One of the many menacing street parties of South Africa, from soccerphile.com. Chilling.
As I’ll be spending most of this month tied to a TV or radio, I’ve so far noted one shocking fact: The South African World Cup is not riven by crime, corruption, shoddy workmanship, or terrorism. In fact, things are going swimmingly, the stadiums operations and infrastructure are beautiful, and the only deaths among the 450,000 visitors have been from road accident and falling off a mountain while admiring the scenery.
There’s more realistic complaints about the football itself, especially after the South African side’s almost suicidally poor performances (not to mention a drought of goals, dashed expectations for most African sides, and disastrous English, Spanish, and French performances). But even if rose gardens have not been delivered on the field or in terms of secondary development, so much of the press run up was so negative — even years of rumors that FIFA would move the cup at the last moment — that it may come as a shock how happy foreign fans are with what they’ve found in South Africa.
One report quotes a puzzled German fan. Puzzled because, despite the foreign press hysterics, he can go to a local bar and discover “I’m the only white guy in the room but I feel very safe.”.
South African sports reporter Peter Davies has a wonderful piece entitled An Open letter to our Foreign Media friends, marveling at the gloom of foreign media outlets who quake in terror of “machete-wielding gangs roaming the suburbs in search of tattooed, overweight Dagenham dole-queuers to ransack and leave gurgling on the pavement.” But surprise! There’s no fear in walking the streets provided you don’t hang a wad of cash out your back pocket. There are also a surprising shortage of wild animal attacks and collapsing stadia. “For instance, you will find precious few rhinos loitering on street corners, we don’t know a guy in Cairo named Dave just because we live in Johannesburg, and our stadiums are magnificent, world-class works of art.”
Andrew Harding, the BBC’s Africa correspondent, writes about tourists having “had some preconceptions overturned” as England fans descended on Phokeng. While local worried about hooligans (there were none), visitors realized they may have been misled about the dangers of “black Africa”. “We stayed at Sun City, said a couple from Leeds, sitting at [a black African run] bar. We were worried about the crime. But now we just wish we’d come and stayed here.”
There are real complaints about South Africa — suffering from gross inequality and rampant poverty — throwing this much money at a World Cup party. I do agree. But that’s all of capitalism, not just football. And it’s not like they were really going to spend this money on poor folks. At best this can be an opportunity to cross borders in solidarity, to share these struggles, both in Africa and abroad. But I for one love sport, and the joy it brings. While those who look after the rich alone will always screw the poor, football can be our weapon as well as ours. Here are some links to the Poor People’s Movement and The Shack Dwellers Movement in South Africa, and social struggles around the World Cup, including the brilliant “Poor People’s Alternative World Cup.”
It’s beautiful in New York, and the world if full of things to argue about. Here are three important issues I’ll have to get back to you on.
While the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I have been trying to maintain my sanity with light reading, and sunny days on the back patio. This largely precludes the production of good (or even mediocre) writing. Further political catastrophes and World Cup drama could completely rule it out.
Despite that, there are several things which should appear here soon, plus a reading recommendation. Advice for further reading and different perspectives is always very welcome.
First, I’m working on a close reading of the latest US / West African drug arrests, this time focused on Liberia. Not to sound too paranoid, but these things never seem to hang together well when examined closely, and I’ve come to believe over the last few years that there is a commonality of interests between several right wing think tanks, a clutch of journalists and “terrorism experts”, UN Anti-Drug authorities, foreign governments, military, and local governments which play up the need for military and legal spectacle at the expense of actual work on development or ending corruption. While there is likely some real criminality going on in this case, I’m prepared to argue that this Liberian sting of aspiring West African drug runners serves more to allow these interests to further very specific political agendas.
Most important to me, I’ve finally thoroughly read Dutch historian Baz Lecocq‘s 2002 dissertation, “That Desert is Our Country’: Tuareg rebellions and Competing Nationalisms in Contemporary Mali (1946-1996).“ As it is available online, I had read later chapters when I’d seen it cited some time ago. But having stormed through from the start, I must say that it is the best thing written on the Malian Tuareg in English (easily) and arguably better than anything in French (to be fair, I’m thinking only of articles I’ve read by Georg Klute, the Bernuses, Claudot-Hawad, and Bourgeot. I haven’t read Pierre Boilley’s “Touaregs Kel Adagh”, let alone Georg Klute’s ”Die Rebellionen der Tuareg in Mali und Niger”, which I’ve only ever seen in German). With very few changes it could be produced as a very valuable book.
Lecocq’s basic premise – which he candidly admits was not the one he began with – is that French colonialism and the process of independence heightened a pre-existing “racial” prejudice between northern and southern communities in what is today Mali, even when outsiders might be unable to easily distinguish between these groups. Independence, as well as French and upper class Tuareg resistance to the form this independence, only deepened these divisions, reinforcing mistrust on all sides, keeping these communities at daggers drawn. This has played out through profound reordering in the structures and meanings of the notoriously complex and shifting Tuareg social/political order on one side. On the other, the brutality and hamfistedness of southern politicians and military has often exacerbated conflict, frustrating Malian society. Nine of ten Malian live in the south, and these communities, having paid dearly to create the imperfect economic development and political liberties they now enjoy, have little sympathy with Tuareg demands.
If you’re anglophone and interested in French colonialism in the Sahara, Mali’s first decades of independence, the current “Tuareg problem”, or even the more general history of cultural conflict along the interface of the Sahel, there’s tremendous value in this work. Admittedly, Lecocq really focuses on the history of “free” clans of Tuareg in (what is now) Kidal Region’s Adagh des Ifoughas, who make up only a portion of the population of even this limited area. But their politics and culture are central to the 1963, 1990, and 2006/7 rebellions, and all north south relations in Mali. Without understanding this, I’ve always found the causes of fighting there hard to understand, even in relation to the Nigerien Tuareg rebellions, which seem much more enmeshed in Niger’s politics and culture.
A herd, starved to death, in North Mali. These animals represent many years of saved wealth and future investment for Malian pastoralists.
Hopefully by now everyone knows that parts of West Africa, especially pockets of Chad and Niger, are struggling with the worst food shortages since 2005. Alex Thurston reports that international humanitarian agencies, as well as increasingly concerned governments, are now worried that this crisis is more generalized than first reported (last September), striking areas of Mauritania and Mali.
In Mali, there is a crisis in the north (mostly Kidal Region) right now, with press reports of huge numbers of animals lost to the mostly pastoralist residents. As in Niger, prices for forage have skyrocketed, prices for animals have plummeted, so that recent reports have talked of Malians trading female goats – the future of their herds – for a single bag of rice in Algerian border markets. Malian press reports talk of traveling through rural Kidal last week, counting corpse after corpse of starved livestock, the very source of pastoralist livelihoods. Those that can have moved south, increasing the pressure on pasture and farm land, surely also risking more communal tension. Kidal Region is already rife with armed unemployed men, competing smuggling rings, and simmering tribal vendettas. The overflow from this must add sparks to the already smoldering Tombuctu and Gao Regions, not to mention the areas south of the Niger where pastoralists head during the dry season. The tragic destruction of Gao market, north Mali’s largest commercial center, by fire last week has got to be a final nail in the coffin for some people, even if the rains have now started there.
The April-June 2010 food security conditions across West Africa, according to FEWS net.
So things in Mali, if they receive the international focus or not, are as bad as in areas of Niger.
In Niger many more farming communities were stricken by the start-stop rains of June 2009, and the pockets of Tillaberi, Tahoua, and Maradi Regions (mostly) have long reverted to crisis mode. Men are on extended “exode”, the dry season trips abroad for wage labor. Other communities have picked up en masse, fleeing to towns, other regions, or even to Hausa northern Nigeria, where some have trade or family contacts. Others still remain, depleting the last of their food stocks, and somehow making it on less and less each day.
"We are experiencing, like all the countries in the Sahel, a food crisis due to the poor harvest and the locust attacks of 2004," Mr Tandja said in 2005. "The people of Niger look well-fed, as you can see."
It’s important to differentiate between drought and famine (one may cause the other, or may not), and recognize that some places like parts of central Niger have suffered chronic seasonal malnutrition since the 1990s, and recurring drought caused famines since 1968. The causes are debated, and while climate change no doubt is happening, one should not discount the structural changes we have seen over the last 30 years. The IMF’s austerity policies which did such obvious damage to urban West Africa in the 1980s, and triggered much of the 1990-2 democratization wave thereafter, also had pernicious effects on rural areas. The “free trade” treaties of the 1990s — as Bill Clinton recently admitted in the case of Haitian farming — drove world commodity market forces into even the most protected rural communities. Subsidized western industrial agriculture can produce food and cash crops cheaper than most smallholders in the Sahel, but can also cause basic food prices to swing wildly on the back of market speculation, as we saw in 2008. As Marx famously said, in the face of commodification, structures, forms of productions, and traditions have no recourse. “All that is solid melts into air…”, and much of the rural economic structure of the developing worlds has so disintegrated in the last decades. Some areas might survive, sending farmers flooding into urban export driven production. For whatever reasons, Niger, like Haiti, never saw enough of this to absorb the mass of small farming which supports %80 of its people. They continue to literally scratch a living out of dusty millet fields, with less and less ability to turn to either community or markets when things go wrong.
FEWS net's projected food security situation (July-September 2010), Niger. We expect a normal harvest to come in September.
Some pastoralists in North Mali and Niger never really recovered from the loss of herds in the early 1970s. They starved in 1984 because of this, and (arguably) supported armed struggle in the 1990s in part because of this. [It's more complicated that this, with longstanding communities of grievance, and militants trained abroad, but the 72-74 drought can't be discounted]. These are as much political and economic/structural problems as environmental, and they need to be treated once this hungry season passes in September.
In Niger, as grim as this is, some things have improved. Then President Tandja (and current opposition leader Hama Amadou, as well as some “progressive” westerners, for the record) purposefully denied the food shortages and deaths in 2005 were “famine”. They were seeing severe seasonal malnutrition in limited areas, and most children were dying of malnutrition related disease rather than starvation. This is how people die in famines, but the “f” word has political connotations which were painful, and so it is better to try and trivialize the suffering of the rural poor, apparently. I hope there is a special ring of hell for such people. We are not hearing that this time, in part thanks to the Nigerien Junta.Salou Djibo can play on an oft repeated trope in Niger (1974 being the model) of military rule justified by food emergencies mishandled by corrupt civilians. I would hope those in Niamey recognizing this as famine would do the same if they had been in power last year. I also hope they target the structural causes that allow this to happen, after they face the monumentally complicated distribution of food aid.
The latest edition of the “Worldservice blog” features tracks by Salif Keita & Les Ambassadeurs du Motel, from the first years after he left the Rail Band. I never knew there were such hard feelings.
He quotes Salif Keita:
“With the Rail Band I learned nothing, we only played what we heard. Les Ambassadeurs were more experienced: we weren’t playing modernised folklore. Les Elephants Noirs were intellectuals. Arriving at the group I signed an apprenticeship contract to study music. We really played all kinds of music. We were like a real family, I really felt more at ease with Les Ambassadeurs. We rehearsed and studied the songs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and played them the same evening.”
As always, the Dutch DJ behind “WrldServ” provides background you’ll find few other places, as well as rare tracks, and in this case, rarer video. Check it out.
Junta head Salou Djibo, beside the flag of the presidency in the Presidential Palace.
As I noted on the 10th of March, the CSRD junta in Niger has replaced all the civilian Region Governors with military men to administer local affairs during the transition. We now have the full list, and while I for one hate to see any military governing, a look at the men (all men) coming and going in Niger’s Regions gives us an opportunity to examine what’s going on behind the scenes, and what it augurs for the future.
I have hammered on about the ecumenical nature and continuity represented in the Niger Junta so far, evidence that they may well live up to their word and leave politics after a quick transition. They clearly wish to project an image as a “national” institution “above” politics. What they believe in their hearts, I can’t pretend to know, but a close look at the replacement of rater venial Regional Governors with a broad group of officers shows that the junta is at least consistently “on message”.
