Dear kossacks,
It’s Friday evening and its time to sink into a weekend but things are moving, outside the US, that have the potential to be seriously determinative for the future (geo) political development. So I see that there is not a lot published (if at all) on Niger on DailyKos, by this i hope to get at least a little bit attention to the current events. This will be quick and dirty, I just hope to get people aware.
In short: As some will have followed, a military putsch has deposed the civil elected president of Niger, a country in West Africa, about a week ago. Niger is part of a community of countries, called the ECOWAS (community of west african states) or, in the more prevalent French acronym, CEDEAO. CEDEAO is determined to insist on the validity of legitimate, that is, properly elected or constitutionally transitioned governments. The region is plagued by a wide presence of various brands of extreme Islamic, or sometimes more ethnically based, insurgencies, among which al Quaeda (whatever became of it), the Islamic State, Boko Haram which all have gained infamy, but also more traditionalist ones such as the diverse Touareg insurgencies.
These fights have led to state collapses across the region, recently in 2012 forcing France to intervene in Mali when Mali appeared to be overrun by Islamists. France and the US have since, side by side and with support by the UN and the EU (e. g. Dutch, German, Italian troops), fought a cross Sahelian “war against terrorism”, which is a terrible misnomer, because no one there is “just a terrorist”. Initially welcomed as savior in Mali, mood in many countries has since turned against France. Putsches have happened in the countries indicates as ‘suspended from CEDEAO’ in the map above, and putschists generally have quickly had souring relations with France / Western countries, resulting in terminations of the cooperations with western forces and their expulsion e. g. from Mali, where UN is still p[resent through MINUSMA but has been put on notice to leave too.
The background to this is that Western/French interventionists tried to play the political game, and talked to islamist movements, trying to achieve ceasefires, restabilisation, and a possible compromise between factions, ending outright conflict. Background to this again is that the conflict is only superficially religious, but also an economic/interethnic conflict, pitting southern, black, farmer-oriented people against northern, white, nomadic-herder oriented people. Putschists seem to originate from the southern side, and appear to want to ‘solve’ the conflicts by outright military force against the islamists/herders/Touareg. To this end, ejecting France, they have asked for assistance from Wagner, Russia, who are only too willing to kill who they are told to kill, in exchange for valuable materials for either Wagner privately or Russia generally — the story is widely known. Wagner has been implicated in atrocities in Mali already. You can imagine how Russia will not let this opportunity slip to inconvenience the West with who it is locked in a deadly struggle already.
As you can see, this enormously complex tangle directly leads back to the global opposition between authoritarian regimes looking towards Moscow, and those looking to the West, which had hoped to stabilize ‘democratic’ states in the region.
Now, the putschists in Niger, who initially did not really seem to know what they wanted, appear to take the Flucht nach vorn (Thats a german saying that I dont know how to translate, fuite en avant) — and eject France, demonstrate pro Russia, call their Putsch an ‘anticolonialist’ enterprise (France is the old colonial power) and demand that CEDEAO desist from intervening militarily to restore the (imprisoned) elected deposed president.
CEDEAO has given them a deadline until this upcoming Sunday, or else they threaten intervention.
Today there was a meeting between CEDEAO Chiefs of Staff in Abuja, saying that initial intervention plans have been finalised.
So people, please give it attention. This is the fastest growing population on the world there, and a potential major source for (also climate driven) migrations. On the other hand, a major relief for the world if circumstances in the region can be stabilized. I was afraid the Sahel would explode shortly — you have to bear in mind that a civil war has engulfed Sudan, just one short thousand kilometers to the East, and we may be looking at a continent wide conflagration in short order. I did not expect that it would go bad this much this fast. It’s a catastrophe about to happen.
I hope I have presented the situation in a fair manner.
Back to the weekend, and to you’s! Please do have a nice weekend. US soldiers are by the way stationed there too, some of you will recall that a few lost their lives in an ambush in Niger a few years back. Niger was well on the way to political stabilisation and compromise with the insurgents. I’s a tragedy.