A mental patient poses for a photograph in a sanitarium in Harbe, Afghanistan. Over 5 million Afghans suffer severe mental disorders resulting from decades of conflict and repression. Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Today — the 10th of October — is World Mental Health Day. Take a moment to look through these photos from Niger, where Mahamadoul-kafi Djibrilla spoke at a community discussion of mental illness and treatment in Tahoua Region. Some might think that the least of rural Niger’s worries would be mental illness. But they’d be wrong. Mental disorders, whether treated by families and communities or by medical professionals are a part of life everywhere, even as most cultures are fearful of even acknowledging their extent.

The World Health Organization chose today to release its “Mental Health Atlas“, a statistical and policy survey on the mental health and mental healthcare systems of 184 nations. Their conclusion was that “countries all over the world spend very little on the treatment of mental illness.” The UN Secretary General noted that, while mental illness makes up 13% of the world ‘disease burden,’ “Resources allocated for mental health by governments and civil society are habitually too little, both in human and financial terms.”

Global spending on mental health, in rich and poor nations alike, is less than US$3 per capita per year. The report goes on to note that “up to 50 percent of people suffering from mental disorders in Europe and North America do not receive treatment, and up to 85 percent of people in developing countries do not receive treatment…” This coincides with other recent studies that show a United States population, facing increased pressure from unemployment and other crises, has dramatically cut back on its mental healthcare spending, deeming it an unaffordable luxury. Meanwhile, those same pressures have both increased the need for mental healthcare, and cut back funding for such services.

More Common Than You Think

The World Health Organization this year estimates 450 million people worldwide are suffering right now from mental illness, but estimates of the percent of people who will suffer some mental illness in their lifetime vary from between 5% and 25%.

In the European Union, one quarter of people will experience a mental health problem in their lifetimes, 9% will suffer depression in any one year, and 2.6% a year will suffer more severe disorders.

We’re Still Not Doing Much

In the United States at least 10% of the population is suffering depression right now.
Yet it would take almost 7000 new mental health professionals to meet the needed ratio of just one for every 10,000 people. And that number of needed professionals has increased by almost 2000 in the last three years.

In the developing world, the disparity is much greater. In Nigeria the ratio of psychologists and social workers is 0.02 to 100,000 population. In Niger, there were 0.2 psychiatric beds per 100,000 population, and no mental hospital based beds at all. There were 0.4 psychiatric nurses per 100,000, and the same percentage of other mental health professionals. And West Africa is not unusual in this. In Azerbaijan there were 5 psychiatrists and 7.1 psych beds per 100,000. In Ecuador these numbers were 2.1 and 1.69 per 10,000. In Afghanistan they are 0.036 and 0.055 per 10,000. In most of these, as most developing nations, there is no or minimal and unquantifiably small government support to aid those suffering from acute mental illness, let alone the huge percentage suffering less obvious forms.

It is no better in rapidly industrializing nations. In China there is only one mental health bed per 10,000 population and less than one mental health professional per 100,000. In India, where one in six health related disorders are mental, there are just 0.25 mental health beds per 10,000 population.

Real, Inescapable Illnesses

We should distinguish between lifetime — probably genetic — chronic and severe mental illness and situational mental disorders, both of which can disable those suffering. Mental illness is more prevalent in times of high unemployment, rapid social change, people struck by food insecurity and poverty, and times of population movement. Around 400 million people are suffering from these sorts of mental illnesses right now, but with so few resources to help them, the real numbers may be much higher

In the the United States, like much of the developed world, less chronic forms are mental illness are now recognized as equally severe problems for the society. Depression is the leading cause of disability in the United States among adults. Suicide rates for those currently suffering depression are well above the general population and are highest in rural areas with the least access to care.

Mental illness strikes those more statistically likely to suffer societal discrimination and poverty. The depression rate among African American women is 50% higher than that of Caucasian women in the US, just like the unemployment rate. In fact, African Americans make up almost a quarter of all suffering from mental illness in the US, far above their ratio to total population. In a world of increasing disparity, unemployment, poverty, food insecurity, and population movement, mental illness rises as well. The legal systems, even in the richest nations, contribute to the numbers of mental illness rather than help treat those who enter suffering from illness. In the UK, Only 1 in 10 prisoners DO NOT suffer a diagnosable mental disorder.

On top of those suffering transitory illness there are millions suffering genetic predispositions to chronic — and incurable — severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. While treatment is making it more an more possible to live a fuller, normal life even with severe mental illness, fewer people have access to even basic mental health care. While schizophrenia affects only around 0.3% to 0.7% of the population worldwide, that’s still 24 million people.

Fear Compounds Suffering

I know these things because I work for a charity that provides housing, among other services, to people in my community who suffer chronic mental illnesses. Where I live, we have under 1000 chronic mental illness care beds to a population of 250,000, enough to meet the needs of much less than %1 of population.

But it is next to impossible to build new homes for long term care of those suffering mental illness: neighbors, community groups, and the press react with vilification and hatred when new housing is planned.

