This article appears in the August 18, 2023 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Niger Coup Is Part of the Revolt of the Global South
[Print version of this article]
The following article appears in last week’s issue (No. 32) of the EIR Strategic Alert Service. It includes an update in italics.
Aug. 9—The coup of July 26 in Niger is the latest manifestation against Western Malthusian policy sweeping through the Global South. It is the fourth recent coup in West Africa; these together have almost liberated Francophone Africa from France.
On August 6 the new military leaders of Niger addressed a rally of tens of thousands of supporters in the national stadium. The same day, the Senate of neighboring Nigeria refused to give Nigerian President Bola Tinubu the necessary authorization to deploy the military, one of the largest in Africa, as part of a projected military intervention by the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) to restore deposed Niger President Mohamed Bazoum to power.
At the Aug. 10 meeting of ECOWAS, President Tinubu necessarily took a more moderate approach, saying, “it is crucial that we prioritize diplomatic negotiations and dialogue as the bedrock of our approach”; ECOWAS nonetheless announced deployment of a “standby force.”
The collapse of the projected intervention demonstrates that Africans are not willing to kill Africans for the benefit of their former colonialist masters.
One of the first acts of Niger’s Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani’s junta, after he assumed the interim presidency, was to suspend security cooperation with France and to order France to withdraw, within 30 days, its 1,500 troops that, formally, are deployed to fight jihadist terrorists. Niger is also the last hub of the U.S.-Africa Command in western Sahel, and hosts the largest U.S. military drone base in Africa with 1,000 servicemen.
Niger has also suspended uranium exports, with which it has supplied France with 15% of its needs, 25% of Europe’s requirements, and 5% of the world’s. That directly affects the French mining company, Orano. Niger is also rich in other resources, including gold, oil and gas, which Chinese companies are involved in developing.
A New Pan-Africanism
Three other coups in Francophone West Africa preceded that of Niger: Mali (August 2020), Guinea (September 2021), and Burkina Faso (January 2022). All three have cut security ties with France and expelled all the French and U.S. troops that had been based there on the pretext of fighting terrorist jihadi groups. All three nations also sent high-level delegations to the July 27-28 Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, and all enjoy China’s investment in infrastructure, mining and hydrocarbon projects. While ECOWAS has suspended the three nations’ memberships, Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso have all declared full military and political support for Niger.
These are not stereotypical corrupt military coups, but the emergence of a new Pan-Africanism, free of the dominance of the “international institutions” and the former colonial powers. This is reflected in Burkina Faso, whose President Ibrahim Traoré, a former army captain, attended the Russia-Africa Summit and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As one of his first acts as President, Traoré named Apollinaire de Tambela as his prime minister. Tambela, a law professor and political activist, was an ardent follower of the beloved Thomas Sankara, a Marxist and Pan-Africanist military officer who ruled from 1983 until his assassination in 1987. Tambela has been tasked by Traoré to oversee the process of the “refoundation of the nation”; he is a strong supporter of increasing economic cooperation with Moscow and has called for founding a joint venture bank with Russia. His first overseas visits were to Iran, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Tambela, with the full support of Traoré, has promoted the idea of creating a Pan-Africanist federation, initially involving Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. In February 2023 Burkina Faso hosted a conference with high-level officials from Mali and Guinea on the issue.
Such a federation, if it included Niger, would form a continuous swath of territory stretching halfway across the African continent—from the Atlantic Coast to Chad—encompassing a population of nearly 80 million.
In Mali, Interim President Assimi Goïta led the Mali delegation to the July Russia-Africa Summit and met with President Putin. His Prime Minister, Choguel Maïga, a graduate of the Institute of Telecommunications in Moscow, has strongly supported expanding ties with Russia. Maïga has also accused the French of supporting terrorism in Mali.