First, one point the press maybe getting wrong. “Contrôleur Général” Issoufou Yacouba is made Governor of Dosso Region. He’s been reported as a civilian, but given that “Contrôleur Général” is the honorific held by chief of the National Police Issoufou Yacouba, and the only other two high-ranking officials I could find with that rather common name were mid level magistrates in Niamey and Birni N’Konni, I’ll put my money of the head of the Police. Regardless, he replaces a man very associated with former President Tandja personally, Governor Issoufou Oumarou. Oumarou was an early supporter on Tandja’s dumping of the constitution and replacement of the 5th Republic with new more malleable institutions. You may remember the violence that accompanied Governor Oumarou’s decision to hold a gala gathering of the ruling party’s Dosso members in front of the Governors Palace in the middle of Dosso town. The guests had to move inside as opposition youths took to the streets, burning tyres and overturning official vehicles amid tear gas and gendarmes trying to restore order.
The eight regions of Niger, which roughly correspond to the Military's "Zones de Defense"
I earlier reported Colonel Yayé Garba was made Governor of the Niamey Capitol Region (CUN), per the press. He was actually named to head Agadez Region. He replaces Abba Malam Boukar, elected as an opposition CDS-Rahama member who was wooed into Tandja’s camp and expelled from his party in 2009. I can’t imagine he has a great political future now. The Zone Commander in Agadez, Colonel Salifou Modi was an influential military leader, member of the 99 junta (the CRN), and now is a high ranking member of the CSRD. Modi is personally close to Col. Hima Pele Hamidou one of the two of three top Junta leaders, and veteran of the 99 coup. Col. Yayé Garba was a member of the 96 coup junta whose head (President Bare Mainassara) was killed by the 99 junta, splitting some elements of the army since.
This too describes the trajectory of Col. Mahamadou Barazé, made Governor of Zinder Region, who was in the 96 junta and a Gendarmerie officer then, now he’s Army. Barazé replaces in Zinder the informal duties of Zone Commander Colonel Sidikou Issa, who was last week kicked up to head the powerful Interior Ministry paramilitary force, the FNIS. That two presumed Bare partisans are representative of a camp alienated in the military since 1999 by the man we can now safely call Tandja’s main sponsor, former Chief of Staff General Moumouni Boureïma (now still under house arrest). To have place three such men powerful posts – along with Bare Maïnassara’s former Chief of Staff who has been made Junta president Salou Djibo’s aide de camp, must be intended to heal these wounds.
Col. Mahamadou Barazé replaces in Zinder one of the most influential political barons of the MNSD-Nassara, (former) Governor Yahaya Yandaka. Yahaya Yandaka was involved in a high profile battle for influence in early 2009 with a certain villain of the Tandja drama Dan Dubai, the financial backer of Tandja’s campaign, and opposition hate figure. Yahaya Yandaka won, but he loses now. His powerful business connections in Zinder will likely see him reappear.
As an aside, Niamey papers reported last week the return to the capitol of former Commander Kindo Zada. He had reputedly been involved in the June 2000 kidnap of the Capt. Hima Hamidou, and in 2007, ran off to the Air mountains to join the mostly Tuareg insurgents of the MNJ, becoming leader of one of their two very effective TIR units. He’s likely one of the reasons the MNJ sported a picture of Bare Maïnassara on their website: Kindo Zada was a loyalist, like the troops engaged in periodic unrest in 1999 – 2002, especially the large mutiny in Diffa. His return to Niamey marks a symbolic success of the CSRD’s reconciliation strategy.
Colonel Soumana Djibo, was made Governor of Niamey (the CUN), obviously a plum job. This is especially interesting as the head of Military Intelligence Col. Soumana Djibo was without explanation arrested on the orders of the top brass in March 2009. He was released within a few weeks, but no adequate reasons for eater action were given. One rumor had it that he had attempted to uncover — or blackmail — General Boureïma over army complicity in smuggling or other crimes. The Issikta article at the time suggests this might be involved with transit of goods via AQIM. Chew on that, given the last year of events.
Colonel Sani Issa Kaché, is made Governor of Tahoua. He was military Governor of Dosso Region under the 1999 CRN junta. He replaces a pillar of both the elected Tandja governments and his 2009 “Tazartché”, Mahamadou Zéty Maïga, who had been MNSD-Nassara Governor of Tahoua Region for ten years.
Col. Sidikou Issa presides over the "Lutte" winner's award in Zinder. Just days after the coup, officers replaced regional governors.
Lt. Col. Ibrahim Bagadoma is made Governor of Tillabéri Region, replacing a member of the Baré Maïnassara party (the RDP-Jama’a) Idder Adamou. The RDP, after prevarications I have mentioned before, rallied to Tandja in 2009. Lt. Col. Bagadoma was a high ranking Gendarmerie Nationale commander under Tandja, but was an early supporter of the CSRD, traveling with their delegation to meet Algeria’s leaders in the days after the 18 February coup. Interestingly, he was named by Tandja to one of four security forces seats of the “Independent” Electoral Commission (CENI) in March 2009, after the President ejected all opposition members and packed the body with his supporters. One of the three others so named is also being named Governor today, Colonel Mohamadou Barazé. Another of the four, Colonel Soumaïla Garba, was named head of the post-coup Presidential Guard. The last, Chef d’Escadron Garba Issoufou of the Gendarmerie Nationale? I’m sure we’ll hear from soon. This demonstrates either the weakness of Tandja’s support in the Military, or the readiness they have to join the winning side.
Colonel Fodé Camara, of whom I know nothing, is made Governor of Diffa. He replaces another man who made what is now obviously a poor choice to leave an opposition party so he might retain his seat as governor under the Tandja regime, Oumarou Yacouba of the ANDP-Zaman Lahiya.
And finally we come to Colonel Garba Maïkido, made governor of the Hausa Maradi Region, at the epicenter of the 2005 famine and threatened again this year. Garba is a bit of an Army folk hero. Already a popular officer, it was said amongst the troops that in August 2008 he refused to be ‘bought in’ to Tandja’s close military supporters. When offered bribes it was reported he just walked away, a rare thing. He replaces another CDS opposition Governor who switched sides to retain his office under Tandja, Chaïbou Ali Maâzou.
I would not now be surprised to see military “insiders” like Colonel Garba Maikido, Maj [sic] Soumaila Garba, and Colonel Salifou Mody among the new junta.
As detailed earlier, Salifou Mody is head of the FNIS now, and Col. Soumaila Garba is head of the President’s Guard.
These men are truly institutional insiders. They cut across ideological, and to the degree possible on the western ethnic leaning military, all cultural differences within that institution. The naming of several men I am presuming to have been Bare Maïnassara loyalists goes some way to heal the largest split in that institution. If, as we all expect, the junta keeps to its word of recusing itself from future elections, these men will continue to be part of a more unified, likely more influential, but likely less politically partisan Nigerien institution following the return of democracy.
Junta leader Salou Djibo is warmly welcomed by ECOWAS chief Ibn Chambas.
In the two weeks that have passed since Niger’s Mamadou Tandja was overthrown by the army, there has been an explosion of joy an relief from Nigeriens, countered by a few, very specific, criticisms. A wire story by AFP and an analysis by Alex Thurston at SahelBlog are the two best English language assessments I’ve seen of the complexity of popular mood, now so positive but with huge expectations of the CSRD junta. This is what other journalists, apparently surprised that coups are not always seen as naked power grabs, have called “the Good Coup.”
And good it most certainly was. African commentators have reminded us that President Tandja had staged a coup of his own last June, dismissing all checks on Presidential power and ending the 1999 constitution of the 5th Republic. Tandja settled with Tuareg rebels and the French government’s uranium mine (Niger’s major source of income), pocketed 1.2 Billion Euros, and set about rebuilding the state around a small power base of leaders loyal only to him.
As we know, this worked out poorly for all involved, except perhaps France’s Areva uranium. While foreign criticism of the February 18 coup has been diplomatically correct, there is an implied wink, best exemplified by outgoing ECOWAS President Mohamed Ibn Chambas’ grin at his first meeting with junta head Cmdt. Salou Djibo.
Nigerien popular reaction, it is not to much to say, was jubilant. So much so that on March 3rd, the junta’s nightly press release included a demand that people stop having spontaneous rallies support the junta, as they were blocking too much traffic in the capital. But there has been criticism from Niger, and as differences will likely grow and not lessen during the transition, it is worth taking these few voices seriously. These complaints come from three different groups, representing different groups with different trajectories over the next six to nine months of transition. None rise to the level of righteous indignation which the pitiable citizens of Guinee turned on their junta tormentors after a year of criminality and massacre. Nigeriens will be better off with all likely outcomes of this transition than they would have been under the personal rule of Tandja and his corrupt cronies. But there are, even now, voices questioning if this is good enough.
The Losers
The most strident criticisms come from the overthrown. Tandja and his closest partisans for now remain mum, as until 5 March, five of the most powerful minister were under arrest, and the rest know that their arrests would be a popular move by the junta. Two who have spoken out are former PM Seini Oumarou as the leader of the MNSD, and his party VP Ali Sabo. Oumarou’s statement in the week after the coup, delivered in the name of the MNSD, has made him the highest profile leader to openly oppose the coup. Sabo’s statements to the press, more measured, project a party united against and illegal change of power. Both men were handpicked by Tandja to run the party, after driving out former PM and party chief Hama Amadou, and splitting many locals. Court cases about the legality of this move were still ongoing as recently as January, and it is unclear if Hama — one of the most likely post coup leaders — will now recapture the party or stick with his newly created MODEN-Lumana organization. While MNSD cadre were mixed in their reaction to the 6th Republic, Sabo and Oumarou’s statements since the coup, along with statements by crony groups like the MPDNP of Nouhou Arzika, are of a category of their own: outright rejection of the coup.
This is shared, publicly at least, only by those leaders who most closely tied their futures to Tandja. Members of four Tandja allied minor parties, who will likely be blacklisted for the time being, released statements calling the coup everything from an illegal plot by the opposition to a neo-colonial ploy by imperialists. This is not a large number of individuals, and the junta can feel safe to ignore them. But even these disparate and serially unsuccessful party leaders - Abdoulkarim Mamalo, president of PMT-Albarka, Ali “Max” Djibo of UNI – append their damnation with a call for a peaceful transition.
The loyal opposition
Cpt. Djirilla Harouna, who led the coup assault (center), is offered a RDP-Jama'a umbrella by supporters, Feb. 20, Niamey. The RDP was one of the parties whose government the coup had overthrown.
Nigerien politics are very good at providing second chances, and even those who tried to ride Tandja’s coattails know they will live to fight again. The 1999 5th Republic was even able to find space for the party of President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, upon who’s murder that regime was based. Baré’s loyalists (his family and those who’d burned their bridges by defying the boycott of existing parties to join the coup), regrouped under the RDP-Jama’a served in Tandja’s governments, and portions supported his June 2009 coup. The RDP leadership joined Tandja’s new government, took part in his boycotted elections, and supported his 6th Republic even when Tandja made clear that the RDP’s core issue – the repeal of the amnesty for the soldiers who killed Baré – was not on the table. But within days of the coup RDP-Jama’a members were visible at rallies supporting the February 18 coup. MNSD members, whomever they supported in the split, will find a modus vivendi with whatever regime appears.
The second set of criticism, the mildest, are from the the leaders of the opposition. In this group are the inheritors of the coming political order: Marou Amadou (a civil society leader catapulted to prominence as the organizer of the broad opposition front), Hama, Mahamadou Issoufou (of the PNDS party), and the others who are girding for expected presidential elections. [To my knowledge the exiled leader of the third opposition party the CDS-Rahama, former President Mahamane Ousmane, has not given an interview since the coup]. They are publicly grateful, but insist that this be done quickly. They are the firmest backers of the coup who have expressed any criticism. It matches the foreign criticism in its proforma wording, but it is also the category most likely to grow, based as it is in impatience.
A pox on all houses
Third, and I think the most interesting, are some from the intelligentsia and civil society groups. L’Eventment’s editor saying “these are the same crooks being again chose to serve the interim administration” is a notion which may have legs in the long term. Issoufou Sidibe of the influential CDTN trade union confederation may, after his initial critique of the “quality” of the junta ministers, come to that conclusion as well. From the leaders of the political class, this last criticism is that “we wanted all Tandja’s people to pay for what they did” position. From people on the street it is the much more revolutionary desire to purge the entire, failed, political leadership of the nation. That same desire was tapped by Tandja’s supporters, who argued that a Tandja dictatorship would save the nation from all the “politicians”. To completely ignore this line of criticism would be foolish.
