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Canada is speaking out against a coup d’etat in Niger, but hasn’t joined other nations in threatening to cut aid to the West African country.
Last Wednesday, a faction of Niger’s military claimed to have overthrown the country’s democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum after detaining him in his palace.
In a tweet Friday evening, Global Affairs Canada wrote that Ottawa “strongly condemns the attempted coup” in Niger and calls for Bazoum’s release.
“We reaffirm our support for Niger’s democracy and reiterate our call for President Bazoum’s release,” the department wrote, while expressing support for the Economic Community of West African States, a group of 15 countries known as ECOWAS.
That bloc has threatened to sanction leaders of the military junta and send in troops if Bazoum isn’t restored to power within a week
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Tagging: @politicsofcanada
#world news#niger#niger coup#west africa#africa#coup#coups#coup d'état#mohamed bazoum#economic community of west african states#ECOWAS
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Niger coup
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Late last month, armed troops in Niger overthrew the government, arrested the elected president, and seized power for themselves. Soon after, a small group of Nigeriens who supported the coup in the capital city, Niamey, gathered to show their support for the military government, some waving the Russian flag. They denounced the West in general, and France, the former colonial power, in particular. “Long live Putin!” they chanted. “Down with France!”
The coup has created considerable alarm in Western capitals, and with good reason. Since 2020, there have been coups throughout the Sahel, the strategically important belt of hot, semiarid land stretching across Africa just below the Sahara desert. In 2020, Mali’s government fell. In 2021, the same thing happened in Sudan, Chad, and Guinea. Last year, a coup took place in Burkina Faso. Niger was seen as the Sahel’s final bulwark against chaos and instability, the last regime standing. The United States had a drone base in Niger, and France had stationed troops there, a crucial line of defense against surging West African jihadism. Now all of that is at risk.
Few Americans are in the habit of giving much thought to Niger (“Do you mean Nigeria?”), but this summer’s events seemed to offer a stark takeaway: Pro-Russian soldiers overthrew a pro-Western government. Democracy was uprooted by military dictatorship. To anyone who lived through the Cold War, the story felt familiar. The fact that Niger exports uranium—a crucial resource for nuclear reactors—makes its struggle even easier to understand as a geopolitical chess game. Niger was a pawn, and coups happen when pawns are pulled between geopolitical kings. And so, the coup has quickly become a story about America, Russia, and France—and not about Niger.
When explaining major events in international news, particularly those that take place in unfamiliar locations, we all tend to exhibit geopolitical bias, a mindset that filters every incident through the prism of international grand strategy—and makes the moral of every story about us. Simplistic, familiar narratives trounce nuanced explanations that involve political actors few nonspecialists have heard of, known by obscure acronyms and hard-to-pronounce names.
The military coup in Niger has already become fodder for sensational headlines and political statements linked to grand geopolitical tropes. A senior adviser to Ukraine’s president insisted, without evidence, that Russia instigated the coup. Bloomberg covered the coup as the latest evidence for the “Long Arm of the Kremlin.” Newsweek declared that Niger’s coup means “The Countdown to the Next Great War Has Begun in Africa.”
Russia will likely expand its influence because of the Niger coup (and there have been reports that the junta is requesting help from the Wagner Group mercenaries). But much of the speculation about the extent of Russia’s involvement so far is based on extremely thin evidence—a few hundred people, in one protest, in one city, a handful of them carrying Russian flags, in a country that’s twice the size of France and home to more than 25 million people. Even before the coup, Niger’s capital city was an opposition stronghold, so one should hardly be surprised that some people who live there would demonstrate in support of soldiers who overthrew a president they loathed.
The impetus behind the coup is very likely complex, nuanced, and less about the Kremlin than about domestic dynamics. The possibility of a more banal local cause doesn’t negate the real anger that many Nigeriens feel toward France, or the misguided impulse some have to turn to Russia as an alternative international sponsor that’s explicitly anti-Western. But the simple explanation for why the coup happened, as reported in the local media, is plausibly the right one.
The incumbent president, Mohamed Bazoum, had been planning to fire a general, Abdourahamane Tchiani, who commanded the elite presidential guard. Now that the coup has happened, General Tchiani isn’t going to be fired. Instead, he has proclaimed himself the head of the new military junta, which calls itself the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland.
The Occam’s-razor explanation may just be correct: A general who was going to be fired decided to fire the president instead. Many coups have such simple origin stories, triggered by factional rivalries within the military, and ambitious, self-serving men who would happily swap the barracks for the palace.
