It’s just after midnight now, Sunday, in both Paris and Niamey, the capital and there is, as yet, no invasion of Niger from the ECOWAS countries, France, NATO or any combination of the three. Hours tick by in slow agony, waiting with slim hope for the light of reason to break through pointless rhetoric. An invasion ? If not this week, the next.
You may have heard about the coup in Niger. Maybe not. It’s big news in Europe, and particularly in France, which has a complicated, indeed disingenuous and exploitative, relationship with its former African colonies.
Midnight Sunday was the deadline set by the West African economic and security league, ECOWAS, for the forces involved in the coup (or putsch), lead by the general and palace guard Abdourahamane (Omar) Tchiani, to reinstate the elected President, Mohamed Bazoum, currently under house arrest in or near the Presidential Mansion. Bazoum seems to be out of harm’s way and typing as quickly as he can, if we judge by the Op Ed that appeared under his name in the Washington Post after the coup. The French began an evacuation of personnel shortly after the coup in late July.
Niger’s neighbor Nigeria has, as of midnight Sunday night, made good on its threat to cut the electricity it supplies to Niger. (Some estimates put it as high as 70% of Niger’s power base.)
The headline that made international news at the outset of the coup in late July was Niger’s decision to suspend the supply of uranium to France, which is dependent on the material mined in Niger by the French-owned mining operation Orano. No further actions against Orano (nationalisation, seizure of property) have been taken as of when this was posted but at a guess, they’re probably being discussed.
In response, France, Germany, Canada and the US have all suspended humanitarian aid to Niger, which to be honest, was only in the millions. France, which relies on uranium to power its nuclear plants, sits on a comfortable two-year supply of the material, and will, in all likelihood, find other sources.
Niger’s ruling junta has announced that its airspace was closed as of early Monday morning. Nevertheless there are reports of Russian-based Wagner troops entering (or present) in the country.
The situation is currently being described in news reports as a ‘stalemate,’ which is good news for the start of what looks to be a decisive week for the countries of Sahel and its neighbors. Good news, that is, if you regard an invasion as an inevitable catastrophe with high casualties in one of the poorest countries in Africa and, indeed, the world. Bad news for Niger, because food will become increasingly scarce unless peace is brokered or an outside power makes a move.
The coup in Niger is already causing ripples in what is referred to as West Africa but which in fact spans West Africa and the entire Sub-Sahara region (Sahel, in French) from Niger to Senegal on the coast. Mali and Burkina Faso, ECOWAS members, oppose any intervention in Niger’s affairs and have indicated they will defend Niger, the most serious rift since the organization’s inception. Algeria, Niger’s powerful neighbor to the north, also sides with the putschistes in Niger. There were Pan-African demonstrations this weekend in Senegal where thousands marched against the planned attack and what looks to be at least some public resistance to the invasion in Nigeria itself. The young leader of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, himself in power after a coup, is the leading spokesman for the refusal to get with the program. He received military training with French forces during the Serval and Barkhane campaigns in Mali.
Mohamed Bazoum, longtime player in Niger’s ministerial merry-go-round, was elected president in April 2021. He is the status quo figure from the point of view of France and the United States, a steady hand for the international mining consortiums that make enormous profits from Niger’s mineral wealth.
Tchiani has been a palace guard in Niger since 2011, and was kept on in that capacity by Bazoum. Tchiani trained with American forces earlier in his career.
If nothing else, the currently described stalemate – as of this hour – is provoking a firestorm of criticism and questions about France’s role in the affair inside France itself. News reports, essays and open letters, appearing in the press and on television, debate the country’s role in what is called Francophone Africa. For the first time in a long while – perhaps since the Algerian war of independence in the 1950s and 60s – the subject is front burner, confrontational. What is CEDEAO (the French name for ECOWAS) and what does it do ? What was behind Mali booting out French forces and closing the French embassy ? Why was François Holland’s war against the jihadis in Mali such a resounding failure, and why has Emmanuel Macron continued those policies in the rest of the region ? Why the latest coup in Burkina Faso, forty years after Thomas Sankara ? What next ?