A variation on this critique of the transition is a critique of the need for a interim government at all. The head of the University Teachers union, which was paralyzed by divisions in the 6th republic, released a strong statement saying essentially “there needs to be another National Conference” as in the 1991 transition from military dictatorship to democracy: such changes need to be decided beyond the political class’s leadership. Other opposition supporters have complained that they were fighting for the return to the 5th Republic, not for an elite to create a whole new one.
While the crux of the 2009 political crisis was the greed of one small group around the President, the entire Nigerien political class has time and again shown itself unable to work together on any national development, and equally guilty of looting the treasury when they come to office. This is the most potentially potent critique of the new Junta’s plans. But a thorough housecleaning is unlikely to be in the cards, and most everyone knows that.
The Military and the opposition leadership are seemingly agreed that the 1999 constitution was in part to blame for Tandja’s ability to take power, with approbation of unilateral actions by the executive, but no means for enforcement against the executive. This, they say, needs to be reworked in a 7th Republic. The model for doing so exists from 1999, where leaders of all the parties sat down to rewrite the basic structure of government, then approved by referendum.
Every sign so far is that today’s junta is modeled closely upon Wanke’s 1999 CRN junta and transition. The knock on 1999 is threefold. They returned the same corrupt political class to power. An improvement from Bare, but not great for the masses. They were entirely undemocratic during the transition. They set up a cycle of the Army as guarantor of political peace. We have begun to hear the first and last complaints already. We will likely hear more of all three.
Is there still a 1991 option?
One caveat: Junta leader Cmdt. Salou Djibo and Prime Minister Danda have both pulled in a lot of people with ties to the Ali Saibou regime of the late 1980s. This was, in fact, where Danda had his first political appointment. They both made high profile visits to General Saibou’s home, something unseen for many years. This may be that he is the latest icon of the “good soldier” in an army still divided by April 1999 assassination of General Baré. Or it may be that he’s the only living head of state not involved in the current crisis.
Or, one might hope, it is a willingness to diverge from 1999 script, and open the process to the popular forces seen in the 1991 National Conference. This was a transition to democracy controlled not by the government, but by civil society and a wide range of political and union groups, where the army was willing to take a backseat to more popular forces. The prospect of such a transition in 2010 may be idealistic, but it remains a home.
One doesn’t see much film, let alone color film, of African football under colonial rule. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956. The person selling old newsreel films has uploaded two parts of the color highlights of Jeanne d’Arc Bamako (since 1960 known as Stade Malien de Bamako) defeating Abidjan side ASEC, now the giants of Ivorian football, ASEC Mimosas. In one clip – the third frame reproduced below – you can see Cheikh Oumar Diallo for Bamako, scoring his second goal in the 75th minute with a flying deflection from the left post, right under the keeper. This was Jeanne d’Arc Bamako’s second French West Africa Cup (Coupe d’AOF), one of the high points for the young club, who might be best known as the 2009 champions of the CAF Confederation Cup.
AOF Coupe Final May 6, 1956; Parc Municipal des Sports, Dakar; att: 10,000
ASE: Théophile Lawson; François Nianzan, Marc Aka, Augustin Kodio, Ernest Achy, Fabre Guy, François Adékoua, Gaston Zakoua, Benjamin Akouaté, Ignace Ouégnin, Pierre Anoh;
ref: Anianboussou (Dahomey)
While its sometimes hard to keep up with African football abroad, one of the spin offs of technology is that it is easier now than ever. ASEC has a world class website (http://www.asec.ci/), and you can read match highlights from Bamako in half a dozen online papers. Here’s a music video of highlights of Stade 2009 Caf campaign from just one Malian football website. There’s even a Facebook group for Stade Malien supporters. But whatever else changes, he beauty of a ball hitting the back of a net, as you can see from these movies, is timeless.
In a scrum of reporters Saturday, Col. Djibrilla “Pele” Hima Hamidou found himself on familiar ground. The voice of the 1999 coup leaders, Hima Hamidou read out all the statements in the days following 9 April 1999, appealing for calm and promising a speedy return to civilian rule. Last Saturday, following a meeting the leaders of the military “Conseil Suprême pour la Restauration de la Démocratie” with ECOWAS and UN officials, the armor commander and sometime football federation president again appealed for the world to trust the Nigerien military. “In 1999 we had a similar situation and we gave power back and we had 10 years of stability. We are going to do the same thing.”
The first extensive communique from the new CSRD junta in Niger was read out on local radio Monday night, and is now available in the state controlled newspaper, Le Sahel. It lays out in some detail the structure of Niger’s government during the period of military rule. If the junta is to be believed, and most Nigeriens do seem to believe them, the transition will be short. It explicitly takes as its model the Council for National Reconciliation (Conseil de Réconciliation Nationale CRN) of the 1999 coup against Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, himself a coup leader who ended a constitutional crisis, but then decided to name himself President. After almost three years of protest, boycott, strike, and crisis, Nigerien armed forces took power on 9 April 1999. They quickly called a constitutional council and referendum which produced the 18 August 1999 Constitution of the Fifth Republic, and handed over to elected President Mamadou Tandja in December 1999.
Cmd. Daouda Mallam Wanke led the fourteen member CRN, which included several members from the current junta. The number two (or three, depending on your view) in the CSRD Col. Abdoulye Adamou Harouna was Wanke’s Aide-de-camp during the process. He’s now head of the elite ECOWAS fast reaction force, and was one of the most senior officers in the pre-coup army. One of his two brothers, all sons of a leader of the 1974 coup, is the senior paratroop officer who we saw hailed by crowds this Saturday. Appearing at an opposition rally at the Rond Point de Concentration in front of the National Assembly building on Saturday, Capt. Djibrilla Adamou Harouna promised a speedy end to military involvement. Captain Hima Hamidou from the CRN rose under Tandja to become a Colonel of the elite armored brigade and head of both the Army Football club (ASFAN), the Nigerien Football Federation, and now is near the summit of the CSRD. The heads of the eight “Zones de defense nationale”, the operational commanders of the military, all appear to be on board with the junta: Pele was head of the Niamey zone, the most important for obvious reasons. In the cases of Zinder and Agadez the Zone chiefs — invariably Colonels in a military with few Generals — seem to have directly supplanted the powerful regional governors of the former ruling party, the MNSD-Nassara. Although there is as yet to official list, other junta leaders include Colonel Ibrahim Wali Karingama, a former Fenifoot associate of Pele’s and a former head of the President’s security; General Abdou Kaza who until Thursday the Defense Adviser to President Tandja until yesterday. While the President of the CSRD, Cmdt.. Salou Djibo was a low profile officer in charge of the supply units in Niamey (and the heavy weapons store), Daouda Mallam Wanke was of the same rank on 8 April 1999. So some media reports that the junta is made up of “unknown” or “minor” officers are woefully inaccurate.
The second dubious assumption being made is that Niger, having had four coups in its history, is just experiencing its inevitable return to military “strongmen”. Niger has had more than its share of authoritarian rulers, both in and out of uniform. But in its more recent history, the military has shown an increasing reluctance to rule. Individual military men such as deposed chief of staff General Boureima spent much of the last ten years exercising considerable influence over the Nigerien government, but they did so behind the scenes, as part of patronage networks which led to the apex of the civilian state. The example of Baré Maïnassara, whose reign ended on 8 April in his brutal death, probably concentrated minds as well.
President Tandja, himself a Colonel who rose to State Security minister under the 1974 coup, reached his highest summit as one of the handful of political princes only after he retired. With him were a host of ex-military officers whose connections clearly paid off better out of uniform. Tandja’s eight month “Sixth Republic” might be best seen as the culmination of this politics, with elites personally tied to the head of state pushing out all other members of the political class. Any institutions which did not lead back to the President, in classic authoritarian form, were modified to do so after Tandja dismissed the opposition last June and wrote his own constitution last August. The fate former PM Hama Amadou, pushed out by his former mentor Tandja in 2007, can be seen as one more step in this process which had been going on for some time: the removal of networks of patronage other than those which culminated in President and his family (I’m thinking especially of Tandja’s wife Hadjia Laraba Tandja, whose activities we may hear much more about should her husband come to trial).
Cmd. Daouda Malam Wanké, 1999 as President of the CRN
In contrast to the muddle and confusion of the last year of civilian political crisis, the CRN junta’s coup of April 1999 was remarkable for its speed and continuity. I want to be careful here. Some observers, especially in Niger, have all but sainted Daouda Mallam Wanke as a selfless savior of democracy. The CRN had no qualms about suppressing dissent, closing down the press, and making sure they had a piece of the coming government. Junta number two General Boureima’s great power in the Tandja government dates from this period. But the most obvious example is the CRN’s non-negotiable demand that the 1999 constitution contain a clause granting blanket amnesty to the military for the events of the coup.
It is this provision, incidentally, which doomed the constitutional extension of Tandja’s mandate after the accepted two terms. A provision placed the basic structure of the executive, along with the military amnesty, under a clause which prevented any revision by any means. Hence Tandja did not, as reported by some, “revise” the constitution. He was not able to. He unilaterally terminated the constitution under powers which allowed the President to suspend it temporarily in times of emergencies such as invasions or civil wars, and then started a new one which better suited him.
But for all their faults, the CRN was never a naked grab for power. The former PM, Ibrahim Hassane Mayaki, was retained by the CRN throughout the transition, as were most ministers. In May, a month after the coup, the CRN had appointed a broad group of politicians and civil society leaders as a Technical Committee to sketch the outlines of a new constitution. The next month, they formed an 80 member civilian Constitutional Committee to write an actual text. When infighting ensued after the committee recommended the creation of hundreds of posts for politically connected individuals, the CRN stepped in and endorsed a draft that was closest to the Third Republic Constitution. The 1992 Constitution of the Third Republic was the result of the most democratic and open process in Niger’s modern history, the year long National Conference which followed a popular revolt against military rule. With this decided, a referendum approved the Constitution of the Fifth Republic in July and it was promulgated in August. The CRN had also re-formed the Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), a bedrock institution of the 1991-92 National Conference which had been fatally compromised by Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara following his 1996 coup. The 60 member CENI had members of all the political parties, including very small ones, and including those of the regime the CRN had just overthrown. In August, the CRN and the major candidates agreed to postpone the elections a month as parties reformed and wrangled over leadership. The presidential elections took place in two rounds on 17 October and 24 November, with parliamentary elections simultaneous with the second round. After Tandja’s victory in the second round, Wanke handed over the government on 23 December 1999.
So the 1999 experience, which the 2010 leaders say they wish to replicate, is one marked by continuity and reconciliation amongst the class of the the political elite. Nigeriens are watching today’s events with that template, and those expectations, in mind.
The contents of the first long communique on government structure, Monday’s “Communiqué du Secrétariat Général du gouvernement”, and the nominations of officials to go with it, conform to the 1999 model and flesh out the specifics of the CSRD regime. First the appointments.
The communique is not signed by a military officer, but by Larwana Ibrahim, as “Secrétaire Général du gouvernement”. Larwana was Adjunct Secretary General of Government — essentially the administrative director for the head of government — from 2000, and was moved into the top spot after the previous head, Lawal Kader, left office on the heels of deposed Prime Minister Hama Amadou in July 2007. Larwana Ibrahim, incidentally, signed the decree by Tandja Mamadou which dissolved the Parliament last June, setting off this crisis. Osmane Mahaman, named Director of the Cabinet of the President of the CSRD, was Administrative director of the last three PM’s of the Tandja regime: from the lukewarm Tandja-ist Seyni Oumarou, to the fiery loyalist (if temporary) PM Albadé Abouba, to the technocratic if corrupt Ali Badjo Gamatié.
Alkaly Alhassane is named as Assistant Director of the Cabinet of the President of the CSRD. Described in the release as a sociologist, he might be better know for having been “Conseiller spécial du Premier Ministre” under PM Hama Amadou in 2000 and having been DG of Niamey’s transit system (what there is of it), the Société des transports urbains Niamey, last year.
The actual communique sets out the government which will rule the nation during the as yet undefined transition period, in much the same terms as a constitutional document. Like the CRN, the CSRD is no democratic institution. It is formally run by the President of the CSRD, whose word is absolute, and whose right to appointment and rule is presumed. Perhaps troubling, the high courts, which Tandja dissolved and reconstituted as puppet institutions after June 2009, are again dissolved and named by the CSRD President. The junta acknowledges no check on its power. But this too is identical to 1999.
