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Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune chairs the meeting of the Higher Committee for Supervision of Customs Declarations and Commercial Operations Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune chairs the meeting of the Higher Committee for Supervision of Customs Declarations and Commercial Operations in Algeria on Aug. 01, 2023 .
Algeria tries to play peacemaker in Niger
Algeria announced that the military junta in Niger has accepted its offer to mediate a return to civilian control. In late August, Algiers proposed a six-month-long transition plan, overseen by a civilian.
Algeria has advantages as a mediator. It has good relations with the United States but opposes French intervention in Africa, which the Nigerien junta has also opposed vociferously. Algiers also condemned the coup and supported ousted President Mohamed Bazoum but has been steadfastly opposed to any military intervention against its southern neighbor.
Countries to Niger’s south and west are under pressure to take action against this coup, the latest in a string of putsches in the region. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who also presides over ECOWAS, a political bloc of West African states, had activated a response force and threatened to attack Niger as a matter of last resort.
The long delay in action betrays ECOWAS’s hesitancy — intervention in Niger is likely to get messy and drag in countries like Mali and Burkina Faso that have pledged to support the junta. But if Algeria can make progress in talks, it gives Tinubu a good argument that the measure of last resort is not yet necessary.
It all might be a little too good to be true. Amaka Anku, head of Eurasia Group’s Africa practice, says the situation “sounds pretty similar to previous statements that [Niger] was ready to negotiate with ECOWAS.”
Diplomatic missions by both ECOWAS and US officials have amounted to scant progress in restoring civilian control in Niger. While Algiers is touting this as a path toward a peaceful resolution, Anku says it is not clear that Algeria will be successful.
Niger's junta supporters take part in a demonstration in front of a French army base in Niamey, Niger, on Aug. 11, 2023.
Talk, not troops, in Niger
West African nations continue to dither on using force in Niger, even after last week’s resolution by the Economic Community of West African States to send in troops to restore the government of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.
Instead, Nigerian President and ECOWAS Chairman Bola Tinubu is pursuing diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis, including green-lighting a mission to Niger by a delegation of Islamic scholars, who met with coup leader General Abdourahamane Tchiani for several hours on Saturday.
Tchiani is playing up the historic relationship between the neighboring nations, claiming that the coup was “well intended” to avert an imminent threat to both Niger and Nigeria (presumably from jihadists) and that the two countries “were not only neighbors but brothers and sisters who should resolve issues amicably.”
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Labour Congress issued a statement on Sunday warning ECOWAS against the use of military force, claiming that it would cause instability and loss of life in the entire region and endanger the lives of Bazoum and his family.
Bazoum remains under house arrest with his wife and 20-year-old son, reportedly in dire conditions in an unlit basement. The ousted leader said they had gone without electricity for a week, had no access to medication, and that his family was subsisting on dry rice and pasta. While the junta allowed a doctor to visit Saturday and bring some food, Bazoum’s supporters fear the plan is to “starve him to death” and are pleading for Western nations to intervene.
But any such intervention is proving tricky. While France talked tough at the beginning of the coup, on Sunday the French defense minister said his country would support the latest diplomatic efforts by ECOWAS. Rising anti-French and pro-Russian sentiment in Niger is complicating efforts to resolve the crisis, now in its third week with no clear end in sight.
For more on what the US and Russia want for Niger, click here.
Thousands of supporters of Niger's coup flocked to a stadium in the capital Niamey on Sunday.
Niger deadline passes
The Economic Community of West African States threatened to intervene militarily if Niger’s coup leaders didn’t restore the country’s democratically elected leader, President Mohamed Bazoum, by Sunday. That deadline has now passed without any sign of a military response.
Meanwhile, thousands of supporters of the junta, which now calls itself the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, filled a 30,000-seat stadium in the capital Niamey. They cheered and carried Russian flags and portraits of junta militants, including self-appointed leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani.
Neighboring Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali – notably suspended from ECOWAS owing to recent coups in their countries – side with the new regime, and Burkina Faso and Mali have threatened to respond if Niger is attacked by the bloc.
ECOWAS members, led by Nigeria, support the return of Bazoum but appear unwilling to use military might. On Saturday, the Nigerian Senate rejected a request by President Bola Tinubu to send troops to Niger and called instead for a political solution. Some are also concerned that military intervention would pull the Wagner Group – already entrenched in Mali and Burkina Faso – into the fray. Non-ECOWAS nations Chad and Algeria also oppose military intervention.
For his part, Bazoum has not given up. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, he asked for help from the international community. France has pledged its support for ECOWAS military intervention, and the US has agreed to keep up diplomatic pressure, but we’ll be watching to see how far ECOWAS is willing to go to deliver on its threat.Demonstrators gather in support of the putschist soldiers in Niamey, Niger.
Niger, Niger burning bright
Supporters of Niger’s junta – which overthrew democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum last week – took to the streets of the capital, Niamey, on Sunday, waving Russian flags and denouncing France, its former colonial power. Protesters destroyed a plaque bearing the words “Embassy of France in Niger” and replaced it with Nigerien and Russian flags, while others set the tricolore ablaze.