Whatever the reason for his gamble, Tchiani likely didn’t anticipate the intense opposition he has faced since seizing power. Most international actors, including Russia, have condemned the coup (though the Kremlin’s statement about respecting the constitution is best consumed with a grain of salt). And perhaps the most surprising threat to Tchiani’s plans has emerged from a major regional power broker, the Economic Community of West African States. The bloc of 15 West African countries, with Nigeria as its most powerful member, has taken a hard-line stance against the coup, even threatening military intervention. As a result, some have painted ECOWAS as a puppet of the West, the sharp end of the European and American spear.
Yet again, a simpler (and less geopolitically exciting) explanation is likely correct. ECOWAS may not be taking a tough stance against this coup because it’s a marionette or because it has an ideological aversion to Vladimir Putin; the governments of its member states may just be concerned about their own self-preservation.
“One reason why regional presidents are interested in military intervention is because they’re increasingly scared of being taken out themselves,” says Professor Nic Cheeseman, an expert on African politics at the University of Birmingham. “It comes after several other coups in the region, and they realized that they could be next if they didn’t draw a line in the sand.”
Niger’s coup may not have originated in great-power competition so much as in politics and other dynamics nearer at hand—but it could still have serious international repercussions. The security situation in the Sahel is deteriorating as jihadism rises. The junta governments that have taken power in the past three years have proved unable to combat it. Moreover, although many of the new military regimes—notably in Mali and Burkina Faso—have allied themselves with Russia, the Russian government and the Wagner Group are not exactly flush with spare cash or bursting with well-trained troops waiting to deploy to Africa, bogged down as they are by their debacle in Ukraine. In the coming months, the postcoup regimes in the Sahel are likely to realize that they’ve swapped Western partners, which had deep pockets and a long-term commitment to supplying foreign aid, for a diminished Kremlin that will inevitably overpromise and under-deliver. The money will eventually run out.
Europe has skin in the game: France, which is mostly powered by nuclear energy, gets roughly 10 to 15 percent of its uranium supplies from Niger. Moreover, in 2015, the European Union paid Niger’s government to effectively create a European “Sahel border,” shutting down pathways of migration through Niger toward the Mediterranean. The coup could reopen that route, reinvigorating the formerly thriving transit hub of Agadez. The United States cares about Agadez too: The American drone base Niger Air Base 201 is just outside the town.
If Niger’s junta manages to stay in power, it will almost certainly align itself with Russia. The interim regime has already announced the cancellation of several military agreements with France. But it’s in for a rude awakening if it cozies up to the Kremlin. Russia, as Mali and Burkina Faso are finding out, is rich enough to pay for small contingents of mercenaries and to line the pockets of greedy soldiers, but it is nowhere near rich enough to help provide for the broader population of one of the world’s poorest countries, where the GDP per capita is less than $600 a year.
As is so often the case in sub-Saharan Africa, the victims will be those who can least endure it. The broader population of Niger will suffer as soldiers turned politicians enrich themselves. And that story, which is not about geopolitics, but rather about the ordinary distress of millions of vulnerable people, will be one that garners substantially less ink.
#current events#politics#nigerien politics#russian politics#warfare#2023 nigerien coup d'état#russo-ukrainian war#2022 russian invasion of ukraine#niger#france#russia#mohamed bazoum#abdourahamane tchiani
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Opinion President of Niger: My country is under attack and I’ve been taken hostage
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Niger President Mohamed Bazoum survives an attempted coup African Union, world leaders condemn.
Niger President Mohamed Bazoum who is currently detained by the soldiers
World leaders and regional blocs have condemned a coup attempt against Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum by members of the presidential guard.
Niger’s presidency said in a tweet on Wednesday that members of the presidential guard tried to move against Bazoum.
It said that guards engaged in an “anti-Republican…
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Niger : Mohamed Toumba considère que la réinstaller Mohamed Bazoum au poste de président est une idée « fantasmatique » au Niger.
#Niger : L'objectif de la #CEDEAO de réinstaller Mohamed Bazoum en tant que président est utopique et peut même être considéré comme « fantasmé »
Le général Mohamed Toumba, le ministre nigérien de l’intérieur, considère que l’objectif de la CEDEAO de réinstaller Mohamed Bazoum en tant que président est utopique et peut même être considéré comme « fantasmé ».
Lors de son discours au sommet de Lomé sur la paix et la sécurité, le général Mohamed Toumba a expliqué les conséquences néfastes du projet d’intervention militaire initié par la…
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Niger : le président déchu Mohamed Bazoum aurait finalement, accepté de rendre sa démission
Le président nigérien Mohamed Bazoum, qui a été renversé en date du 26 juillet par la garde présidentielle aurait accepté de présenter sa démission, selon le média turc TRT Arabic.