The reviled press board, the CSC, is also dissolved and replaced with the National Observatory of Communication (ONC), a name last used when the body was dissolved and reformed during the 1999 rule of the CRN. A once independent body with members chosen by press and civil society groups, the CSC has been transformed by Tandja into a press censorship board, as it had been under Baré Maïnassara. The names of the courts, and all the other institutions created in this decree are identical to those created by the CRN.
Finally, a body is created to draft a new constitution, as yet unnamed, which will then be approved or rejected by referendum. Again, identical to the 1999 process.
All this is not to say the the CSRD will actually abide by the process established in 1999. They have nearly absolute power and great popularity. But the opposition bodies that came out to celebrate this past Saturday in front of the National Assembly have released their own statements in the past days. The opposition front Coordination des Forces pour la Démocratie et la République (CFDR), as well as the civil society groups and trades unions within it, and the large and activist NGO coalition “RODADDHD”, have all made statements with the same theme. They thank and celebrate the CSRD, but demand that democratic rule must return quickly, completely, and transparently.
The junta says they share this vision, and if recent history is a guide, there will be a democratic government in Niger on 1 January 2011. But no one should yet take their eyes of what may be a difficult process for which the past may not fully prepare the people of Niger.
Notice of the General Secretariat of Government: President of CSRD signs two decrees.
The President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, Chef d’Escaudron SALOU DJIBO, yesterday signed two decrees making appointments. Thus, under the first decree, Mr. Ousmane Mahaman, Administrative Director, was appointed Chief of Staff to the President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
- Finally, under the second decree, Mr. Alkaly Alhassane, sociologist, was appointed Chief of Staff Deputy Chairman of Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
COMMUNIQUE OF THE SECRETARIAT GENERAL OF GOVERNMENT
22 February 2010
The Head of State has signed a decree on the organization of government during the transition period
The President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, Chef d’Escaudron SALOU DJIBO, signed Monday, February 22, 2010, an order on the organization of government during the transition period.
Under this order:
The government of Niger is a republic. Being so, it reaffirms its commitment to the principles of the rule of law and pluralist democracy.
Recognizing its responsibility to the people of Niger, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy ensures the preservation of national unity and social cohesion.
It assures everyone equal before the law irrespective of sex, social origin, racial, ethnic or religious background.
It also guarantees the rights and freedoms of the individual and the citizen as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the African Charter on Human Rights and Societies of 1981.
It guarantees the restoration of the democratic process operated by the Nigerien people.
All rights and duties are retained conforming to the above the laws and regulations.
The government of Niger is and remains bound by international treaties and agreements previously signed and duly ratified.
The Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD) is vested with legislative and executive powers until the establishment of new democratic institutions.
The Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD) is the supreme arbiter of policy and direction of the nation.
It is headed by a President who serves as Head of State and Head of Government.
The President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD) by order appoints a Prime Minister and other members of the transitional government.
The President may end to their functions in the same manner.
The President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy is the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
He signs all orders and decrees.
He makes all civil and military appointments.
The President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy may delegate certain powers to the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister leads and coordinates government action in accordance with guidelines established by the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
There shall be created, in place of the dissolved Supreme Court [Dissolved by Tandja after ruling against him last May, reconfigured as a Presidential appointed court], a State Court [Cour D'Etat] whose composition, powers and functions shall be determined by order of President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
There shall be created, in place of the dissolved Constitutional Court [under the 5th Republic, an ad hoc body of senior legislators, reformed into a presidential appointed court last August], a Constitutional Committee whose composition, powers and functions shall be determined by order of President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
There shall be created, in place of the dissolved High Council for Communication (CSC) [a once independent body, transformed by Tandja into a press censorship board], a National Observatory of Communication (ONC), whose composition, powers and functions shall be determined by order of President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
There shall be created, under the authority of the President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, a body responsible for preparing the basic texts of the Republic, including the Constitution and the Electoral Code. The name, composition and powers of this body will be established by ordinance.
The above mentioned draft Constitution will be adopted by the Nigerien people by referendum.
Following a period to be determined by the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, this and other transitional institutions will establish new [permanant] democratic institutions.
A schedule of the various political deadlines will be made public by the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD).
One of two types of armored cars used by the Niger Military
Reports began at coming in shortly before 9AM in NY (2PM UK, 3 PM Niamey) of sounds of weapons fire and smoke coming from the Presidential Palace in Niamey. The fighting was said to have begun around 1PM Niamey time (7AM NY) and had continued for 30 minutes. Reuters is saying the weekly Council of Ministers was captured by soldiers, including President Tandja, but that shooting has continued irregularly. There were later reported at least three military deaths when an armored car was destroyed by a heavy weapon. As the day has progressed, it has become accepted that the coup was successful, and that Tandja and his ministers are being held somewhere in the capitol. But remember that after the 1999 coup in which Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara was killed by his own guard, the military reported for some days that the deposed President was being held in a safe location. Later they were forced to admit that he was shot with an anti-aircraft gun at the opening of the coup.
(See updates below)
All eyes must turn to the fate of Nigerien Chief of General Staff (and two time coup officer) General Boureima “Tchanga” Moumouni. He, along with other top officers, were named in a Jeune Afrique article last year that alleged President Tandja was paying them sizable cash sums on a weekly basis in exchange for their loyalty. (See updates below: it was later reported that he too was arrested by coup troops)
Regardless of who is involved or if it is successful (Niger has had over 30 coup attempts but only 3 successful coups since 1960) this will dramatically change Niger’s governance.
Friday Morning (Niamey). I’ve posted (above) the fullest video I have found CSRD statement. Here’s my analysis on what we have seen and might see in the coming days.
First, the fate of the defeated: we need to see Tandja and all his ministers safe. If they are to be prosecuted, it must not be by the military.
A blanket return to the Constitution of the 1999 Fifth Republic, which Tandja unilaterally and illegally ended last May might be my fondest wish, but I doubt it would happen. Constitutionally, the Assembly can’t be reinstated, as there was a 90 day window from its dissolution to do so, but the constitutional court (which Tandja illegally dismissed) could be re-instated tomorrow. Elections for National Assembly and President (term ended December 23 2009) could be quickly held and legally, things could return to normal. But I doubt that will happen. I think we are looking at a repeat on 1999, when there was a cooling off period, followed by a gathering of appointed politicians from all parties to write a new constitution with minor changes, and then a quick referendum and elections.
Next, personnel. I can not identify most officers there. Most are Green bereted Army, with Gendarme, FNIS (interior Paramilitary, Red Beret) and I think one Douanes officer (customs). Colonel Djibrilla Hima ” Pélé” Hamidou is hovering over the spokesman’s shoulder, and he’s a favorite from outsiders to lead the junta. Colonel Abdoulaye Harouna was identified by someone else. He was Major/General Daouda Malam Wanké‘s aide de camp after the 1999 coup, and is the Niger head of the ECOWAS quick reaction force. [Link to a Le Sahel article, he's in the middle of the photo] Note that Reuters and elsewhere misidentify Major Djibrilla Adamou Harouna, who apparently led the assault on the Presidential Palace, as the head of this force. Wrong Harouna (a VERY common name).
The obvious absences, as we noted, are Tandja’s military chief General de Division Moumouni Boureima, and General Maï Manga Oumara, Tandja’s military aide. They are the exceptions, and that tells us a lot. What we appear to be seeing here is continuity: fairly powerful members of the armed forces shaving off the handful closest to Tandja.Christophe Boisbouvier’s “Tandja face à l’armée” article of December 2009 makes quite clear the lengths (in large cash payments) Tandja had to go to to maintain military loyalty amongst General Boureima and the very highest staff. I would not now be surprised to see military “insiders” like Colonel Garba Maikido, Maj Soumaila Garba, and Colonel Salifou Mody among the new junta. The last two were previously tight with Bouremina, but also were stationed with “Pele” in the north during the Tuareg Insurgency. Salifou Mody (sometimes “Modi”) was also on Wanke’s 1999 junta. Other officers from that time to look for: Lawel Kore (who recently was in charge of Customs Police), Abbdoulaye Mounkaila, and Maman Souley. Who we’d be surprised to see were the men Boisbouvier fingered as getting the biggest payoffs from Tandja: Col. Seyni Garba, Boureima’s Aide de Camp; General Mamadou Ousseini, Army chief; and General Seyni Salou, Air Force Chief.
It will also be interesting to see if these two power brokers switch sides: Former “commissaire de police” Issoufou Sako who is said to be the man with the files on everyone, and Tandja’s National Security Advisor Abdou Kaza. Both should “know where the bodies are buried”, in some cases literally as men like Djibrilla Hima ” Pélé” Hamidou were accused by Tuareg fighters of caring out murders of civilians during the 2007-2009 Tuareg Rebellion.Now, what was said. The statement announced a nighttime curfew and the closing of borders. They said three soldiers were killed and 10 wounded. They said Tandja was safe. The rhetoric matches the name of the Junta: the “Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy”. While there were no specifics, they promised a return to democratic rule and for Niger to “once again be an example of constitutional government”.
While this all sounds very hopeful, even Wanke’s exemplary eight month transition to a new constitution and elected President seemed touch and go at moments, with testy crack downs on opposition press, and the blanket immunity from prosecution for soldiers that committed crimes. There were moments when that transition might have slid back into dictatorship, and the same is true now. We are looking at a tense coming year.
Updates, newest on top
Interestingly, you may remember Colonel Goukoye Abdoulkarim ( also spelled Goukoye Abdul Karimou) as the unfortunate spokesman for the Army who had to readout a press release shortly after Tandja suspended the constitution last year. At the time Goukoye Abdoulkarim pledged that the Army would remain neutral and above all political fights. Read that statement From an AFP report of June 30 2009. As a Lt.-Col. in July 2007, he read also out the current government line damning the Tuareg insurgency as being “backed by foreign forces.” I am sensing continuity of institutions here.
17:00 NY/ 23:00 Niamey : We have no other part of the statement yet, but I’ll translate what I can find. Le Monde pads out the AFP wire with some quotes from residents of Niamey. One woman says that no one saw any soldiers away from the palace move to take part in the coup or fight it. Not a ringing endorsement for either side.
“The Conseil suprême pour la restauration de la démocratie (CSDR), of which I am the spokesman, has decided on the suspension of the constitution of the sixth republic and the dissolving of all institutions which it created.”
France 24 has the first photos of the Presidential Palace with RPG or cannon damage. They’ve also been looping footage of civilians panicking near the Petit Marche (I assume) from around 13:00 Niamey time for several hours. Their coverage has been well linked in to French government sources in Niamey. I do have to take issue with Douglas Yates (teaches in Paris, Gabon expert, quite clever) who they interview. He claims the political opposition must be behind this because they stand to benefit. This seems unlikely, as their clumsy attempts last year to start a coup failed, and that’s not how Nigerien coups have happened in the past (well, MAYBE 1999, but that’s debatable). Coups tend to be clean sweeps of the top of the political class, to which elements of the previous political class are later lured as junior members. I would point the inter-military conflict (younger officers against older), especially as the top officers are all quite publicly on the take, and may not be sharing. As things tightened up financially, I can’t see the lower ranks benefiting much. It’s not a surprise that the Council of Ministers prior to this (last week) more than tripled base recruit pay from less than 3k CFA a month to 10k, and named a man seen as a Boureima loyalist to inspector of the Army. There have been many shuffles in the FAN over the last year, and this speaks to the rivalries in the ranks. Now, did politicians (both Nigerien and foreign) try to spark this coup? Likely yes. But look to the internal dynamics to see why it happened now.
The first image, from AFP and used by France 24, of damage to the Palace.
15:20 NY/ 21:20 Niamey : Les Afriques has run with the story that Colonel Djibrilla Hima ” Pélé” Hamidou is the “New Strong Man of Niger”. It reports that Tandja is being held, and Pélé (biopic below) also arrested General Boureima at his residence. Le Pays (via Fasozine) is also claiming Tandja is safely held by the coup, but points to an anonymous press release as the source of Major Adamou Harouna’s leadership. Neither of these can be confirmed, but Les Afriques says we’ll get an announcement at 20 hours GMT, which has past. Les Afriques also claims the armored force came out of Zinder.
