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Niger

United States Agrees To Withdraw Troops From Niger

April 22, 2024 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , , , ,
The Biden administration has agreed to a request from Niger’s military-led government to withdraw US troops from the West African nation. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine that the US planned to leave during a meeting on Friday. “We’ve agreed to begin conversations within days about how to develop a [withdrawal] plan,” Campbell said, according to The Washington Post. “They’ve agreed that we do it in an orderly and responsible way. And we will need to probably dispatch folks to Niamey to sit down and hash it out.

Whistleblower Says US Endangers Troops By Refusing To Leave Niger

April 19, 2024 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , , , ,
The Biden administration’s refusal to withdraw from Niger despite an order from the post-coup government to leave has put US troops in the country in danger, a senior Air Force leader said in a letter to Congress that was obtained by The Washington Post. The whistleblower said that senior officials at the US Embassy in Niger have “intentionally suppressed intelligence” to maintain the “facade of a great country-to-country relationship” as the US is trying to figure out a way to maintain its military presence. The Nigerien government, known as the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), said in March that it was severing military relations with the US and that the US presence was no longer legally justified.

Niger: Demonstrators Take The Streets To Protest Foreign Forces

April 14, 2024 Africa News. , , , ,
Hundreds of demonstrators took part in a protest against the presence of foreign forces in Niger, including the armed forces of the United States, which has a military base in the north of the country. The demonstrators gathered in the center of the capital city of Niamey, at the call of civil society organizations close to Niger's ruling military junta whose members took part in the demonstration. “We have called for the departure of the Americans and all foreign forces from Niger, and the CNSP (acronym for the organization of the military junta of Niger) has taken our concerns into account, and it is in this context that we have come to support and reaffirm our support for the CNSP

The Sahel’s ‘Axis Of Resistance’

April 7, 2024 Pepe Escobar, Orinoco Tribune. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
The emergence of in various geographies is an inextricable byproduct of the long and winding process leading us toward a multipolar world. These two things – resistance to the Hegemon and the emergence of multipolarity – are absolutely complementary. The Axis of Resistance in West Asia – across Arab and Muslim states – now finds as its soul sister the Axis of Resistance spanning the Sahel in Africa, west to east, from Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea. Unlike Niger, where the change in power against neocolonialism was associated with a military coup, in Senegal, the power change comes straight from the polls.

Niger To United States: Pack Up Your Forever War

April 4, 2024 Nick Turse, Consortium News. , , ,
Dressed in green military fatigues and a blue garrison cap, Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane, a spokesperson for Niger’s ruling junta, took to local television last month to criticize the United States and sever the long-standing military partnership between the two countries. “The government of Niger, taking into account the aspirations and interests of its people, revokes, with immediate effect, the agreement concerning the status of United States military personnel and civilian Defense Department employees,” he said, insisting that their 12-year-old security pact violated Niger’s constitution.

Why Niger Declared US Military Presence In Its Territory Illegal

March 20, 2024 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Niger declared the US military deployment in its territory “illegal” on Saturday, March 16, after a US delegation allegedly threatened “retaliation” against the largest country in West Africa for its ties with Russia and Iran. Confronted with the prospect of losing three strategically crucial military bases, including one of the world’s largest drone bases in the central Nigerien city of Agadez on which it has spent a quarter billion dollars, the US is yet to give a statement in response. A press conference that was scheduled on Sunday at the US embassy in Niger’s capital Niamey — outside which protesters had gathered on Saturday to denounce American interference — was canceled.

Mali, Burkina Faso, And Niger Withdraw From ECOWAS

January 30, 2024 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
In a televised statement on Sunday, January 28, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Their exit has shrunk the regional bloc, condemned by West Africa’s popular movements as an agent of French imperialism, to less than half its previous size, given the relatively vast expanse of Mali and Niger in the region. Reduced from 15 member states to 12, ECOWAS has nevertheless said that the three countries, against whom it was set to go to war last year, “remain important members,” although it had already suspended and sanctioned them.