Une information qui n’a pas encore été confirmée. Cette décision aurait été décidée par Mohamed Bazoum, pour éviter que le dang des nigériens coule, et pour en finir avec la crise constitutionnelle et les risques d’une…
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#accepté#CEDEAO#déchu#démissioncup d&039;état#déposer#France#Mohamed Bazoum#Niamey#Niger#président#rendre
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On the horizon, the heat of West Africa's recent spate of coups looms large. No one is immune to their consequences, yet few understand the motives behind them. To hear the people speak of it, it is like a dream that keeps changing shape. A nightmare that claws at their waking minds, refusing to be forgotten. Yet if we look past the shadows that veil the truth, perhaps we will find a path to a better future.
#Africa#News#World#Abdoulaye Diop#Abdourahamane Tiani#Burkina Faso#conflict#coup#Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)#ECOWAS#ethnic tensions#governance challenges#Headline#Mali#Mali Army#Military Intervention#Mohamed Bazoum#national autonomy#Niger#Olivia Rouamba#Political Instability#regional cooperation#socioeconomic disparities#West Africa#fault#coups#instability#old order#change
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SITUATION COMPLEXE AU NIGER: BAZOUM DÉCHU, BIENTÔT DANS LA GUEULE DE LA JUSTICE.
Renversé par un coup d’État militaire le 26 juillet dernier et séquestré, Mohamed Bazoum ancien président du Niger sera bientôt face à la justice pour répondre à de nombreuses accusations portées à son encontre par les putschistes. Après avoir formé un gouvernement en période critique que traverse le Niger, ces rebelles du pouvoir ont pour intention de poursuivre le Président Déchu pour ”…
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#BIENTÔT DANS LA GUEULE DE LA JUSTICE.#Mohamed Bazoum#Niamey#poursuite judiciaire#SITUATION COMPLEXE AU NIGER: BAZOUM DÉCHU
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Niger-Junta: Der gestürzte Präsident könnte wegen Hochverrats angeklagt werden
Die Junta, die am 26. Juli durch einen Putsch die Macht in Niger übernommen hatte, plant, den gestürzten Präsidenten Mohamed Bazoum wegen Hochverrats zu verfolgen. Die Putschisten haben Bazoum inhaftiert und die gewählte Regierung aufgelöst, was zu internationaler Verurteilung führte. Westafrikanische Mächte haben eine militärische Bereitschaftstruppe aktiviert, die eingreifen könnte, um Bazoum…
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Niger: army supports coup d'etat
By W. Spencer, The Chicago Times
July 27, 2023
NIAMEY – Tensions remain high in the Republic of Niger the day after soldiers ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and seized power in a coup d’etat that now marks the end of the Seventh Republic.
Niger’s military command released a statement via twitter that it will support the coup to avoid bloodshed in a country already facing deteriorating security…
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#COUP#MOHAMED BAZOUM#NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE SAFEGUARDING OF THE COUNTRY#REPUBLIC OF NIGER#SPECIAL REPORT
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Soldiers in Niger say they have removed President Mohamed Bazoum from power, after armed troops earlier blockaded the presidential palace in Niamey, the capital in one of the world’s most unstable nations.
A group of soldiers appeared on the west African country’s national television late on Wednesday, a few hours after the president had been detained.
Reading from a statement, Colonel Amadou Abdramane, seated and flanked by nine other officers wearing fatigues, said the defence and security forces had decided to “put an end to the regime that you know due to the deteriorating security situation and bad governance”.
He said the country’s borders were closed and all institutions of the republic suspended, and announced a national curfew. The soldiers warned against any foreign intervention.
The apparent coup was said to be led by the head of a regional political and security group.
The soldiers, including members of the presidential guard of Bazoum, were earlier said to be engaged in negotiations with the president – who was described as “safe and well” although his location was unclear.
The move by the elite guard force was quickly challenged by the wider army and national guard, who threatened to attack the presidential force unless they stepped down.
The White House said as the situation unfolded that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had spoken to the captive Bazoum and “conveyed the unwavering support of the United States … the strong US economic and security partnership with Niger depends on the continuation of democratic governance and respect for the rule of law and human rights”.
Blinken, visiting New Zealand, later said: “I spoke with President Bazoum earlier this morning, and made clear that the US resolutely supports him as the democratically elected president of Niger. We call for his immediate release.
“We condemn any efforts to seize power by force. We’re actively engaged with the Niger government, but also with partners in the region and around the world, and will continue to do so until the situation is resolved appropriately and peacefully.”
The UN said its secretary general, António Guterres, also spoke to Bazoum and offered his “full support and solidarity”. Guterres called “on all actors involved to exercise restraint and to ensure the protection of constitutional order”.