15:00 NY/ 21:00 Niamey : The Nigerian interim president and just reconfirmed ECOWAS head Goodluck Johnathan has condemned the coup, according to the Osun Defender. Still reports that TV and Radio are waiting on an announcement, and all the cabinet is being held at an undisclosed location, according to Paris.
Tandja is reportedly held either in the CSC (communications) headquarters or the Tondibiya military camp south of town. France 24 is claiming that Major Adamou Harouna is the the son of the more famous Col. Adamou Harouna. Col. Harouna took part in the 1974 coup, having joined the FAN from the French Army in 1960. He served under the military regime of Seyni Kountché. He was promoted up to colonel, made military prefect (governor) of Niamey from 1979-81, Dosso from 81-83, but then fell out with the General, as most officers he was threatened by did. He was thrown into jail in 1983 on treason charges, but released and rehabilitated after Kountché’s death in 1987. He was appointed chief of veterans affairs (a military post) in 1988. About his son, I assume we will discover much more in the coming days.
13:30 hours NY/19:30 hours Niamey : Nigeriens are reporting the coups HAS succeed, is holding the (former) President Tandja, and is led by a Major Adamou Harouna. Other floated names: A Capt. Saley and Colonel Djibrilla Hima ” Pélé” Hamidou. Conflicting reports claim that Boureima is either behind these officers, or they rose up AGAINST Boureima.
13 hours NY/19 hours Niamey : Unconfirmed and anonymous reports say Radio Sahel is in the hands of the Coup troops and is playing “patriotic music”. The rumor is that the nightly news, broadcast about now, will clear up who’s in charge.
12:43 NY time : Reuters is reporting out of Paris that Tandja is being held by coup troops. The source is a French Diplomatic official: “There is still some confusion but it seems that President Tandja and his ministers are in the hands of mutinous soldiers, that they are being held.” A civilian expat in Niamey is reporting that there is still no statements by local media or government.
12:30 NY time : AFP reports the story of a witness who saw a 3-4 soldiers killed when their armored car was hit by heavy fire. They are the only known dead so far. It remains unclear who won the firefight at the Palace, and were the President is.
11:50 NY A Jeune Afrique report is also naming Pélé as the man leading the coup attempt. Some sources are quoting witnesses who say the coup was successful, others quote witnesses who say the opposite.
Email rumor says the the coup troops were led by Colonel Djibrilla Hima ” Pélé” Hamidou. Djibrilla was spokesman for the 1999 coup who was famously kidnapped by lower level troops led by Commandant Namata Samna Boubé in June 2000. Released, (and three soldiers imprisoned until 2008) Djibrilla was reportedly close to Boureima, put in charge of armored troops, and fought against the recent northern insurgency. In 2008 he was moved to command Zone de Defense 1 (Niamey), and in 2009 moved to head the Army football team (ASFAN) and then the Niger Football Federation, while retaining his commission. There’s no proof yet he was really involved, but he’s an obvious choice.
11:30 NY time: France 24 TV just reported that witnesses say the soldiers who stormed the Presidential Palace “left with the President”.
15:30 GMT: Reuters now is quoting a French Diplomatic source saying that the coup was “short lived” and “an attempted coup d’etat” which had been contained in the barracks of the Presidential Guard. Another source said that they traveled across the city at 15:00 GMT and without seeing any military personnel.
Paris demande aux Français de rester chez eux AFP. It seems the only two reporters on the ground are from Reuters (Abdoulaye Massalatchi) and BBC (Idy Baraou). France is telling the ~500 Europeans in Niamey to stay inside. Reuters is the only one reporting the President is captured, but all the sources are now talking of heavy weapons being used against the palace at the beginning of the fighting, and military blocking streets across the Plateau of north central Niamey, home to government offices, embassies, etc.
The BBC is reporting four military installations within a mile of the Palace. This just scratches the surface. The Armed forces of Niger (FAN) include the Army, Air Force, the FNIS (a paramilitary force controlled through the Ministry of the Interior), the Gendarmerie (in charge or rural policing and government installations), the Police Nationale (engaged in what we would think of as civil policing), the Medical Corps, and the reserves. There is a Joint Staff, which was expected to answer to the Minister of Defense under the old 5th Republic, but in practice answers directly to the President. This is General Boureima. The Army (Armee de Terre, excluding Air/police/FINS), below him, is divided into 8 “Defense Zone” commands, roughly matching the Regions. Zone 1 (Niamey and Tillabery) is headquartered in Niamey, commanded by Gen. Mamane Ousseini. General Maï Manga Oumara is the presidential military adviser (Chef d’Etat-major particulier) and I believe also commands the President’s guard: the Republican Gard, formerly the Presidential Guard. This had been a Tuareg unit under president Diori, and fought the 1974 coup. It was thereafter disbanded. Most FAN administration is run from the large Tondibiya military and police complex near the Airport, south of the city center, where the training school is located, along with the Army hospital and the Gendarme training school.
Reuters is reporting a Niamey Police claim that “the attackers came from outside the city in armored vehicles.” The small armored units of the FAN are based in Tahoua, a couple of hours (at least) to the northeast.
"Cri inacheve?": Adamou Idé's first book of poetry from 1984.
Adamou Idé is no slouch. An acclaimed poet and novelist, Adamou left his Niamey home to study in the Sorbonne and return to Africa as a government official and to work internationally for La Francophonie. A progressive, he authored the Labor Code used under the Third Republic which followed the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1991. But since winning the nation’s highest poetry prize in 1981, he is best known for writing less dry documents. His poetry, both in French and Zarma, was first collected in published form in 1984, and he has written several volumes of poems, three novels, adapted writing for screenplays, and even penned politically satirical short stories in Zerma that are used in Niger’s schools. Its title “Wa sappe ay se!” is Zarma for “Vote for Me!”
There’s little in English about or by him, but his 2005 appearance at the Medellin Festival of Literature brings us one of his poems, translated into English. The poem, “J’ai Peur” (“I’m Scared”) is a sparse, hard indictment of the general, the dictator, and the presidents everywhere in this world today, who crush the joy from our lives because of their own fear of our power. One of the festival’s amazing collection of African poets reading their works, shows Adamou reading this.
I’m Scared!
I’m scared!
Yes, I do not conceal it from you
I say it: I’m scared!
I’m scared
Of all anthems you sing
Elixirs vomited noisily
Brought forward
I’m scared of your flags
cracking in the wind of your madness
I’m scared!
To you I confess my fear
I’m scared of your erected tents
Sparse in the flowered gardens
I’m scared of your adult games
In the pedestrian corridors
I know that one day
You will shoot me!
I’m scared
Yes, I confess my fear
I’m scared of your gloved hands
Hiding numerous cactus
I’m scared when a child
Claims for life in his cold cradle
I’m scared when he shows ecstasy
I know that one day
You will shoot him!
Adamou Idé writes: “…From my very inside, an acute feeling of injustice and bitter revolt emerged. I think I have not tried to understand… and I have cried: it was the voice of poetry! It became a weapon and a tribune for protest and denunciation. I claim for liberty, solidarity, brotherhood among men and I think that in every man there is a poet: But I also feel that poets are feared by those in power that use violence, who are prosperous at the expense of the collective suffering. When they are denounced, some poets are imprisoned, tortured, killed or exiled as if this was enough to kill the power of the word in them. The poets continue paying a harsh tribute for their liberty of thought. Again, poetry appears as the last bastion for the struggle for liberty! In these times, some powerful men of this world believe they are able to enslave others by means of unilateral thought, unfair economical laws, unjust wars and they want poets to speak in one way or another. Now, more than ever, we need poetry and poets committed to the struggle for peace, justice and tolerance! Lullaby poetry is intended for making children sleep, meanwhile bombs fall and destroy their legs: I have never believed in this kind of “colorless” and “odorless” poetry. I believe in words that name suffering and that wake up hope in open furrows by misery and tears. The poetic writing has allowed me to live an incredible adventure. An always-new adventure in a mysterious world of words. In the poem one feels that the agitated life of the words is being written, that they heap together to find a place in the verse, they hug each other to create rhythm, to provoke or stimulate the reader’s senses, and one never knows when the poem is finished or if it’s the poet that being tired has put down the weapons. But what is the matter if the poem is there and sings before you the real love and liberty!… “
There is much rummaging beneath the surface here at Tomathon. Specifically, hacking my present theme into a multiple loop, rss fed platform for both short blogs and longer writing. In the interim, shorter blogs appear in the sidebar, while here you may enjoy a dinosaur comic about about potable water conservation in sub-Saharan Africa!
The Saharan Al Qaeda – Cocaine tieup has finally hit the North American domestic news with the much trumpeted arrest by United States agents of three Malians who they allege “the direct link between dangerous terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, and international drug trafficking that fuels their violent activities”.
Admittedly we have very little to go on at the moment. Three Malian men, said to be in their mid 30s, were arrested by the US in Ghana, and flown to New York. Here they were disposed before a judge on drug smuggling and terrorism charges. We have the New York Times and wire articles, based entirely on the press release and a copy of the actual deposition provided by the US government. I await the reaction of the Malian press especially.
The three men are Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman. Oumar Issa was contacted by a Lebanese who worked for the US in Ghana. The US informant pretended to be a criminal with Hezbollah connections, seeking to ship drugs, and looking for contacts with the “Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb”. Issa said he represents a “big boss”, Harouna Touré, from somewhere in north Mali, who “has connections in government” and who while not running a smuggling operation “collects taxes for Al Qaeda from Malian politicians.” Sounds like a big deal. But Touré’s not a current holder of any local political office (according to the last election results) and hasn’t been in the news.
It is likely not accidental that Bamba is one of the historic endpoints of the Taoudenni salt trade. From here there is a well trodden route to northern Mauritania or north to Algeria and Morocco, one that people in the area have been making for at least a thousand years. It was ancient when Ibn Battuta made the caravan trek from Morocco through Taoudenni and south to the Niger in the 1350s. The Berabiche Arabs in particular have long been responsible for this salt route, and it would be little surprise that a Bamba merchant would have a business relationship with some of these semi-nomadic Arabs.
Abelrahman (perhaps a variant of the more common Malian Arab family name “Abderrahmane”) is identified in the complaint as an AQIM leader, claims to command a group of 11 men and calls himself “King of the desert”. He claims to have been “a general” in some unidentified previous insurgency, something which is as entirely unverifiable as it is grandiloquent. Touré, claimed to be the “big man”, has been involved in the drug trade via Brasil if the US reporting of his boasts ( and his passport stamps) is to be believed. Their plan was to take cocaine via Togo to Mali or Niger, then Algeria, Morocco, the coast, and by boat to the Canary Islands. The last phase of this is described by Touré as handled by Brazilian contacts. Another description, fed by the US planners, seems to suggest an inland trip to Spain via Melilla. He also claims to have previously arranged shipments of hashish into Tunisia and South Asian migrants to Spanish territory.
I would be VERY surprised if this Idriss Abelrahman is anything more than a Arab/Maure smuggler and caravan driver, resident somewhere between Bamba and Taoudenni in the desert north of Mali. He probably knows some people who are related to members of some AQIM cells who move through the area, and so can probably pass by them on friendly terms. But is he Al Qaeda? Not bloody likely.
Further, if the US agents can pose as Lebanese Hezbollah and FARC, then logically, these men can not have had contacts with these organizations prior to this. Maybe these groups are involved with smuggling in West Africa, but the US didn’t arrest anyone they do business with.
We can say with some likelihood that these men are businessmen/smugglers, from somewhere in Gao ( from the context of routes), and Oumar Issa is probably someone’s family member working in the south (he’s the contact made in Lome). But their flight from Mali via Lome and on to Ghana is arranged for and paid by the US. Toure, the reputed “big man” claims he’s going back home from Bamako at one point to “the north” where he doesn’t have email or phone. Toure is given money in Ghana to buy a truck, but buys a car instead, and the agent has to give them more cash and explain they really do need a bigger vehicle. Toure says he needs to be paid 3000 Euro a kilo for transport with %10 up front. Then says he needs US$10000 a kilo, and %50 down. And he needs it in Euros.
Pardon me, but these business deals don’t seem designed to make money. These “drug dealers” are giving three Malians 500 kilos of cocaine, and then paying the Malians a pile of cash. Won’t the Malians then go sell the drugs for even more cash.
