Lesotho, 2014 — military coup attempt

Event Summary

On 30 August 2014 the Lesotho Defence Force mounted what Prime Minister Tom Thabane denounced as a coup, seizing police stations and key installations in the capital Maseru in the pre dawn hours and sending Thabane fleeing across the border to South Africa. The small mountain kingdom had been mired in political crisis: Thabane, heading a fractious coalition government, had suspended parliament in June 2014 to avoid a no confidence vote, deepening a rift with his deputy and with the army, whose commander, Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli, Thabane had tried to dismiss. In the early hours of 30 August, soldiers loyal to Kamoli attacked police headquarters and other sites, disarming the police, whom the army viewed as aligned with Thabane, and briefly seized control; the prime minister, warned of the assault, fled to South Africa, from where he declared that a coup had taken place.

The military denied mounting a coup, calling it an operation against police who were arming a political militia. Under mediation by South Africa and the Southern African Development Community, Thabane returned within days, though the crisis and the army's dominance persisted, and Lesotho's chronic instability continued in the years that followed.