France Has Withdrawn From Niger

October 27, 2023 Ju-Hyun Park, The Real News. , , ,
As of October 23, France completed its military withdrawal from Niger following months of local protests. From 2013 to 2022, France deployed over 3,000 troops to the countries of the G5 Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) as part of a counterterrorism mission known as Operation Barkhane. After coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and now Niger, all three countries have expelled the French presence. While coverage in western media has fixed on the coups themselves, the story on the ground is more complicated. The actions of the coup governments are backed by broad social movements and popular opposition to France’s relationship to the region, which extends far beyond Operation Barkhane.

Mali Warns Against Repeat Of NATO’s Libyan War In Niger

September 28, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
France’s ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itté, left Niamey early on September 27, three days after Paris announced that it would also withdraw its 1,500 troops from the West African country by the end of the year. Niger has joined its regional neighbors, Mali and Burkina Faso, in expelling French troops from its soil. The three countries have since forged a pact for collective defense and mutual cooperation, known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), amid rising attacks by armed groups in the region. The AES was formed just days before the 78th session of the United National General Assembly.

Macron Says France Will Withdraw Troops, Ambassador From Niger

September 25, 2023 Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com. , , , ,
French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that French will remove its troops and ambassador from Niger, as the military junta that took over the country in July wants French forces out. “France has decided to bring back its ambassador, and in the coming hours our ambassador and several diplomats will return to France,” Macron said on French TV, according to AP. “And we will put an end to our military cooperation with the Niger authorities.” The comments show France is backing down from its hardline position on the military junta that ousted Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum.

Is This The End Of French Neo-Colonialism In Africa?

September 23, 2023 Zoe Alexandra and Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , , , , ,
In Bamako, Mali, on September 16, the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger created the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). On X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Colonel Assimi Goïta, the head of the transitional government of Mali, wrote that the Liptako-Gourma Charter which created the AES would establish “an architecture of collective defense and mutual assistance for the benefit of our populations.” The hunger for such regional cooperation goes back to the period when France ended its colonial rule. Between 1958 and 1963, Ghana and Guinea were part of the Union of African States, which was to have been the seed for wider pan-African unity. Mali was a member as well between 1961 and 1963.

France Out Of Africa, US And NATO Too: Activists Picket The United Nations GA

September 21, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , , ,
On Tuesday September 19, the opening day of the United Nations General Assembly, anti-imperialist activists rallied outside the UN Headquarters in New York City to demand that France end its imperialist meddling in West Africa and the Sahel. Organizers with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the December 12th Movement, Bridging Africa and Black America, and others denounced the neocolonial policies of the European nation and voiced solidarity and support to Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, and Niger, which recently underwent coups opposing French neocolonialism. Activists demanded that France end its neocolonial exploits in the Sahel, principally Niger. 

Burkina Faso, Mali, And Niger Form Alliance Of Sahel States

September 18, 2023 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. , , , , , ,
In a major advancement towards mutual cooperation, the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). The move was finalized with the signing of the Liptako-Gourma Charter, named after the tri-border region shared by the three countries, in Mali’s capital Bamako on Saturday, September 16. “This alliance will be a combination of military and economic efforts between the three countries…Our priority is the fight against terrorism,” Malian Defense Minister Abdoulaye Diop told journalists. The three countries have committed to “prevent, manage, and resolve any armed rebellion or threat to the territorial integrity and sovereignty…

Nigerian Trade Unions Go On Two-day Strike Amid Economic Crisis

September 13, 2023 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous state and is listed as having the largest economy on the continent with huge deposits of oil, natural gas and other strategic resources. In possession of these material assets along with the 223 million people that inhabit the West African state, the achievements of Nigeria should be limitless. However, the system of neo-colonialism in Africa, where the national wealth of various states largely benefits imperialism, is still maintaining a dominant position over the labor and resources of the people. This system of exploitation constitutes the major impediment to genuine sovereignty, economic independence and social emancipation.

Niger’s Government Accuses France Of Mobilizing For War

September 13, 2023 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Questioning the “sincerity” of France’s comments about the withdrawal of its troops from Niger, the transitional military government, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), has accused the former colonizer of mobilizing for war. CNSP spokesperson Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said on September 9 that a “hundred or so rotations of [French] military cargo planes unloaded large quantities of war material and equipment” in multiple member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). He added that “two A400M type military transport aircraft and a Dornier 328 were deployed as reinforcements in Ivory Coast”, and “two Super Puma type multi-role helicopters” and “around forty armored vehicles” have been deployed “in Kandi and Malanville in Benin”.
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