And the complaint is littered with attempts to illicit anti-American sentiments from the marks, who rarely return with anything more damning than a “God Willing” or two. Clearly the US government expects that everyone who hates America is on the same page, plotting across ideological lines, continents, and religions to hurt us. By selling drugs. To Europeans.
The counterpoint of blind nationalism here is blind paranoia, the thought that everyone must be scheming about you behind your back, that all “evil doers” are doing evil as part of a grand conspiracy to bring you down. If you wave several million dollars in front of three people from one of the poorest countries in the world, do you think when you say “You love Al-Qaeda, right?” they’ll launch into a subtle discussion of international terror? Or will they say “Oh yeah, you’re my brother cause we hate America too! And I’ll take that %50 up front in Euros.”
But this is par for the US government anti-terrorism law enforcement. The policing enforcement of US terrorism policy is as hamfisted as the military “war on terror”, except that the policing war is usually motivated by the desire for good domestic press. They tend to create their own terrorist plots, convince criminal idiots to accede to the plans invented by the US, and then arrest the patsies. The example of the recent Bronx terror plot in which the FBI informant took several not very bright young men recently released from jail, created a plot, bought gifts for them until they agreed to help, gave them the supplies, and then arrested them as “dangerous Al Qaeda terrorists.” Of course there are real terrorists out there, but it’s much easier to disrupt plots you invent yourself.
My concern will be that this West African variant of US anti-terrorism enforcement, while attempting to win US plaudits will forget that in trying to impress Americans, they may end up alienating West Africans. If this is seen as an entrapment operation, it will eventually do more to turn Malians — who are today very positively disposed to people from the United States — against the US than it will actually disrupt real smuggling, let alone terrorism.
Pro government march in Niamey last week demands the President stand firm.
Nigerien sources are saying direct talks between the government and opposition leaders in Niamey could begin on Saturday, a strategy that has been pushed by Nigerian mediators. Prime minister and frequent flier Ali Badjo Gamatie had previously promised the EU and the Nigerians such negotiations, while both supportersand opponents of Tandja had said flatly that there was nothing to discuss. There seems little that could be accomplished. Tandja has seemed to side increasingly with the hardlinesupporters like Nouhou Arzika, the crazy uber-nationalist former protest leader (he led the anti-tax protests against Tandja and Hama Amadou in 2005, but cleaved to Tandja during the Tuareg conflict) who’s now the populist voice of the new Republic. I’ve previously compared him to Ivorian state sponsored quasi-fascist Charles Ble Goude, and I think the comparison is apt. The official news is full of his opinions, as well as increasingly Kim-Jong-Il -esque hommages to the President.
Despite a European demands, Tandja says he will go ahead with the Municipal elections on December 27. Any cancellation would suggest the “7th Republic compromise theory” might be in the offing. As of yet, it’s full steam ahead.
Nouhou Arzika looking friendly.
It also remains to be seen if the opposition will call off protests planned for the 22nd, when Tandja’s term was legally to end. This date has also cropped up in anti-Tandja pamphlets that turned up at military bases last month. The Arzika & government sponsored marches (officials including Tandja himself appeared at most) of last week, which followed the opposition marches on the 13th reportedly devolved into violence in opposition PNDS-Tarayya leader Mahamadou Issoufou‘s home base of Tahoua.
Each year (for the last several) the Republic Day celebrations take place in a different regional capitol, meaning all the top officials head out of Niamey and sit around a stadium watch dancing and giving speeches. This year it is the party is at Diffa in the far distant east, home region of Tandja. This seems a particularly dangerous trip for a government in crisis, but so far Tandja has shown no worry for his throne, jetting off repeatedly and leaving his military chiefs in charge.
One Burkina paper rightfully called this Republic Day (the 18th) as the beginning of “A Week of Full of Dangers.” We’ll see.
BBC’s Africa Today (last night) had an interestingly detailed piece about recent violence in the far northeast of Centafrique, while Alex Thurston at the indispensable Sahel Blog continues his well informed plunge southward into Francophone central Africa. I’ve done some recent reading about this, beginning with “Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa” by Brian Titley, which is a decent enough introduction. Over-personalized and underplaying the continuing institutional hold of the French, I’d still recommend it as a good read and a useful corrective to the colonial fantasy reporting about the famously tyrannical Colonel/President/Emperor’s 1966-1979 rule of the Central African Republic. More so, I recommend Thomas O’Toole’s 1986 English language history and Pierre Kalck’s similar but more detailed work in French (from which most more recent works draw heavily, but which I’ve only read bits of). Kalck’s recent update of the Historical Dictionary of the Central African Republic, translated into English by O’Toole, is especially recomended. Given my recent — if superficial — interest in this under reported nation’s modern history, I thought I’d chime in with some updates, and a way folks can read more.
The BBC report, including a summary of an interview given by several UFDR leaders describes the recent fighting at Sam Ouandja, where a large refugee camp for Sudanese is located. The UFDR has in the past been accused of being supplied by the Sudanese government, and the area has been home to anti Idriss Déby Chadian rebels. Chadians have long been involved in the CAR’s politics, notably aiding France in bringing back David Dacko, and providing troops to support François Bozizé in 2001-2003, as they did to aid his predecessor Ange-Félix Patassé in 1997.
The far east of the country is very sparsely populated, and communal conflict between the local Gula people (around Birao in Vakaga) and pastoralists from Sudan and elsewhere is common, as are growing conflicts with Kara to their south. Some of Patassé’s men were holed up here — mostly from Patassé’s own northern Sara ethnic group from well west of Bamingui-Bangoran. As well Vakaga and Bamingui-Bangoran became a place of exile for some Muslim an northern disaffected soldiers of Bozizé’s rebellion, in a nation long dominated by the M’Baka of the southwest, former president André Kolingba‘s tiny Yakoma, and the Gbaya people of the center north, the largest ethnic group in the country. When the Army fought through Vakaga in 2007 with the help of French airpower, the human rights abuses were extreme, and ethnic and religious tensions were inflamed, with reports that southern soldiers especially targeted Gula communities, reinforcing ethnic grievances and an ethnic coloration to the previously more mixed UFDR.
The report last night describes small scale fighting (three killed) between UFCR or former UFCR men of Gula ethnicity and Sudanese from the Sam Ouandja camp. The UFDR claimed that the camp provides cover for rebel groups as well as many criminal gangs. This whole area is plagued by bandits much more than by rebel soldiers. The UFCR is demanding the camp be closed, and this seems to have taken on a rather ethnic vocabulary. The UFCR also complains that there is no camp security to speak of provided by MINURCAT, the French led stabilization force in the northeast. Add into this mix the Chadian rebels, Sudanese rebels, Sudanese government, the CAR army (FACA), a recent history of French bombing Birao to ashes, seminomadic pastoralists competing with farmers for resources, and you can see why this is a mess.
And this leaves aside the recent insurgency and continuing banditry in the northwest, the recent attack on N’Délé by a small rebel splinter faction, the absolutely shattered state, economy, and political culture handed down from particularly brutal colonial and neocolonial regimes, and the aftermath of the 2002 mass murders by the militia of Congo-Brazzaville’s Jean-Pierre Bemba, who surged into the south to support Patassé, Bemba’s subsequent prosecution at the Hague, and Patasse’s recent return from exile.
Once again, I have to recommend the work of the International Crisis Group. I read “Central African Republic: Anatomy of a Phantom State” last week, and it’s the closest thing I can find to an English language history of the troubled recent years of the CAR. The two ICG reports and the HRW report make a good briefing. I’ll save my breath on the 2003-2007 war and it’s multiple regional insurgencies that have never really ended, so you can read better informed sources offered below.
Their resident photographers maintains an amazing photo pool at Flickr. The shot above of a UFDR soldier protecting airstrip in Sam Ouandja (May 2008) is from their collection.
Image via Wikipedia
To get a general idea of the geography: Sam Ouandja, where the camp at the center of this recent bloodshed happened, is in Ouadda (Haute-Kotto prefecture). UFDR activity has extended from Bamingui-Bangoran Prefecture (where N’Délé is to the west), through Ouadda Sub Prefecture of Haute-Kotto (south) and all of Vakaga (the northeast of the country). Most of the UFDR activity is in Vakaga (Ouanda Djallé and Birao), while the largest concentration of Gula communities in is Birao (the northern 2/3ds of Vakaga.
"Baba Tandja" looms over the MNSD-Nassara leadership.
No end is yet in sight for the Nigerien political crisis, begun when President Tandja Mamadou, facing the end of his term-limited mandate on 22 December, decided to scrap the constitution of the 5th Republic, and grant himself three years grace period in which to create a 6th Republic. The alienation of most of the political class was expected, but the severity of ECOWAS rhetoric was likely not. Niger’s rulers would have expected this to be wrapped up by now, with the previous legal deadline for a new president to pass with a shrug. But the personal interest of current ECOWAS chair Nigeria — Niger’s massive neighbor and largest African trade partner — has meant that President Tandja has been excluded from the body, branded as a coup leader, and placed alongside Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara as a poster child for what’s wrong with West African governance.
And while Blaise Compaore, assigned mediation duties in Guinea, seems intent on finding a way for Dadis to stay in power despite his wholesale slaughter of his own people, Yar’Adua’s government has kept an unusual concentration of pressure on Niamey. [see Niger:Piling on the Pressure for details] Sadly, this has far exceeded any pressure the remarkably unified internal opposition has been able to bring to bear internally.
Should effective ECOWAS pressure escalate as they promise, seconded by sanctions by crucial donors like France, the EU, and the US, Niger’s new 6th Republic can’t carry on indefinitely. Current Chinese projects don’t fill the gap with direct payments. While uranium and oil revenue continue to flood in, too much of that has gone to support a small group of businessmen around Tandja to enable the government to balance the budget with it. Wages will not be paid, loans will not be forthcoming, the military will miss their trips to Fréjus, and there will be trouble.
But if Tandja is toppled or forced to give way in this manner, it will be an inside job by the political and military leadership who aided his new constitutional order.
–
Niger has had a lot of constitutions, and they tend to be none too creative rehashes of previous documents. The 6th was generated in less than a week, and declared “in effect” within days of the August referendum. It recycles much of the 5th Republic (semi-presidential 1999), with elements of the failed 4th Republic (General Baré Maïnassara’s strong presidency and ceremonial legislature). To give you a feel for the slapdash nature of current Nigerien jurisprudence, the constitution calls for a strong presidency which appoints all ministers — including the PM — and most of the judiciary and “independent” governing bodies. In most every public power carried over from the last constitution, there is simply a clause added which gives either the President or a body he appoints the power to suspend or override its function “when needed”. For new bodies, their description is invariably followed by something like “..whose functions and composition will be determined by law.” Later.
The “new” Legislature includes a National Assembly, whose law-making functions can be largely replaced by the President and his Council of Ministers. Their primary task, the annual budget legislation, must also be passed by a new second house, the Senate, which has not yet been created. The constitution says that the President will appoint a third of this Senate’s members, while bodies such a the council of Chieftancies and other government commissions will “indirectly elect” the remainder. I have yet to find any serious discussion of this body in the government’s daily mouthpiece, Le Sahel, let alone a schedule for it’s appearance.
The Nigerien National Assembly has historically sat in two short sessions each year. The first Hemicycle of the new Assembly has just wrapped up, but its hard to see what they accomplished. Committee rules were written up by a group led by former Communications Minister and close Tandja loyalist Mohammad Ben Omar, former PM and current MNSD party chief Seyni Oumarou was named President of the Assembly, and heads of each of the minor parties was given an important sounding office. because of the opposition boycott, there is no opposition in the Assembly. A budget for 2010 was announced in the President’s Council of Ministers and adopted by the National Assembly, calling for an increase in direct budget supports from foreign donors, which the government relies upon to pay the bills. That these will soon be cut by many donors seems to have eluded normally erudite Finance Minister Zeine. The leadership then wrapped up by chartering a junket to Angola for the 18th Joint Parliamentary Assembly of Africa, Caribbean and Pacific plus European Union (ACP/EU). All interested members were offered a large stipend to fly down and look like a real parliament. At least one member reportedly took the stipend but chose to stay in Niamey. And then the gavel fell of the first Assembly session of Niger’s 6th Republic.
