Sahel

What’s Happening In Niger?

January 3, 2025 Pedro Stropasolas, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Coups, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), France, Neocolonialism, Niger, Niger coup, Sahel, Sahel region, Uranium

“Homeland or death, we will win.” This sign stands in the Place de la Patrie, one of the cradles of the popular struggle against France in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Today, it serves as a meeting point where people gather, chat, and watch the movement on Boulevard Zarmaganda, home to the headquarters of the first popular committee supporting the Nigerien army. “It used to be called Place de la Francophonie. Today, it’s Place de la Patrie because this is the birthplace of the patriotic struggle for complete national sovereignty. A week after the coup d’état, we moved here.

Delegation From Alliance Of Sahel States Visits Cuba

December 4, 2024 Inemesit Richardson, People's Dispatch. Organize! Africa, Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Anti-colonialism, Cuba, Cuban Revolution, Internationalism, Mali, Niger, Revolution, Sahel, Socialism

From November 8 to 15, twelve people from the countries of the Sahel visited Cuba to meet with Cuban people who carry forward the revolutionary project, and learn about Cuba’s socialist model and deep friendship with the peoples of Africa. The delegation sought to learn lessons from Cuba’s decades-long revolution to help advance the new revolutions being constructed in the Sahel. This was the first delegation of Africans traveling to Cuba from the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a Pan-African anti-imperialist confederation consisting of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

Niger Hosts Historic Conference On The Fight Against Neocolonialism

November 19, 2024 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Coups, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), French colonialism, Niger, Pan Africanism, Sahel, Sahel region, West African Peoples' Organization (WAPO)

Delegates from the popular movements, labor unions, peasant organizations, and left parties in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US have arrived in Niamey, the capital of Niger, to attend the “Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel” from November 19 to 21. The Pan Africanism Today Secretariat (PAT) and the West Africa People’s Organization (WAPO) have organized this conference “For Anti-Imperialist Unity, Peace, and Friendship between Peoples”, at the time of a critical breakthrough against Francafrique in Sahelian West Africa. Amid a wave of mass protests against the continued stranglehold of France over its former colonies, popularly supported military coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, in Burkina Faso in 2022, and in Niger in 2023 swept away the regimes domestically perceived as subservient to France.

Niger To Host Conference In Solidarity With The Sahel

November 9, 2024 Stanley Kwabla Arku, People's Dispatch. Organize! Africa, Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Anti-Imperialism, Coups, French colonialism, Niger, Pan Africanism, Sahel, West African Peoples' Organization (WAPO)

This November, Niger is opening its doors to voices from across Africa and beyond, in a show of solidarity with the people of the Sahel, as they face one of the region’s most dynamic periods. From November 19 to 21, Niger’s capital, Niamey, will host the “Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel,” a three-day event dedicated to addressing the urgent struggles and aspirations of the Sahelian people. Set in the Mahatma Gandhi International Conference Center, the conference will bring together activists, political leaders, union representatives, and members of social movements and Pan-African communities from around the world.

AES Interrupts A $50b Shakedown In The Sahel

October 17, 2024 Kodjovi Kpachavi, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Alliance of Sahe States (AES), colonization, Mining, Sahel, Sovereignty, Uranium

In the shadow of the Aïr Mountains, along the southern edge of the Sahara, a Nigerien town has been poisoned. The lands around the town of Arlit, home to 200,000 Nigeriens, is scarred by an enormous open-pit uranium mine run by a French company known as Orano. Following the 1960's independence struggle in Niger, Orano, a French state-owned enterprise, entered into a number of joint ventures with the neocolonial government of Niger as well as those of Spain, and Japan. These ventures (known as SOMAÏR and COMINAK) have since extracted over 145,000 tons of uranium from the mines around Arlit.

Imperialist Weaponry And Shifting Alliances In The Sahel

May 15, 2024 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, AFRICOM, Chad, Decolonization, Sahel, US Imperialism

$95 billion in supplemental defense spending aimed at furthering the interests of the United States in various geopolitical regions of the world was recently passed by the legislative branches of the government. These actions speak volumes on the actual priorities of Congress and the administration of President Joe Biden. During the course of the first Biden administration, the Congress failed to pass pieces of legislation which were promised during the 2020 presidential campaign such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, among many others. Inflation remains a serious problem for working and oppressed peoples even though the White House is praising its economic agenda which has left tens of millions locked in poverty and social deprivation.

‘Western Dominance Has Ended’, EU Foreign-Policy Chief Admits

February 27, 2024 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Educate! Europe, European Union (EU), Gaza, General Assembly, Global South, Sahel, Ukraine, United Nations (UN)

Europe’s top diplomat has acknowledged that the “era of Western dominance has indeed definitively ended”. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, wrote this in a blog post on the official website of the EU’s diplomatic service on February 25. “If the current global geopolitical tensions continue to evolve in the direction of ‘the West against the Rest’, Europe’s future risks to be bleak”, he warned. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, along with the anti-colonial uprisings in Africa’s Sahel region, have “significantly increased this risk” of Europe becoming geopolitically irrelevant, Borrell said, lamenting that “Russia has managed to take advantage of the situation”.

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

September 23, 2023 Zoe Alexandra and Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. Resist! Africa, Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Burkina Faso, Coups, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), France, French colonialism, History, Libya, Mali, Niger, Sahel

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.

What The Media Is Not Telling Us About West Africa

September 18, 2023 Ramzy Baroud, MintPress News. Educate! Africa, Coups, Decolonization, Media, Sahel, West Africa

What if the “epidemic of coups” in West and Central Africa is not that at all but a direct outcome of outright revolutionary movements, similar to the anti-colonial movements that liberated most African nations from the yoke of Western colonialism throughout the 20th century? Whether this is the case or not, we are unlikely to find out anytime soon, simply because the voices of these African nations are essentially and deliberately muted. For us to understand the real motives behind the spate of military takeovers in West and Central Africa – eight since 2020 – we are, sadly, compelled to read about it in Western media.

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

September 18, 2023 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. Resist! Burkina Faso, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), French Imperialism, Mali, Niger, Sahel, Sanctions

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…

West African ‘Coup Contagion’ Analysis

May 7, 2022 Djibo Sobukwe, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, Coups, Libya, Mali, NATO, Sahel

The recent increased frequency of coups in West Africa or what some have called ‘coup contagion ’ are mere symptoms of deeper problems that are rooted in a combination of factors. Together they have dialectically combined to produce a general climate of increased instability, insecurity, violence and suffering of the masses of people just trying to make a living. Several of the coups have been regarded as ‘popular’ by some because they represent (at least so far) a welcomed change from incompetent corrupt governments. Some populations in Mali and Burkina Faso are desperate for a government and force that can mitigate terrorist criminal violence perpetrated by non-state actors which at the same time can be trusted to provide for their needs, even if those coup leaders may not necessarily be altruistic, but to some extent self-interested.

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