People suffering from mental illness, according to long-term studies in Europe, New Zealand, and the United States have all concluded that “that the risks of violence by someone with mental health problems are no greater than those for the general population as a whole.”

People suffering from mental illnesses are no more to harm strangers in any fashion than any other population, but are 2.5 times more likely to be the victim of crime than others. Where the severely mentally ill are more likely to be involved in violence is within their home, as a symptom of lack of treatment. The likelihood of committing any form of armed violence once in their lifetime among people with serious mental illness was 16%, as compared with 7% among people without mental illness. This does not include most sufferers of less severe mental illness, nor those who are receiving appropriate treatment. In fact, the vast majority of those suffering from mental illness are not included in these statistics, as they suffer from depression or other disorders that present no danger to others. The severely mentally ill are more a danger to themselves than anyone else, yet they are feared as violent and dangerous far outside their actual danger. People with no mental disorder who abuse alcohol or drugs are seven times as likely as those without substance abuse to commit violence. And since the rates of substance abuse among the untreated severely mentally ill are very high, much of the statistical relevance may be down to this. In fact, among those severely mentally ill who did not have a history of substance abuse, having been a victim of violence themselves, or homelessness, the likelihood of them engaging in any violence over their lifetime was in line with the general population.

Despite this, the perception of the severely mentally ill as violent — at least in the United States — has doubled since the 1950s while more and more severely mentally ill have found treatment that allows them to function normally. Recent studies reveal a majority of respondents falsely believe people suffering from Schizophrenia were inherently dangerous.

What You Can Do

Where do we go with this? First, educate yourself and others. Learn more about what these illnesses are and how you can avoid them in your life or help those in your family or community. From Tahoua to communities around the world, we need to speak, learn, and demystify mental illness. I often tell people that I pass my agency’s clients regularly as I walk down to my neighborhood shops to buy a cup of coffee or a newspaper. No one looking at them would ever know these were people with severe and persistent mental illnesses. They look like — because they are — regular members of our community. Now imagine how hard it is to identify those who’ve suffered from episodic mental disorders due to depression or trauma. Look around you and realize one in every five people you pass is in that group.

But like so many things in this world, a large part of the problem must be tackled with funding. We actually know what we need to do. This year, the WHO published a survey of shortages in mental health care in 144 developing and poorer developed nations. They found these countries would need 1.18 million mental health professionals, almost half of whom would be psychosocial care providers, to care for those suffering and educate others about mental illness. The yearly cost to provide this workforce was estimated at about US$ 4.4 billion.

For comparison that would be less than 0.5% of the United States annual defense budget. So we’re actively choosing to spend money we have on other things. It does not have to be this way.

Look After Yourself and Help Look After Your Community

So for this World Mental Health day I’d hope you not only see to your own mental health, but think of the others suffering, whether they be on your street or across the world. They are your brother and sisters and, but for a bit of luck, could be you.

Related articles

• World Mental Health Day: Treatment Remains a Challenge Around the World (psychcentral.com)
• It’s World Mental Health Day (drvitelli.typepad.com)
• It’s World Mental Health Day, so stop stigmatising my pills. (thefword.org.uk)
• Blog Party: World Mental Health Day, October 10 (psychcentral.com)
• Health System Hide and Seek: “Mental Health” Never Gets Found (gph2110.wordpress.com)
• 50 Signs of Mental Illness: A Guide to Understanding Mental Health (Yale University Press Health & Wellness) (untreatableonline.com)
• Patients suffer when reimbursements for mental health care are reduced (skwillms.wordpress.com)
• Useful WHO First-Aid Guide for Mental Health in a Disaster (sociolingo.com)

Mahamadou Issoufou of the PNDS and Seyni Oumarou of the MNSD vote for themselves, presumably.

Saturday the 12th of March will see second round voting in Niger’s Presidential elections, marking a return to civilian rule and the beginning of the Seventh Republic.  It seems certain that front runner and PNDS-Tarayya candidate Mahamadou Issoufou will become the first President of the new republic on 8 April when the military junta that deposed Mamadou Tandja on 18 February 2010 formally cedes power.

From one of several opposition parties Issoufou and the PNDS stepped remarkably into the breach left by Tandja.  The party has gone out of their way throughout this campaign to present an image of a unified body of ideas and change.  Issoufou has engaged in unprecedented face to face campaign rallies across the nation, not relying on the Nigerien tradition of local notables cobbling together coalitions to turn out votes.  The PNDS has also presented slick campaign materials, and from early days released a detailed manifesto of the process by which they will raise and spend development funds, including plans to empower local subsistence farmers (not usually a focus, but one that effects a majority of Niger’s often politically silent population).  The PNDS is undoubtedly the most ideological — social democratic — of the major parties, but it too remains mired in the traditional games of regionalism (Tahoua and Illea being the base) and constantly shifting coalition building.

The MNSD HQ in Niamey: Don't rule out the Big Baobab.

