On the night of Thursday 3 to Friday 4 August, a delegation from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) left Niger after making “crisis resolution proposals” to the ruling junta. in the country since his coup and the ouster of the elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, on July 26.
If the emissaries did not meet the head of the junta, General Abdourahamane Tiani, nor the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, they spoke at the airport with putschist soldiers, according to the Nigerien government daily Le Sahel. Everything indicates, according to a spokesman for the delegation, that the putsch of July 26 “was very improvised in nature” and it is not certain that the junta “can count on the lasting support of the population”.
On July 30, ECOWAS, which imposed heavy sanctions on Niamey, gave the putschists until Sunday to restore the president, Mohamed Bazoum, to office or risk using “force”.
Manifestations
A meeting of chiefs of staff of the economic community is due to end on Friday afternoon in Abuja, Nigeria, while several West African armies, including that of Senegal, say they are ready to send soldiers if a military intervention was decided.
“The intervention of extra-regional forces is unlikely to improve the situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow, while calling for a “swift return to constitutional order” in Niger.
The German government called on him on Friday to continue “mediation efforts” to find a political solution and to avoid any armed intervention. For Berlin, it seems that the negotiation process is only “at its beginning”.
Friday morning, a hundred demonstrators from several West African countries gathered in Niamey to protest against any military intervention in Niger. In the west of the country, in Tahoua, a competing demonstration brought together hundreds of people “to give unwavering support to the President of the Republic, Mohamed Bazoum, and to demand his unconditional release”, according to a local journalist on the spot.
The putschists, who promised an “immediate response” to “any aggression” from an ECOWAS country, also announced the lifting of the curfew in place since July 26.
Cooperation agreements with France denounced
Late Thursday, the putschists denounced “cooperation agreements in the field of security and defense with France”, a former colonial power, whose military contingent of 1,500 soldiers is deployed in Niger for the fight against terrorism in this country plagued by jihadist violence. Paris said on Friday that only “legitimate Nigerien authorities” had the power to reverse the deals. These authorities “are the only ones that France, like the entire international community, recognizes”, underlined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In addition to the denunciation of the military agreements, the Nigerien ambassador in Paris was dismissed by the putschists, as were the representatives of Niger in the United States, Togo and Nigeria. The diplomat, Kané Aïchatou Boulama, told Agence France-Presse on Friday “to always be” the ambassador “of the legitimate president, Mohamed Bazoum”, adding that she rejected “as null and void” the decision of the putschists.
President Bazoum, detained with his family since the day of the putsch in the presidential residence, spoke on Thursday in a column published by the American daily Washington Post. He warned of the “devastating” consequences of the coup for the world and the Sahel, which he said could come under the “influence” of Russia through the Wagner Group. “I call on the U.S. government and the entire international community to help restore constitutional order,” he wrote, “as a hostage,” in that statement.
On Thursday, the programs of Radio France internationale (RFI) and the news television channel France 24 were interrupted in Niger, “a decision taken outside any conventional and legal framework”, according to the parent company of the two media, France. World Media. France “very strongly” condemned this decision, as well as the European Union on Friday morning. RFI and France 24 are already suspended in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, where the ruling Niger military sent delegations on Wednesday.
Incidents on Sunday during a demonstration in front of the French embassy in Niamey led to the evacuation on Tuesday and Wednesday of 577 French people. On Friday morning, a Spanish Air Force military plane landed in Niamey, to evacuate Spanish nationals – estimated at around 70 – wishing to leave Niger, according to Madrid. The United States, one of Niger’s main partners with France, has chartered a plane to get its non-essential personnel out of the country, and US President Joe Biden has called for “the immediate release of the [Nigerian, Mohamed] Bazoum President”.