News reports as of noon, Monday, August 7, call plans for an invasion ‘proposed’ and ‘under consideration,’ and have kicked the can down the road to Thursday. The most ardent of the would-be warriors, Nigeria’s recently elected president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, himself facing charges of election fraud involving the country’s new voting system, made much of warning ‘exploiters’ upon his ascension to the ECOWAS chair, declaring the West African block must pursue economic growth through collaboration. The harsh decision to cut Nigeria’s electricity to Niger rests with him.
On Monday afternoon Victoria Nuland swept into town, brandishing threats which mainly consisted of If They Know What’s Good for Them rhetoric. Her attempt to meet Mohamed Bazoum face to face was unsuccessful, which may be better for the president’s state of mind. The ogre of the State Department warned the putschists of the dire consequences of any alliance with Russia. Compare her rhetoric to the statements from the unaligned world that stand in solidarity with the disenfranchised Nigeriens who will suffer whoever invades. Back in D.C., State limited itself to mumbling, “There has been direct contact with military leaders urging them to step aside,” a comment straight from the Land of Make Believe.
*
If I may lob a few questions in : When Tchiani justified the coup on the grounds that the current direction of the country was leading to its ‘gradual and inevitable demise,’ what did he mean and why has no reporter followed up ? Was he referring to the triple threat his country faces of grinding poverty, abusive economic arrangements with foreign powers and a never-ending war against terrorists, jihadis, whose source of funding is highly suspicious ? Countries involved in France’s impossible quest have paid a terrible price in civilian casualties over the last ten years.
Why have countries like Mali and Burkina Faso, ECOWAS members themselves, declared their support for the new regime and told Nigeria and others to back off ?
What is the plan if the ECOWAS invasion bogs down on its triumphal march to Niamey ? Will France commit troops ? What about the US, which still has a base in the country ? Will NATO make a triumphant return to Africa after its big hit on Libya, probably the single most destructive action in its long history, although there are currently other candidates for that distinction. Is Tchiani an American asset and, if so, is the Niger coup a part of the American attack on an independent Europe ?
How long before Russia or China become involved ? The new regime in Niamey is already talking to Wagner, Russia’s mercenary force. Niger, deprived of most of its electricity by a neighboring country and with a dwindling food supply, cannot hold on long. Its principal port in Benin, an ECOWAS member, is now off limits. So much for regional solidarity.
And finally, is the world ready for the conflict that an invasion of Niger will inevitably unleash ? What will be Europe’s reaction when when African bodies start turning up in European ports in great numbers, refugees from yet another cataclysm they did not create ?
If you don’t hear reverberations from the proxy war taking place in the Ukraine, I suggest you listen more closely, if only on the subject of those generous arms shipments from the US and Europe. "Uncontrolled supplies of Western weapons to Kiev have a negative impact on security in Africa," Traoré, President of the Transitional Period of Burkina Faso, said recently, emphasizing that the arms are quickly sold to jihadis across Africa. Undaunted by a decade of low-intensity counter-terrorism efforts, holy warriors are spreading throughout the continent north and south.
Meanwhile in the U.S. Democrats and even some lefties are suddenly Very Concerned about African democracy, leaving the wine bar long enough to cheer on yet another charge into the abyss. What do they think, the Cuban revolution was a parliamentary manœuver ? They’ve held their nose and looked the other way during many other African coup d’etats. We’ll no doubt hear the same kind of compassionate trumpet alarums from reactionaries and conservatives as soon as they can locate Niger on the map.
It’s after midnight on Tuesday now and the standoff holds. It won’t forever. Meetings begin in Nigeria on Wednesday. Players on all sides are going to have to give ground if an invasion of a sovereign country is to be avoided. France desperately needs a dramatic reset of relations with a large swathe of Africa but only Macron, who employs nonentities as ministers and brushes off criticism without reflection, can put that in motion. Colonialism is the ultimate test for modern liberals, the one dossier where saying Nice Things just doesn’t cut it. This way lies the inferno.
3:34 a.m., 8 August 23
Paid subscriptions to Riffs are economical, informative, enlightening and maybe irreplaceable. You could read the Times or Le Monde but you’d have to pay for that, too. Subscriptions help keep bread on the table so Riffs - me, James Graham - thanks you in advance.