No one should discount their major rival, the MNSD-Nassara.  While bruised and bloodied by their association with disgraced President  Tandja, the MNSD predates Tandja’s leadership from 1991 to last year.  It was formed in 1987 by the military dictatorship which ruled Niger from 1974 to 1991 as a single party built on a corporatist model. Local communities, traditional leaders, elders, youth groups, and professional organizations were channeled into the MNSD, for most as their first experience of mass politics.  The politics which had led to independence in 1960 devolved rapidly into a one party state under Hamani Diori, open only to the elite and generally uninterested in popular mobilization for even the most superficial purposes.  One aspect that the MNSD did carry on from the First Republic was the drafting of traditional rulers and notables into the unitary party.  The MNSD has thus become a traditionalist, conservative and non-ideological body with tremendous support from elites, the military, and many rural communities who remember the rule of Seyni Kountché (1974-87) and his successor Ali Saibou (1987-93) as a reaction against corruption and famine which dominated civilian rule. The MNSD, for all the purges and infighting which Tandja introduced from 2007, remains for many the “Grand Baobab”, the big tent party that welcomes all who profess love of country and traditional values.  Their relative success even in the wake of an extremely popular coup against Tandja’s corruption and misrule should demonstrate the deep roots that still feed the MNSD.

This is best seen in the aftermath of the first round of these elections.  Just days before the vote, almost every political party other than the favored PNDS met to form the Alliance for National Reconciliation.  This included all but two of Issoufou’s closest allies. The ARN promised to support whichever of their number could make it to the second round against the PNDS, tipped to be either the  MNSD-Nassara or the new personal party for former MNSD Prime Minister Hama Amadou, the MODEN-FA Lumana.  Two things were stunning here.  One was that so many parties that had led marches to oust and faced repression by Tandja’s MNSD-Nassara in 2009 were willing to reconcile so quickly with their former foes.   Perhaps more stunning: Hama Amadou, the former heir apparent to the MNSD signed on so enthusiastically.  Hama had been impeached on curiously timed corruption charges in 2007, just as he seemed ready to take the party’s leadership from Tandja, and then found himself imprisoned for over a year, his supporters ejected from their party and purged from the government.  At one point Hama claimed that prison had struck him so low with disease that he feared death.  On his temporary release he fled the country, saying that the government was planning to assassinate him should he stay. And yet he was willing just a year later to literally embrace the man who led the MNSD purge of his supporters, Seyni Oumarou. Nigerien politics is nothing if not dramatic.

The question on everyone’s lips leading up to the Parliamentary and first round Presidential elections was what support Hama’s untested MODEN-FA Lumana would have.  Taking with him elements of the vaunted MNSD machine in strongholds like Tillaberi, many thought he might cruise into the second round.  In the event, Hama’s new cadre was no match for the entrenched party system.  The PNDS scored %36 in the presidential vote and 39 of the 113 assembly seats.  The MNSD followed with %23 and 26 seats, while Hama’s supporters provided a reasonable showing of 23 seats but only %19 for his presidential bid.

The first round candidates, clockwise from top left: Hama Amadou, Mahamane Ousmane, Mahamadou Issoufou, Seyni Oumarou, Ousmane Issoufou Oubandawaki, (second row, right to left) Amadou Cheiffou, Abdoulaye Amadou Traoré, Amadou Cissé, Bayard Mariama Gamatié, Moussa Moumouni Djermakoye

The following 48 hours proved again the mercenary nature of Nigerien politics.  All but two of the sizable parties in the ARN coalition again defected, clearly demonstrating that the desire to side with a winner was more important than any ideology, personal loyalty, or even shame.  Hama led the charge back to the Issoufou camp, and speculation remains rife whether he has demanded the Prime Ministership or the Presidency of the Assembly as his price.

There are several sidelines here worth noting.  Former President Mahamane Ousmane and his CDS–Rahama, once the dominant party of the 3rd Republic and a powerhouse based in Zinder collapsed completely, with %8 of the Presidential vote and only 3 seats in the assembly.  The CDS had played a pivotal role in first opposing, then supporting Tandja, while becoming a linchpin of the opposition to the President’s 2009 power grab called the 6th Republic.  Whatever the basis, Ousmane has long been among the top vote traders in the Niamey political game.   Not content to crash and burn, the CDS seemingly ripped itself apart in the post election realignment.  Elements of the youth section and the central committee fought Ousmane to remain tied to MNSD-Nassara, when he seemed to jump ship.

Signs welcoming the 2010 military coup: the year long military rule has reinforced many Nigerien's view of the military as a more trustworthy than most civilian governments.

This is important because the CDS and Ousmane represent the quintessential personal party in Niger.  It has long been assumed that most parties — with the exception of the PNDS and the MNSD — are entirely vehicles of their leaders.  There certainly is little ideological content to Nigerien parties, and the regional bases, while relied upon for a foundation, do not make most of them strictly regionalist or ethnic parties.  Nigerien parties are invariably a constellation “big men” and more quiet local traditional notables with the backing of one or two regionally important business moguls.

While much of this definition remains, the utter destruction of the CDS was mirrored in several other smaller parties that had long provided vehicles for individual party heads and their backers to demand a cut of the benefits that come with governance.

