protean politics, Mr. Kérékou could also be mercurial in his behavior. On a trip to the United States in 1999, he stunned an all-black Baltimore church congregation by falling to his knees and begging forgiveness for the “shameful” and “abominable” role that Africans played in the slave trade.
In 1975, he burst into the home of his interior minister, found him committing adultery with Mr. Kérékou’s wife, and ordered him shot to death as the man fled naked. |
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