And while the domestic and foreign press is rife with speculation, there seems little movement to resolve the crisis. The opposition, including two former Prime Ministers, one former President, and a large split from Tandja’s ruling MNSD, vows to eject the current President from power, and mark the 22nd with a final repudiation of his holding any legal office. Expect demonstrations and some violence in major cities.
Violence has flared in Niamey in August (bottom) and September (top).
Niger is an overwhelmingly rural society, in which the vast majority of the population do not participate in politics, intent as they are with meager rain-fed substance agriculture in the strip of Sahel along the south and west of the nation. The time leading up to harvest, taking place now or in the last month, is “the hungry season” in which rural people work much and eat little. Even many urban Nigeriens return to farms to help with the crop and pad their food supply. Rains in some areas of the west stopped for a crucial period in June this year, causing farmers there to replant, and millet crops to be less than expected. As if that were not preoccupation enough, the time after Tabaski and harvest begins the “exodé” when as many as a third of rural men (and a few women) travel as far afield as Ghana, coastal Nigeria, Benin or Côte d’Ivoire to work odd jobs, coming home in several months with clothes, supplies, and a little cash. Short of ECOWAS closing the borders, Nigeriens are unlikely to be roused to large scale political action in the next few months.
A recent cover of the state paper, Le Sahel, focuses on the PM's meetings abroad, and the business as usual at home.
is eager to split off the hard core Tazarché (pro-Tandja) forces who have become a political force parallel to the ruling MNSD. The Assembly elections of October were already read as such a movement, with the return of MNSD apparatchiks at the expense of an influx of “independent” business men close to the president and his sons. Yet Gamatié is technically himself an Independent, not a MNSD minister, and brought in for that reason.
The rumored “solution” to this crisis, the creation of a 7th Republic with Tandja as a figure head and his bête noire former ally Hama Amadou as head of a transitional authority, remains just rumor. The re-assertion of the old line MNSD over the pure Tazarchistes may make the political bloodletting easier to take, but many powerful men have publicly hitched their stars to the 6th Republic and the President himself.
Creeping personalization of rule is after all par for the course in such regimes, but a sudden and unexpected transition from one government to another is not a new phenomena in Niger. The genius of the Nigerien political class is, arguably, their ability to not only change political sides, but to successfully hit the “reset button” after dramatic change. Very few of the high ranking members of Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara’s 4th Republic saw their political careers — or access to the state — end following his death at the hands of his own former coup leaders in April 1999.
Tandja, whose government has been supported from the outset by the group of officers surrounding Chief of Staff General Moumouni Boureima, has since 2004 relied on the unwavering support of the RDP-Jama’a, Baré Maïnassara’s old party. Their only identifiable founding principle is the rollback of the 1999 immunity against those who carried out the April coup, including Moumouni Boureima. It’s current leader, Hamid Algabid flew to Abudja in November to plead with ECOWAS to support Tandja’s new regime. Still, the constitution of the 6th Republic maintains a blanket immunity for officers like Boureima.
Algabid is a good illustration of how reinvention is easy for the Nigerien elite. A Tuareg from Tanout, Algabid rose to the office of Secretary General of Finance in
Hamid Algabid
Hamani Diori’s First Republic. When Seyni Kountché led a coup in 1974 and imposed almost a decade of extra-constitutional government, Algabid flourished, being appointed to several international posts and becoming Minister of Finance. When a token civilian government was named in 1983, Algabid became its second Prime Minister. When the gray formless General Ali Saïbou succeeded to power on Kountché’s death, Algabid served him for a year, before being kicked up to head the Organisation of the Islamic Conference throughout both the authoritarian Second Republic and the post-revolutionary Third Republic. When Baré Maïnassara took power, Algabid failed in a bid to become Secretary General of the UN (!), and agreed instead to head the General-President’s new party, made up almost entirely of defectors from the boycotting civilian parties. After 1999, Algabid led RDP-Jama’a into a coalition with the social democratic PNDS (a leader in the opposition to Baré Maïnassara, and now Tandja) before changing their minds in 2004 and supporting the president.
So while a few diehards newly lifted to great heights will fall should Tandja go, most of the political class will just change seats. Look for that jockeying with an eye to a post-Tandja future at every meeting of Nigerien officials with ECOWAS. The final key is where it always was, with Moumouni Boureima and a group of several officers who are all veterans of the 1999 CRN coup government. [more on them in a forthcoming article] Jeune Afrique’s recent report of coup talk amongst some younger officers strikes at the very foundations of Tandja’s continued rule.
Even if nothing comes of that, the moment a 7th Republic looks more likely to those currently in government than the stumbling on of the 6th, Tandja will be carried out on his throne. Pressure is important, then, but unless either ECOWAS or the opposition exhibit to heretofore unseen ability to generate outside force or popular unrest, Tandja will exit thanks to an inside job.
Guinean's and supporters march in the streets of Manhattan following the September 28th killings.
Join the second march on the UN by Guineans and their allies in New York City, Thursday December 8th. If you can’t make it, there are ways to get involved, including organizing solidarity events and extensive letter writing campaigns, so please do!
Kadiatou Diallo (Amadou Diallo‘s mother) and Norm Siegal of the NYCLU are lending their voices to this, in support of “Alliance Guinea” in America. Their Advocacy page asks: “Are you an elected leader or political activist? Join our advocacy action group. Email allianceguinea(at)gmail.com to get involved in any of these sub-committees.” There is also a full list of ways you can help at http://www.allianceguinea.org/advocacy-what-you-can-do/ .
The US based rights group Alliance Guinea is organizing a march and protest demanding the military junta in Conakry, murderers of thousands of innocents and, be brought to justice. Only last week it was reported that the Guinean military was employing South African and Israeli mercenaries, hired by a firm run by a US former West Point graduate and Morgan Stanley executive, to train ethnic militias. The use of such divisions, long overcome in by most Guineans, could plunge the nation into a civil war like Yugoslavia experienced in the 1990s, and create suffering across West Africa. Demand the UN make sure the regime in Conakry knows they have no future in government, and their only hope is to hand over power to a civilian transitional authority immediately.
If you can’t make the Tuesday lunchtime march:
Write a letter to your government and press demanding action, and
Come to the “Musique contre la Violence” unity night in Harlem on December 9 at 8PM at Shrine in Harlem
This is far from over – the latest news out of Guinea is a proposed deal that would have the CNDD junta heading a “national transition council” for up to 10 months and open the door for Dadis to stand in elections. At the same time, the UN is beginning the work of the international commission of inquiry into the crimes of September 28, but it’s clear that more international pressure against the military and support for the population is needed.
Here in New York Alliance Guinea has joined forces with the Guinean Forces Vives in the US and our friends Kadiatou Diallo and Norman Siegel of the Amadou Diallo Foundation to form the “September 28 Coalition for Justice and Democracy in Guinea.”
Together we are organizing a march and rally on Tuesday, December 8 from 11am – 3pm to demand justice for the crimes committed and support for a speedy and democratic transition to civilian rule in Guinea. At 11am we will gather in front of the Guinean consulate at 140 E. 39th St., marching then to 47th Street and rallying by noon at Dag Hammarskjold Park in front of the United Nations.
see http://www.allianceguinea.org Stay tuned for a list of expected speakers.
If you live far from New York and cannot join us in person, here are two things you can still do:
Make a donation – help us offset the cost of the rally (permits, transport, stage & sound system costs, etc.) through our new online giving button at http://www.allianceguinea.org Check it out and pass the word – every gift counts!
Write a letter (again!) to your local newspaper or Congressperson/Member of Parliament and tell them about the march and how the latest news out of Guinea confirms the critical need for international pressure and support is critical to getting justice and preventing what could spiral into civil war. For sample letters and other tips, see http://www.allianceguinea.org/advocacy-what-you-can-do/
And if you are in the New York area and can’t make it during lunch hour on Tuesday, don’t miss for what is going to be an amazing “Musique contre la Violence” unity night in Harlem on December 9 at 8pm at Shrine in Harlem with some of the greatest masters of Guinean music living in America and guest speakers from the September 28 Coalition. (2271 Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, New York, NY10030)
The situation in Guinea is just as dire as ever, and justice must be served and the military must go.
Blackstar Journal: Ethnic cleansing in Guinea? A detailed and disturbing letter from eyewitnesses to continued (October 21) violence and oppression aimed at opposition and ethnic groups
In case you’ve been under a rock for the last few hours, Ireland were dumped out of the 2010 World Cup by France, who needed a 2-1 aggregate result to get past the Irish. They got it on a ball that was handled twice by previously believed to be classy French fella, Theirry Henry.
I still can’t get over this. I always liked Henry, despite the clubs he played for. But that was just wrong, even if I were a neutral observer. Clearly cupping his hand, paddling the ball (heading out) to Gallas who knocks it into the net. Really criminal. I hope France draw Cote d’Ivoire in the WC and get stuffed the way Senegal did them last time.
I’ve always loved Tony, and he’s a bit upset here (as you can imagine). “I’m no angel, but I know that I wouldn’t have done what he did. And if the roles had been reversed and Ireland had reached South Africa in such a dubious way, would I have been delighted at victory? Of course. Would I have felt it was tainted? Absolutely. … I’m gutted for Ireland and for football. ”
Mary Hannigan writes: “Lest we forget, Ireland reached these play-offs by finishing second to reigning world champions Italy in their qualifying group, unbeaten in their 10 games, before having to get the better of the 1998 World Cup winners over two legs. A daunting route, it was, to South Africa, the journey ending short of its destination last night.” But wouldn’t trade for this result if I had to live out the rest of my life as Thierry Henry.
Ivan, provided security for antifascists and dissdents of all stripes.
“S2W” at avtonom.org shares his memories of this modern day hero, Ivan Khutorskoy.
“Yesterday evening, Monday the 16th of November, 26 year old anti-fascist Ivan “Vanya Kostolom” Khutorskoy was shot to death at the entrance to his home at Khabarovsk street in the east side of Moscow; according to some information with two shots to his head.
Vanya was a great figure in the Russian anti-fascist movement, and I am sure many people will write down their memories of him in the days, months and years to come. But as of today most of his friends are too angry and too shocked, at the loss of this friend and comrade. [read the rest at avtonom.org]
You can help:
“Vanya’s father died a few years ago, he is by his mother and his sister. Donations to support friends and family with funeral costs are welcome, you may use Yandex-money account 41001411894609, or in case you do not know what that is, you may donate through ABC-Moscow: http://www.avtonom.org/donate. But in this case write to ABC-Moscow about your plans (abc-msk AT riseupDOT net, and also indicate in transfer that it is “for Kostolom friends and family”. ”
ECOWAS and it's Nigerian representatives are playing rough.
On the 11th of November, the government of Nigerconfirmed the elections for it’s new parliament, boycotted by opposition and assailed as undemocratic from abroad. Two days before Finance Minister Zeine, who now serves at the will of the first President of the Sixth Republic, Tandja Mamadou, also announced the government budget for 2010. Like the August 18th unilateral transition from the semi-presidential Fifth Republic, this first budget of the Sixth Republic is a mixture of unchecked opacity and optimistic bluster.
Niger’s government announced it would spend some 735 billion CFA Francs (1.1 Billion Euros), up from 730 Billion FCFA the year before. Of course, 2009 saw hundreds of millions — no one is quite sure how much — being paid to the government of Niger for new foreign mining and oil contracts. Still, Niger says that they expect their internal tax revenue to increase to record levels and and their foreign supports budget to increase almost nine and a half percent, to 330 billion FCFA (505 million Euros). With projected internal tax and and contract revenue, of around 614 million Euros, the government has confidently promised to exactly cover their expenditures. These figures, with a projection of a %4.3 economic growth for the coming year — almost entirely based on exports of uranium — sound good enough.
Venture capitalists reading the regurgitation of such projections in outlets like Bloomberg News, might be fooled. Except that these figures are largely meant as propaganda. The independent NiameyCanard Dechaine paper asked the obvious question in response: “who are these foreign sources of income” who will make up half of the revenue in direct payments, and much of the contract revenue?
The constitutional coup of President Tandja has ground these foreign payments to a halt. The EU has frozen 180 billion Euros in direct payments for this year, and given a 30 day ultimatum for a return to constitutional government, before they cut off further funds. IMF organized funding for infrastructure projects, including support for the African Development Bank managed Kandadji Hydroelectric Dam project, as well as for the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) fund, has not been reviewed since the beginning of September, and will likely be effected, especially as Kandadji funding was funneled through ECOWAS, an organization which has suspended all work with the government of Niger. Add the suspension of US and French non-humanitarian programs, and Niger has a rather large hole in its pocket, even if France continues to buy their uranium and China keeps investing in oil, mining, and infrastructure.