Political fixture Amadou Cheiffou’s RSD-Gaskiya disappeared from the assembly, former PM Amadou Cissé’s UDR-Tabbat fell to six seats.  And while the RDP-Jama’a  and ANDP-Zaman-Lahiya retained 7 and 8 seats respectively, these two regional parties (Agadez and Dosso) lost their charismatic leaders, and seem to survive only as supports for larger parties.  Of the former loyal PNDS coalition partners throughout the last decade (PNA-Al’ouma, PPN-RDA, and UNI), only UNI managed to win a single seat.  Publishing magnate Sanoussi Jackou’s PNA-Al’ouma has hardly caused a ripple as the last of the 35 small parties to endorse Issoufou in the second round.

The pattern here is of political coalescence.  As in the days before the second round and grand total of 35 political parties lined up with the PNDS, Niger’s political ecosystem might appear varied, there is some reason to believe two major parties and three or four major political barons are emerging to dominate.

Rumors have challenged this reading, especially from within the CDS faction fight.  There are those who claim the MNSD, after signing parties onto their ARN coalition in the first round, passed out campaign materials in areas dominated by their new partners that advised supporters of smaller parties should vote on the MNSD line, and that vote would be then divided between the coalition partners at counting.  Honestly, I have not seen a explanation of this strategy that is coherent enough to have convinced many voters.  It’s likely that it is just recriminations on the part of ARN partners, whose obvious craven maneuvering — even by Nigerien politician’s standards — drove their voters to other parties, or to abstain.

The actual institutions of the Seventh Republic are worth noting as well.  Niger has now seen three cycles of democratic rule, political deadlock, and military coup since the protests and National Convention in 1991.  Every time the new constitution has been rewritten to avoid the failure of the last.  Niger’s recent political history has been an oft-ignored constitutional laboratory unlike few others in history.  A too weak and divided semi-presidential Third Republic was revised into a more strongly Presidential Fifth.  The power grab that resulted when it was time for the President to leave has led to a more divided governing model for the Seventh Republic.  Among the more interesting innovations, the Leader of the Opposition is given formal powers, and must play a part in successful legislation.  The Prime Minister and the President of the National Assembly share powers given to the Prime Minister in a Parliamentary system, and both check the President.  Is this a recipe for gridlock? Or is this a system designed to function despite gridlock?  This last might be a healthy innovation, where no office is expected to do much alone, and therefore doesn’t feel they are being prevented.  Sadly, the success or failure of this system will once again come down to the relative personalities of a handful of political leaders, notorious for their outsized egos, and frequently the subject of whispers about personal enrichment.

It should be noted as well, that for all the talk of change, the same men (and they are almost entirely men) of the Nigerien political class were players from the beginning of Niger’s multiparty experiment in 1992-3. If Issoufou us to make good on his rhetoric of principled governance, opening the doors to every political operative with a party office is not a promising start.

Any discussion of Niger’s political future, even on a purely formal basis, would be remiss if it did not mention the majority of Nigeriens to whom politics means very little.  Three million voters came out for the first round in a nation of over fourteen million people.  The seventy or eighty percent of the population who are engaged in subsistence farming and seasonal labor abroad have no time for politics, and are rarely included in the discussion.  The PNDS has pointed out ways in which it will tackle the chronic malnutrition which has been a fact of life for many rural communities since the 1970s.  But those struggling in rural areas are more acted upon than actors.  Were they to be given real power themselves, we might see the depth of changes Niger needs.

Some background:

• NIGER: First Steps Towards the Restoration of Democracy? – IPS, Ousseini Issa: (Feb 28, 2010)
• Niger: New Constitution First Step Towards Democracy « Politics Africa: The Seventh Republic is Approved (2010)
• Sebastian Elischer: Democratization in Desperate Places: Niger’s Seventh Attempt Center for Strategic and International Studies (Jan 28, 2011)
• Niger civilians, armed forces sign stability pact: The Military goes out on a high note, signing a pact with political parties that it will not intervene in constitutional politics (2011)
• Niger Government To Feed One Million For Free « Politics Africa: The Military’s role as saviors from corrupt civilian rule is again reinforced (2010)
• Kimba & Idrissa’s recent collection: Armee et politique au Niger (9782869782167) a great collection of essays on the military’s involvement in Nigerien politics, published just before the 2010 coup.
• Jibrin Ibrahim, Abdoulaye Niandou Souley: “The rise to power of an opposition party the MNSD in Niger Republic” a fairly definitive look at the strength, and failing, of the Third Republic (1992-1995)
• Niger’s Tandja dissolves parliament (Reuters, 2009)
• CDS Rahama Breaks with Tandja, deeping his isolation (2009)
• “Constitution de la 7ème République” full text, PDF, in French, from the website of the Consultative Council which drafted it

Related articles

• UPDATE 1-Tandja ally heads into Niger presidential run-off (af.reuters.com)
• Tandja ally heads into Niger presidential run-off (af.reuters.com)
• Niger Elections: Has Mahamadou Issoufou Clenched It? (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• CORRECTED – Niger top court validates poll, run-off March 12 (af.reuters.com)
• PREVIEW-Niger races to secure poll for civilian rule | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters (af.reuters.com)
• TIMELINE-Niger holds presidential elections (af.reuters.com)
• Niger Elections Head to Run-Off (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• Countdown to Niger’s Elections (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• Niger Elections: So Far, So Good? (sahelblog.wordpress.com)

The PNDS Campaign headquarters in Niamey, photo from Niger Elections.

