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Sahel region

What’s Happening In Niger?

“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.

People Of Sahel Inspire Global Movement Against Imperialism

Shouts of “Free, Free Palestine” and “Down with Imperialism” rang through the streets of Niamey as anti-imperialists from Niger and around the world marched together against Israel’s genocide on Thursday, November 21. The march culminating in the landmark Thomas Sanakra Memorial came at the conclusion of the three-day Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel, organized by the Pan-Africanism Today Secretariat and the West African People’s Organization. The march was no symbolic event. Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have been in the frontlines of the struggle against imperialism over the past few years.

Niger Hosts Historic Conference On The Fight Against Neocolonialism

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.

The Imperialist Attack On The Alliance Of Sahel States

On July 27, 2024, armed Tuareg militants and affiliates of the Islamic State in the Sahel attacked a Malian military convoy heading to the northern part of the country, Tinzawaten, close to the border with Algeria. The ambush led to the killing of a large score of the Malian military personnel and their accompanying cadres from the Private Military company, Wagner Group. Being inflicted on one of Russia’s allies in the Sahel, the Western puppet press voyeuristically rushed to glorify the violence. More importantly, Ukraine hopped on to cheer the massacre, and a Facebook post from their embassy in Dakar claimed that the country had provided information, intelligence and military support to Tuareg militants.

Decolonization Movement Is Expanding In Africa’s Sahel Region

The United States announced that it will remove its troops from Niger in September after the government ordered them to leave. Mali and Burkina Faso have done the same. Chad is the most recent country in the Sahel Region of Africa to order the US out. This follows a wave of resistance against French colonization in the region. Clearing the FOG speaks with Abayomi Azikiwe of Pan African News Wire about the growing resistance in the Sahel and the United States. He discusses the unfulfilled promises of the Biden administration and the uncommitted movement in this presidential election.

The Sahel Seeks Sovereignty

The call “La France degage!” (“France, get out!”), against the ongoing legacy of French colonialism in the region, has long echoed across West Africa. In recent years, this call has reached a new pitch of intensity, from the 2018 grassroots movements in Senegal and newly elected President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s campaign promise to unshackle his country from the neocolonial monetary system of the CFA franc to the popularly supported military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger and the ejection of French military forces from these countries between 2021 and 2023.

In Africa They Say, ‘France, Get Out!’

On 2 October 1958, Guinea declared its independence from France. Guinea’s President Ahmed Sékou Touré clashed against France’s President Charles De Gaulle, who tried to strong arm Touré into abandoning the project for independence. Touré said of De Gaulle’s threats, ‘Guinea prefers poverty in freedom to riches in slavery’. In 1960, the French government launched a covert operation called Operation Persil to undermine Guinea and overthrow Touré. The operation was named after a laundry detergent, used to wash away dirt. This provides a clear window into the French attitude toward Touré’s government.

The Sahel’s ‘Axis Of Resistance’

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.

West African People’s Movements Call For Greater Unity

The prime minister of Mali’s transitional government, Choguel Kokalla Maïga, concluded a visit to neighboring Burkina Faso on February 26, as both countries have moved to forge closer ties. Maïga met with his Burkinabè counterpart, Apollinaire Joachimson Kyélem de Tambèla, following which both delegations presented a cooperation agreement, emphasizing their commitment to making the “Bamako-Ouagadougou axis a successful model of sub-regional integration and South-South cooperation.” On matters of insecurity and armed conflict in the “Sahelo-Saharan strip,” the delegations noted the “need to combine their efforts with those of other countries of the sub-region,” and called for a “synergy of actions at the regional level.”

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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