A source close to Bazoum described the move as a “fit of temper” by the elite troops adding that “talks” were under way after the soldiers blocked access to the palace at about 6.30am on Wednesday.
A Reuters reporter saw military vehicles blocking the entrance to the palace in the capital, Niamey. Access to ministries next to the palace had also been blocked, security sources said. Residents in other parts of the city described traffic moving freely and no evidence of armed men on the streets.
An official in the presidency said staff inside the palace did not have access to their offices, while a statement issued by the presidency on Twitter suggested that the presidential guard had tried to win over the support of some members of the armed forces in their actions.
The chair of the African Union Commission, H E Moussa Faki Mahamat, condemned what he called an “attempted coup”. If confirmed, it would be the fifth attempted coup in west Africa in the past four years.
Bola Tinubu, the president of neighbouring Nigeria and chair of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), called the events “unpleasant developments” and said he was already in “close consultation” with other leaders in the region about the situation.
“The Ecowas leadership will not accept any action that impedes the smooth functioning of legitimate authority in Niger or any part of west Africa … we will do everything within our powers to ensure democracy is firmly planted, nurtured, well rooted and thrives in our region,” he said in a statement.
Lying in the heart of the Sahel, Niger is two-thirds desert and persistently ranks near to or at the bottom of the UN’s human development index, a benchmark of prosperity. It has a growing population of 22.4 million, driven by a birthrate averaging seven children for every woman.
The country is struggling with two jihadist campaigns – one in the south-west, which swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015, and the other in the south-east, involving jihadists based in north-eastern Nigeria.
Niger’s military has received training and logistical support from the US and France, which have military bases there.
“It’s a fit of temper by the presidential guard but talks are under way with the president,” the source told the AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The president is fine, he’s safe and sound,” the source said. “He and his family are at the residence.”
The reason for the guards’ behaviour and what was being discussed in the talks were not given.
An MP with Bazoum’s PNDS party said: “I spoke to the president and to friends who are ministers [and] they are fine.”
Bazoum, who was democratically elected in 2021, is a close ally of France. The country’s last coup occurred in February 2010, overthrowing the then-president, Mamadou Tandja.
However, there was an attempted coup days before Bazoum’s inauguration in April 2021, according to a security source at the time. Several people were arrested, including the suspected ringleader, an air force captain named Sani Gourouza. He was arrested in neighbouring Benin and handed over to the Niger authorities.
Ousmane Cisse, a former interior minister under a military government of transition that ran from 2010 to 2011, was detained in April 2022 for his suspected role. He was acquitted in February this year, but five others, including Gourouza, were jailed for 20 years.
A second attempt to oust Bazoum took place in March this year while the president was in Turkey, according to a Niger official, who said an arrest was made.
The authorities have never commented publicly on the incident.
In January 2018, nine soldiers and a civilian were sentenced by a military court to jail terms ranging from five to 15 years for having attempted to topple Bazoum’s predecessor, Mahamadou Issoufou, in 2015.
Those convicted included Gen Souleymane Salou, a former army chief of staff and a member of the junta that had forced out Tandja in 2010.
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CEDEAO : le Nigérien Mohamed Bazoum annonce des mesures contre « le 3e mandat » en Afrique de l’Ouest
CEDEAO : le Nigérien Mohamed Bazoum annonce des mesures contre « le 3e mandat » en Afrique de l’Ouest
La Communauté économique des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO) se réunira le 03 juillet 2022 à Accra au Ghana pour analyser les Transitions au Mali, au Burkina Faso et en Guinée.
Les regards seront braqués sur le cas du Mali parce que l’instance sous-régionale décidera du maintien ou de la levée des sanctions contre le pays du colonel Assimi Goita, le chef de la junte militaire au pouvoir…
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Au Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, a tenté de fuir par hélicoptères vers au Nigeria le 19 octobre
Au Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, a tenté de fuir par hélicoptères vers au Nigeria le 19 octobre
Mohamed Bazoum, le président déchu, a dans la nuit du 19 octobre 2023, tenté une évasion vers le Niger. Mais il est arrêté.
En effet, l’ancien président Bazoum devait prendre des hélicoptères pour être exfiltré au Nigeria. selon le communiqué des nouvelles autorités du pays, le projet a échoué grâce à la réaction rapide des forces de sécurité nigériennes.
Les auteurs ont été appréhendés et une…
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RFI: Niger: à Téra, le président Bazoum lance un appel à ses homologues du Mali et du Burkina Faso
RFI: Niger: à Téra, le président Bazoum lance un appel à ses homologues du Mali et du Burkina Faso.
La situation est tendue au sud Sahel.
#news#politics#history#france#burkina faso#mali republic#niger republic#tera region#three frontiers#islamic terror#mohamed bazoum
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