The 31st of January saw Niger’s Legislative elections, combined with the first round of the Presidential elections. Results are not yet known, and the top two in the Presidential race will re-run on 14 March. Here’s some tools to follow it.

The best immediate updates on the polls and count can be found at the African Elections observer site’s @NigerElections Twitter feed as well as their news site at africanelections.org/niger. Their photo gallery is also wonderful (and the source for the image above).

[UPDATE 2:40 GMT Feb 2 : There are no official results yet announced. Rumored provisional results are being passed around -- an example is here -- but their simple repetition of the urban conventional wisdom makes them either suspect or expected.

Mahamadou Issoufou (PNDS-Tarayya) in the upper 20s, followed by either Seyni Oumarou (MNSD-Nassara) and/or Hama Amadou (MODEN/FA LUMANA) from 20% to 24%.  This would match both the aggregate Municipal/Departmental election results of  January and the relative profile of the parties.  While Issoufou is the favorite, there is no accounting for tactical endorsements for the second round.  Note that an RFI reported telephone survey (seen via Sahelblog) reporting Issoufou with over 40% support seems a possible result of sample bias towards urban educated voters.  A run off is almost certain, and the questions will be how Legislative results set the stage for the new government, and whether the PNDS faces the new MODEN LUMANA or the MNDS, reversed in last years coup.  Each could color the results -- and the mandatory backroom deals -- very differently.

The reports of attacks by PNDS militants in their heartland of Tahoua, as well as unconfirmed charges by Hama of fraud and intimidation against his party in Tillaberi and Niamey, are not evidence of some general breakdown in law or a pattern of vote-rigging. Apart from 17 polling stations in Tassara (which seem to have been foiled by some local communal conflict), and reports of chronic petty delays and procedural fumbling, the poll seems to have proceeded in peace and openness.  While turnout (30%-50%) is low, it is the historical norm, and some rural areas reported record-breaking numbers of women voters.  ECOWAS observers, among 250 official NGO or foreign poll monitors, have seconded this impression.

Rather they may be a prescient image of petty  parliamentary conflict in the 7th Republic, not unlike that between the CDS and the MNSD of the early 1990s which drove the 3rd Republic into gridlock.

Regardless, it will likely be several days before we get any real numbers, and several more before more distant of the more than 2000 polling offices report. ]

You can also follow the #Niger2011 Twitter channel for updates and links to news, including some of my translations. [Update: Amadou Djibril is collecting these links in a Daily Digest here. ]

Alex Thurston’s Sahel Blog has the usual informed coverage and discussion here and here.

And of course, the best Nigerien news coverage is always collected on http://nigerdiaspora.com and http://tamtaminfo.com .

UPDATE, INTERNET CAMPAIGNING: Nigerien politics has begun to capture the social media bug, especially in the sizable diaspora community.  You can follow announcements from the two Facebook pages (here and here) of  Hama Amadou’s Mouvement Démocratique Nigérien Pour une Fédération Africaine MODEN-FA Lumana (as well as their website), the two Facebook pages for Mamadou Issoufou’s PNDS (here and here and their French section here) and their official website (a French section also has a web presence).  The MNSD, perhaps tellingly, has no Facebook presence apart from this “Free Mamadou Tandja” page.  I might also note that the official MNSD website was never updated after Hama and his supporters split form the party in 2009.

Nigerien parties and their supporters have made use of internet video in this campaign as never before.  Highly produced videos of MODEN FA LUMANA events, videos of Mahamadou Issoufou’s PNDS campaign — including scenes from his recent appearances in all corners the country (not a normal feature of campaigns) –  and MNDS rallies have appeared on You Tube and DailyMotion.  There’s even several MNSD Nassara – Seini Omarou music videos.  Wherever you come down politically, they’ll have you taping your toes. ]

Here are some of the latest news stories that caught my eye:

*AFP: 50 percent turnout in Niger polls: electoral panel

*Une élection présidentielle un peu trop calme(France24:The Observers): includes an inside look at the polling process and photo gallery.

*Democracy in action in Niger; 7 million vote in general election (Wire via India Express)

*Niger:Le pouvoir civil va reprendre la main( Courrier international)

*Niger junta says poll went on without a hitch (Africa Review)

*Le Sahel’s official statement:
“Le Président du Conseil Suprême pour la Restauration de la Démocratie, Chef de l’Etat, le Général de Corps d’Armée Djibo Salou, a procédé au lancement des opérations de vote : sous le signe de l’espoir…”

*Présidentielle au Niger : taux de participation faible à Niamey (Afrik.com)

*Niger : Mêmes hommes, mêmes intrigues ? (radio analysis from RFI): Probably, would be my answer.