If more bad news were needed, the agricultural season was poor in parts of Niger, a nation where over eighty prevent of the population rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. While not a disaster, a June dry gap following the first rains caused some areas to have to replant, and millet yields are low. Couple that with the knife edge politically, Niger is in even worse shape.
Goods being confiscated at the Nigerian border with Niger
ECOWAS president Nigeria seems to be taking a hard line, regardless — or perhaps because of — that nation’s less than transparent 2007 presidential elections. President Yar’Adua has placed former General and President Abdulsalami Abubakar in the lead for the so called “Abuja I” consultations beginning this week. On the eve of these meetings, Nigeria arranged for a small demonstration of its strength. Border guards at the three main crossings south of Maradi, Zinder and Tahoua stopped all commercial transport for at least a day. Travelers were searched, and goods were impounded. The border between these neighbors cuts through the midst of Hausaland, and the major markets for goods from Niger — apart from those big exports by the government — are sold in the markets of Kano and Katsina. A flurry of denials as to who ordered such a closure followed, but the point was surely made.
The government delegation to Abuja, made up of PM Ali Badjo Gamatié and other high Nigerien officials who have been jetting around the ECOWAS states to plead their case for several weeks, arrived in Nigeria on the 10th. According to the Niamey press, the party which included three former Prime Ministers and several other high level minister, were met at the airport by no Nigerian delegation, and had to rent their own cars. All experienced officials, the Nigerien delegation included former Prime Ministers Mamane Oumarou, Cheiffou Amadou, Hamid Algabid, Seini Oumarou, current Press Minister Kassoum Moktar, former Press Minister Mohamed Ben Omar, longtime party leader Sanoussi Tambari Jackou, and current Foreign Minister Aïchatou Mindaoudou.
At the Abuja Sheraton, they were made to sit a wait several hours by the Nigerians, and then General Abdulsalami refused to meet with the entire illustrious delegation, and insisted that the current Niger PM and Foreign minister be the only officials interviewed. The Foreign Minister’s meeting with the Nigerian Ambassador to Niger was reportedly repeated halted while the Nigerian took calls on his mobile. Meanwhile a forty member Nigerien opposition delegation has arrived in Abuja as well, and both the EU and ECOWAS are demanding a compromise deal be done directly with the Nigerien anti-Tandja activists.
The Nigerien opposition press has begun floating the answer: the 7th Republic. In this scenario, Tandja would become a figurehead President during an 18 month transition while an assembly of all stakeholders would be called to draft a new constitution, overseen by former President Mahamane Ousmane. Meanwhile opposition leader Mahamadou Issoufou would become head of government. If you think you’ve heard this before, you may be right. Military dictator Ali Saibou‘s failed 2nd Republic was edged out of power in much the same way, with him as figurehead, while a National Convention wrote a new constitution.
Ali Saibou
Will Tandja agree? I would be surprised. He’s shown a remarkable unwavering drive to remain in power at all costs, and there are clearly now powerful family and military cliques who are using Tandja as cover for their enrichment — or to simply stave off prosecutions which might follow a change of government.
The last Nigerien strongman, Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, was overthrown in similar circumstances.
On the other hand, Tandja might be wise to follow in the footsteps of Ali Saibou. Saibou retired to his home village in 1993, and to the best of my knowledge is still there. The next Nigerien strongman to be removed from power, Colonel / General / President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara left the presidency in two body bags following a 1999 coup. Tandja might be reminded that the murder of that president took place only days after a then Nigerian President, Abubacar Abdulsalami, led ECOWAS negotiators in meetings with Baré Maïnassara over his annulment of promised elections. And the coup leaders who put Baré Maïnassara in power and took him out remain in places of influence in Tandja’s clique as well.
The local elections are odd enough. But “Claude Levi-Strauss” is the 4th most popular search on Yahoo? Right between “Dancing With The Stars” and “H1N1 Symptoms”. So I can only conclude that America, while gearing up for a possible deciding game of the Baseball World Series on Wednesday, is watching celebrities dance, while reading “The Raw and the Cooked” while overreacting to their spouse’s cough.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) is general election day here in New York City and across the waters in NJ. If you can vote, use it to make a point.
I know all the debates about voting not changing anything, and while I tend to agree, I’m not asking you to overthrow capitalism with your vote. It won’t do that. But it is a splendid soapbox from which to shout, and it is a way to ensure the object with which those in power can hit you is as small as possible.
Bloomy has jumped UP the rankings, making billions more during his two mayoral terms. And yet he’s cutting schools, health care, services, and raising only those taxes that hit the working poor hardest.
You don’t have to worry that Billy will win and be corrupted by power. And Billy has always been the first at every little picket or protest, always offered solidarity, always been there for those fighting power. You owe him one (if not several).
Vote Socialist for NJ Governor
Greg Pason, perennial candidate for the Socialist Party is running for governor. I may be biased. But the media driven acceptable choices are the fat Republican who loves George Bush, or the hairy Democrat who made billions as a unrepentant capitalist merchant banker, or the “independent” who’s really a Republican who just doesn’t hate everyone who’s not straight/white/rich as much as the first guy.
http://www.votepason.org/
Greg Pason is not going to win. Again, if you think this is a question of revolutionary principles, you’ve gotten ahead of yourself. This is a lifeline to those out there who’ve always been told that capitalism, free markets, and wage labor are the only choices there are. I’ve seen the effect that Greg’s campaigns can have on people across the state. People are so rarely reached by radical newspapers, protests, email lists, or punk rock fanzines. New Jersey law gives an avowed anti-capitalist air time, mailings that go to every home in the state, and a platform bigger than any march you’ve ever put together. Every vote Greg and other anti-capitalist candidates gets lends legitimacy to a future more just society.
And this society has gotten so used to abstention, that despite what you’re told, no power is threatened when you stay home. They just think you’re too fat and happy to shift your ass.
So drag it out: you won’t find a better use for a vote, even abstention.
Vote for Debbie Rose for NY City Council
Next Left Notes Photo: Michelle Akyempong
If you’re lucky enough to live on Staten Island, you have the chance to vote for Debbie Rose for City Council. After decades of grassroots activism, Debbie got out the vote and shocked the Democratic Party machine in the primaries, spanking the right wing Democrat Fred Flintstone look alike Ken Mitchell. Now Debbie is a day away from being the first person of color to be elected from any Staten Island election. Ever.
If that’s not reason enough, Ken Mitichell is storming back, using the Conservative Party ballot line (NYC politicians stand on, sometimes seemingly contradictory, multiple party lines) to try and win back his City Council seat. The same seat he was gifted by the Democratic machine, with which he did zero, except voting against a law that would protect Abortion providers from harassment.
Is Debbie Rose going to change the world? Hardly. But she’s good people, has always been loyal to her working class community and the struggles here against racism, police brutality, pollution and poverty. We need to give her a louder megaphone, and take it away from the idiots who hold it now.
So like I said, votes won’t make a revolution. That’s up to the rest of us. Your vote can make a point. Use it.
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See another leftist set of recommendations at Next Left Notes (nextleftnotes.org)
As I noted on the 10th of March, the CSRD junta in Niger has replaced all the civilian Region Governors with military men to administer local affairs during the transition. We now have the full list, and while I for one hate to see any military governing, a careful look at the men (all men) coming and going in Niger's Regions gives us an opportunity to examine what's going on behind the scenes, and what it augurs for the future.
More ...
Nigeriens were - are - undoubtedly pleased that the army stepped in to end a newly installed dictatorship. But criticisms of this so called "good coup" are beginning to appear even amongst its strongest supporters. With many months of transitional rule ahead, these whispers give us some idea of the problems the junta will soon face.
One doesn't see much film, let alone color film, of colonial era African football. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956.
The new military Junta in Niger has released their first real vision of their promised return to democracy. Niger's expectations, a redux of recent history, are being played to by the soldiers.
After a day of confusion, President Tandja and his supporters are under arrest by the military. I have maintained the live updates from the 18th, and added an in depth analysis of the new CSRD junta.
The US government will make much of the arrests of three Malians who they say were part of a West African criminal network, devoted to drug smuggling and Osama Bin Laden. So far all we have is hype and what looks like the entrapment of low level criminals.
The December 18th anniversary of the Nigerien Republic begins a series of dates which may bring the political crisis to a boil, just as mediators think they've made a breakthrough.
A brief look, if one is possible, at the simmering crisis in the northeast Central African Republic. As commentators try to come to grips with this often ignored nation, here is some recommended reading for Anglophones interested in the République centrafricaine.
Niger's rulers would have expected this to be wrapped up by now, with the previous legal deadline for a new president to pass on the 22nd with a shrug. But fears (or hopes) remain that some of those most loyal to the project are looking to abandon their President
Join the second march on the UN by Guineans and their allies in New York City, Thursday December 8th. If you can't make it, there are ways to get involved, so please do!
As the "Abuja I" talks begin with ECOWAS, President Tandja of Niger is increasingly backed into a political and financial corner. Will his "6th Republic" be sacrificed as a way out?
The local elections are odd enough. But "Claude Levi-Strauss" is the 4th most popular search on Yahoo? Right between "Dancing With The Stars" and "H1N1 Symptoms".
I know all the debates about voting not changing anything, and while I tend to agree, I'm not asking you to overthrow capitalism with a vote. It won't do that. But it is a splendid soapbox.... So Vote Reverend Billy for NYC Mayor, Greg Pason for NJ Governor, and Debbie Rose for City Council.
Popular sound systems blend traditional sounds with DJ beats, and keep people across Bamako on their feet. But will Mali's capitol ban the "Balani Show" dance parties?
As I noted on the 10th of March, the CSRD junta in Niger has replaced all the civilian Region Governors with military men to administer local affairs during the transition. We now have the full list, and while I for one hate to see any military governing, a careful look at the men (all men) coming and going in Niger's Regions gives us an opportunity to examine what's going on behind the scenes, and what it augurs for the future.
More ...
Nigeriens were - are - undoubtedly pleased that the army stepped in to end a newly installed dictatorship. But criticisms of this so called "good coup" are beginning to appear even amongst its strongest supporters. With many months of transitional rule ahead, these whispers give us some idea of the problems the junta will soon face. 
One doesn't see much film, let alone color film, of colonial era African football. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956. 
The new military Junta in Niger has released their first real vision of their promised return to democracy. Niger's expectations, a redux of recent history, are being played to by the soldiers.
After a day of confusion, President Tandja and his supporters are under arrest by the military. I have maintained the live updates from the 18th, and added an in depth analysis of the new CSRD junta.
"Poets are feared by those in power that use violence, who are prosperous at the expense of the collective suffering." - Adamou Idé 
a dinosaur comic about about potable water conservation in sub-Saharan Africa?
The US government will make much of the arrests of three Malians who they say were part of a West African criminal network, devoted to drug smuggling and Osama Bin Laden. So far all we have is hype and what looks like the entrapment of low level criminals. 
The December 18th anniversary of the Nigerien Republic begins a series of dates which may bring the political crisis to a boil, just as mediators think they've made a breakthrough.
Niger's rulers would have expected this to be wrapped up by now, with the previous legal deadline for a new president to pass on the 22nd with a shrug. But fears (or hopes) remain that some of those most loyal to the project are looking to abandon their President
Join the second march on the UN by Guineans and their allies in New York City, Thursday December 8th. If you can't make it, there are ways to get involved, so please do!
"If you watch it frame by frame you can pinpoint the exact moment his heart rips in half..."
Anti-fascist activist Ivan "Bonecrusher" Khutorskoy was murdered in Moscow this Monday. 
The local elections are odd enough. But "Claude Levi-Strauss" is the 4th most popular search on Yahoo? Right between "Dancing With The Stars" and "H1N1 Symptoms". 
Popular sound systems blend traditional sounds with DJ beats, and keep people across Bamako on their feet. But will Mali's capitol ban the "Balani Show" dance parties?
A recent seizure of US arms in Nigeria highlights the profit and loss of small arms supplied to West Africa.
Blood on the streets of Conakry is a price the Junta is willing to pay for power.