Coup dtat

Coup dtat, seizure of an existing government by a small group. This overthrow is sometimes
accompanied by limited violence, as when the head of state is killed in the coup. A coup d'tat
involves relatively few members of the population, and these few frequently are military officers.
Participants generally control strategic elements of the armed forces and police and have the
cooperation of at least some civilian and political leaders.

For many years the coup d'tat has been used to overthrow governments in Latin America.
Poverty and illiteracy among the people and a long tradition of military leadership have made
these governments especially susceptible to overthrow from within. This pattern now seems to be
appearing in some of the newly independent nations of Africa.