Related articles

• UPDATE 1-Fraud worries overshadow peaceful Niger vote (af.reuters.com)
• allAfrica.com: Niger: Opposition Asks for Postponement of Elections (allafrica.com)
• PREVIEW-Niger races to secure poll for civilian rule | Agricultural Commodities | Reuters (af.reuters.com)
• Candidates seek new election body for Niger poll (reuters.com)
• TIMELINE-Niger holds presidential elections (af.reuters.com)
• Niger grants uranium permits to Russian Gazprombank | Reuters (af.reuters.com)

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.

There are also reports that Bamako is hoarding food aid, sending only the old supplies stashed at Mopti north and keeping the rest in the south, where the crops were good last year. True or not, people report it as such in Kidal.  On the other side, some southerners accuse Kidal politicians of profiting from the misery of their own people.   Other reports again, more neutral, document intense efforts on all sides, facing nearly insurmountable shortages and logistic impossibilities.

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.

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.

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.

Aid Agencies (links to give, and learn more)

• Save the Children: Blog from Aid project in Niger
• Oxfam: 2010 West Africa Food Crisis
• Make a one time donation to Oxfam

Related  news articles

• Les touaregs victimes de la sécheresse… et du gouvernement? (France 24, 21/05/2010)
• Témoignages sur la crise alimentaire les zones de Kidal et Ménaka (L’Observateur, 17/05/2010)
• ReliefWeb » Document » Bulletin hebdomadaire de morbidité, de mortalité et de surveillance nutritionelle au Niger – Semaine epidémiologique no 19: du 10 au 16 mai 2010
• ReliefWeb » Document » ENQUETE SUR LA SECURITE ALIMENTAIRE DES MENAGES AU NIGER (avril 2010): RESUME EXECUTIF (mai 2010)
• ReliefWeb » Document » SAHEL ET AFRIQUE DE L’OUEST Perspectives sur la sécurité alimentaire, Avril à Septembre 2010
• Chad hunger overshadowed by Niger food crisis – UN (af.reuters.com)
• Niger junta to provide free food to one million (af.reuters.com)
• Hunger in Niger (undispatch.com)
• CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-U.N. aid agencies sound alarm on Niger food (af.reuters.com)
• Farmers, Aid Groups Call Attention To Drought, Food Shortages In West Africa (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Famine in Niger (one.org)
• Niger facing famine, millions at risk — president (af.reuters.com)
• Famine Persists in Niger, but Denial Seems in the Past (nytimes.com)
• Hunger in Niger (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• ANALYSIS-Niger junta’s hunger alarm is break with past (af.reuters.com)

An unsigned editorial from Le Pays (Ouagadougou): A quite good reflection on the educational and other restrictions coming for future governments in Niger, but tying the famine. The papers in Niamey have little mention of the small farmers and herders Tahoua, Tillaberi, Diffa, and the north, who are long out of food and fleeing their homes. It’s evidence both that patches of famine sit beside areas which had passable crops last year, and that Nigerien politics is often quite distant from the realities of most Nigeriens. The Burkinabe writer ascribes blame for the chronic malnutrition of Niger’s citizens to both past policies and horrible governance (which is only partly the case), while leaving us with the distinctly uncomfortable vision of Niamey debating constitutional clauses while elsewhere in Niger people are dying.

Related News Links

• Niger leaders ‘must have degrees’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Hunger in Niger (undispatch.com)
• Niger junta to provide free food to one million (af.reuters.com)
• Famine in Niger (one.org)
• CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-U.N. aid agencies sound alarm on Niger food (af.reuters.com)
• Famine Persists in Niger, but Denial Seems in the Past (nytimes.com)
• Niger and China (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• Niger facing famine, millions at risk — president (af.reuters.com)
• Niger calls for $123 million in food aid (af.reuters.com)
• ANALYSIS-Niger junta’s hunger alarm is break with past (af.reuters.com)

The VOA today quotes PNDS-Tarayya spokesperson Iro Sani, saying that “it has been tried once (before) and it didn’t get result(s) satisfying to the people of Niger.”

He likely refers to the the 1999 CRN Junta’s ”Fourm sur la gestion économique et financiere”, led by current junta heavyweights Col. Hima (Pele) Hamadou and Gendarme Col. Lawel Chékou Koré. Their late 1999 findings were little more than perfunctory, forcing some former regime officials to repay cash. In fact, from 1974 and 1996 coups, to Tadja’s “Mains propre” campaigns against his political enemies of 2003/2007/2009, corruption prosecutions have been symbolic and purely focused on mid level Nigeriens, never the huge neocolonial funders of the dirty system. [2007's Hama Amadou ouster as PM and later prosecution was an outlier in this, and its ripples may have doomed Tandja, fatally splitting his political machine.]

Areva and China are right to be nonplussed, as opposition leaders (who really only want payback on higher ranking foes) are skeptical. We’ll see a show but little more.

Also: The court case over who is the “real” MNSD-Nassara (the former ruling party) is winding up. The party is split between Seyni Oumarou and its Tandja appointed leadership, or the former golden boy and 2007-2009 ousted leadership under Hama Amadou. Past rulings — even under the transitory 6th republic of Tandja — favored Amadou. This would be fatal to the Tandja faction, while a loss by Hama means he would run under his new MODEN party banner, which regathers his mostly western (Tillaberi/Niamey) power base.

And Also:Junta leader / President of the CSRD/ Chef d’Escadron (“Major” in the anglo-saxon system) Djibo Salou got himself named “Général de Corps d’Armée”. While most of this junta’s actions have been studiously based upon the 1999 CRN junta, that government’s leader Daouda Malam Wanké remained Chef d’Escadron until civilain rule was re-established. In fact, the last time there even was a “Général de Corps d’Armée” was 1991, when Ali Saibou was overthrown, the only man to hold that rank in Niger’s history. This continues an interesting resuscitation of the Saibou regime, often portrayed as a failed reform government and place holder between the absolute rule of Seyni Kountché and the democratic revolution of 1991. Salou sought out the long retired Saibou for a public benediction upon the new coup shortly after taking power, and has appointed a large number of officials who had served under Saibou’s short lived single party Second Republic.

I would argue this has much to do with the broad popularity which the Kountché regime is hazily remembered today, at variance with the sometimes brutality of the time, which was also conflated with the uranium fueled vast economic expansion of the late 1970s.

But the accention to a frankly ridiculous title by CSRD President Djibo Salou raises questions about the previously humble and apolitical nature of his transition. We can only hope this says little about the recently agreed upon timetable of a return to civilian rule by the one year anniversary of the 18 February coup.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Niger’s junta sets election plans (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Niger junta should leave within a year–commission (af.reuters.com)
• Niger opposition calls for quick elections (cbc.ca)
• Niger: 11 Months to Transition (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• UPDATE 1-Niger junta should leave within a year -commission (af.reuters.com)

The French press is reporting that a French tourist and an Algerian guide were kidnapped by armed men today in northern Niger, near the well at In-Abangaret. Also spelled Inabangaret, it’s a stopping place on the Azzouagh plain’s Tahoua/Assamakka/Tamanrasset road. This puts it relatively near the attack of several months ago on the Tahoua/Tillia road, and within reach of the band that carried out the attack on a Tillaberi army post last month. They were traced as far as the hills of west of Tin-Essako in Mali’s northern Gao Region. While In-Abangaret doesn’t come up in the news much, it is an important seasonal gathering point for some Tuareg communities (there is a “In-Abangaret Cross” in the famed Tuareg armorial tradition), as well as being in the midst a Berabiche transhumance zone. A hand grenade attack on Algerian truckers there in 1997 caused concern, with former members of one of the Arab rebel factions blamed for running a protection racket against long haul transport.

Update 2010-04-23: There are now several press accounts of this incident, mostly pointing to speculation by unnamed Nigerien military officials, most of whom point to Malian based AQIM/bandits. The military say they will “close the border” with Mali, which is good for a chuckle.  Either army would be lucky to identify the imaginary line which runs through a thousand km of desert, let alone “close” it somehow.

The AFP picked up a report that blames a group around one “Taleb Abdoulkrim”, reputedly an associate of the AQIM group of Abu Yaya Amane, himself an offshoot of Abu Zeid’s AQIM faction.  Honestly, the internal workings of these groups are beyond my ken.  I suggest turning to more informed sources.

One interesting factoid, Abdoulkrim is reported to have led a mosque in the tiny border town of Inhallil (a.k.a. In Hallil / Hallil / Aïn Hallil) in Mali, best known as one of two transit points into Algeria where thousands of migrants from across West Africa find themselves in a sort of purgatory, unable to cross to Bordj Badji Mokhtar in Algeria, or (more interesting in this case) dumped there by Algerian authorities.

Regardless of source, the Nigeriens seem confident these men came from Mali, but depending on reports, the actual site of the kidnapping is getting farther from both Algeria and Mali.  Reuters puts the attack between In-Abangaret and Teguidda-n-Tessoumt, the salt panning settlement connected to Ingal, and closer to Agadez than Tahoua. This is also near Azelik, where the Chinese owned Société des Mines d’Azelik S.A. (SOMINA) is facing local opposition.  It would also put the kidnap on the RN 11 road (really a sand piste, but a international route none the less), not on a lonelier offshoot between In-Abangaret and Tahoua, which is closer the Malian border and a place AQIM bandits  have attacked previously.

I would not discount the intensifying food and livestock crisis in pastoralist northern Mali and Niger in this.  It is really the much larger story going on now in this area. A European in Kidal (or even Agadez) must start to look like a walking Dollar sign to a local who is rapidly loosing their livestock to starvation, and searching for a way to feed his family.  Regardless, this is big business now, and there’s no way to know if the actual kidnappers are professional smugglers, Algerian jihadists, or unemployed former rebels looking for a meal.

The French press is reporting that a French tourist and an Algerian guide were kidnapped by armed men today in northern Niger, near the well at In-Abangaret. Also spelled Inabangaret, it’s a stopping place on the Azzouagh plain’s Tahoua/Assamakka/Tamanrasset road. This puts it relatively near the attack of several months ago on the Tahoua/Tillia road, and within reach of the band that carried out the attack on a Tillaberi army post last month. They were traced as far as the hills of west of Tin-Essako in Mali’s northern Gao Region. While In-Abangaret doesn’t come up in the news much, it is an important seasonal gathering point for some Tuareg communities (there is a “In-Abangaret Cross” in the famed Tuareg armorial tradition), as well as being in the midst a Berabiche transhumance zone. A hand grenade attack on Algerian truckers there in 1997 caused concern, with former members of one of the Arab rebel factions blamed for running a protection racket against long haul transport.

Greenpeace’s November 2009 report on radioactivity levels in the streets of Arlit and its suburb Akokan has been repeatedly denied by French nuclear company AREVA, the operator of the two nearby mines, but Greenpeace, as well as local residents, activists, and the international press, has continued to press the issue. These two mines (one underground, one open pit) provide almost half Niger’s exports by value, and their “success” is the basis for the some 150 mining contracts sold by the Tandja regime, mostly to new Canadian and Chinese companies. Locals have long complained of the pollution from the Somair and Cominak mines. Franco Nigerien group CRIIRAD, having carried out pollution studies there since 2003, found radioactivity levels 100 times background in 2007. Construction of roads and buildings was done using radioactive mine tailings, while mine dust blows across the region from Somair pit. With the entire Talak plain west of the Aïr Massif now being sold for mining, the northern seasonal pasture lands upon which pastoralism depends will soon disappear or become polluted beyond use. This has long been known, and it is good to see renewed press attention.

• ENVIRONMENT-NIGER: French State-Owned Company “Poisoning” Poor. By Julio Godoy (IPS). 12 April 2010

Related articles

• FACTBOX-Foreign investment in Niger (af.reuters.com)
• Niger: Tuareg Backlash Against China (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• China says Niger oil, mining deals unaffected by coup (af.reuters.com)
• Uranium major Niger must review contracts -groups (af.reuters.com)

Greenpeace’s 30 March report on radioactivity levels in the streets of Arlit and its suburb Akokan has been repeatedly denied by French nuclear company AREVA, the operator of the two nearby mines. These two (one underground, one open pit) provide almost half Niger’s exports by value, and their “success” is the basis for the some 150 mining contracts sold by the Tandja regime, mostly to Canadian and Chinese companies. Locals have long complained of the pollution from the Somair and Cominak mines. Franco Nigerien group CRIIRAD found radioactivity levels 100 times background in 2007. Construction of roads and buildings was done using radioactive mine tailings, while mine dust blows across the region from Somair pit. With the entire Talak plain west of the Aïr Massif now being sold for mining, the northern seasonal pasture lands upon which pastoralism depends will soon disappear or become polluted beyond use. This has long been known, and it is good to see renewed press attention.

Following court complaints lodged by lawyers for the 17 Tandja Ministers and loyalists Friday morning, Junta Interior Minister Ousmane Cissé has climbed down, stating that 14 of them "will be released" "for the sake of social peace." Tandja…

Following court complaints lodged by lawyers for the 17 Tandja Ministers and loyalists Friday morning, Junta Interior Minister Ousmane Cissé has climbed down, stating that 14 of them “will be released” “for the sake of social peace.” Tandja and former Interior Minister Albadé Abouba will continue to be held, but the sides continue to disagree about the number of MNSD bigwigs who were swept up in the last days. No work on Rhissa Ag Boula and former MNJ commander Kindo Zada, or any real explanation for the 618 (government figure) Niamey residents picked up in massive anti- street crime arrests two days ago. At the time Cissé and police sources seemed to admit that they were rounding up everyone in sight in their “operation Punch” to disrupt crime around Niamey, and those not charged “would be released, in accordance with our laws.”
I still suspect this involves pressure on the junta from opposition leader and MNSD dissident Hama Amadou’s return to the country from exile on the 28th.

Former rebel leader Rhissa Ag Boula, along with former commander Kindo Zada, were arrested today on unknown charges, and are reported to be in the Niamey civil prison. Rhissa Ag Boula is one of the most prominent, if divisive, Tuareg leaders, becoming a…

Former rebel leader Rhissa Ag Boula, along with former commander Kindo Zada, were arrested today on unknown charges, and are reported to be in the Niamey civil prison. Rhissa Ag Boula is one of the most prominent, if divisive, Tuareg leaders, becoming a leader of rebel factions in the 1990s, and again in 2008-2009. In the interim he was brought into several governments as Minister of Tourism, until the Tandja government charged him with masterminding the murder of a ruling party activist in Tahoua in 2004. Ag Boula, who has always denied the charges, was on parole when, in 2008, he rallied to the then MNJ rebels while in Europe. He then started his own faction, the FFR, which only reluctantly was drawn into Libyan negotiations in 2009, although it carried out almost no attacks. Kindo Zada was an Army Major, close to former President Mainassara, who deserted to the MNJ rebels in July 2007. His arrival in Niamey last month seemed to signal the final integration of ex-fighters.