What got protesters burning mad? Over the weekend, France and the EU joined the US in suspending aid to Niger, demanding that Bazoum be reinstated and order restored. In 2021, France provided 97 million euros in development and military aid, while the EU pledged 40 million euros to help train and equip Niger’s armed forces.
The Elysee was not amused by the demonstrations. French President Emmanuel Macron warned that his government “will not tolerate any attack on France and its interests” and will respond “immediately” to any aggression.
Niger’s neighbors also weighed in, with the 15-member Economic Community of West African States bloc declaring Sunday that it’s prepared to use force to “restore constitutional order” if Bazoum is not reinstated within a week. The eight-member West African Economic and Monetary Union could also suspend Niger from their financial institutions and deny access to the regional central bank and financial markets, putting the screws to the country’s economy.
None of this appears to have fazed coup leader Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani, head of Niger’s presidential guard unit, who pushed back, noting the junta’s “firm determination to defend our fatherland.” But on Monday, Bazoum was reportedly seen for the first time since the coup as he met with Chad's leader Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno in Niamey. Déby said he is trying to mediate a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
Meanwhile, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin seemed to applaud the coup, much like he cheered on last year’s coup in Burkina Faso. He offered to send his mercenaries to “keep order” – Niger could be big business for Wagner, which is already battling Islamic insurgents in Mali. But it’s also a big opportunity for Putin as Niger produces 7% of the world’s uranium.
The bottom line: The West is concerned that Niger could pivot towards Russia just as both Burkina Faso and Mali did after their own recent coups.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu chairs a meeting with the leadership of the Armed Forces in Moscow, on July 3, 2023.
Russia: The “Scumbag” speaks!
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday made his first public comments about the mutiny that mercenary warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin — who had repeatedly called him a “scumbag” — led against him 10 days ago.
In a terse statement that he read from a piece of paper during a broader meeting of military personnel, Shoigu said the mutiny had failed because rank-and-file soldiers had “courageously and selflessly carried out the tasks assigned to them.”
Shoigu’s appearance and statement seem to make clear that Putin isn’t planning on swapping out his Defense Ministry leadership anytime soon. But it’s worth noting — again, as Prigozhin himself did — that Putin's main issue isn’t so much disloyalty as it is incompetence: His war has been poorly planned and clumsily executed from the start, something that Prigozhin made a point of highlighting in ways that are still thorny for the Kremlin.
In other news, the Levada Center on Monday released a poll on Russians’ views of the mutiny. The big winners were the Armed Forces, whose image improved among 30% of Russians, and Putin, who looked better to nearly 20%. Shoigu, meanwhile, took a hit in the eyes of nearly 30% of respondents, second only to Prigozhin, who lost the affection of 36%.
Lastly, there is still no word on the whereabouts of Prigozhin-pal Sergei Surovikin, a top Russian military official known as “General Armageddon.” There were reports late last week that he had been detained, just hours after The New York Times cited US intel officials to the effect that Surovikin was believed to have had prior knowledge of Prigozhin’s mutiny attempt.
Fighters of Wagner private mercenary group pull out of the headquarters of the Southern Military District in the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia.
Hard Numbers: Russian uprising edition – Wagner’s ranks, Ruble tanks, Rostov’s neighbors, Pugachev’s echo
50,000: Wagner Group is believed to have about 50,000 armed men in total. Some of them are hardened combat veterans, but many have been recruited from Russian prisons. Prigozhin has led about half that number in Ukraine and those are the men he took on the march to Moscow.
84: Coups are generally bad for currencies. The ruble fell to a value of 84 per U.S. dollar on Friday, as traders worried that Russia might plunge into civil war. Russian business outlets said major banks were offering an exchange rate of closer to 100 to the dollar.
60: Rostov-on-don is located just 60 miles from the Ukrainian border, and it is home to the Russian southern military district command, whose 58th Combined Arms Army is heavily engaged in trying to stop Kyiv’s counteroffensive in Southern Ukraine.
US ships during an underway replenishment in the Philippine Sea. January 19, 2023.
Hard Numbers: US camps in Philippines, Malaysia may nix death penalty, Bulgaria’s close vote, Burkina Faso vs. journalists, hungry as a bear in Japan
4: On Monday, the Philippine government confirmed the location of four new military camps that will indefinitely host rotating US forces, despite China’s opposition. The new encampments, which were announced last February, place US forces closer to Taiwan and key trade routes in the South China Sea, where China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
1,300: Malaysia’s lower house of Parliament approved a bill on Monday to abolish mandatory death sentences, possibly sparing over 1,300 death row inmates. If the bill passes the upper house as expected and gets the king’s signature, it will mean capital punishment is no longer obligatory for crimes like murder and drug trafficking.
5: So far, it’s a dead-heat in Bulgaria’s parliamentary election, the 5th in two years, between center-right PM Boyko Borisov and liberal ex-PM Kiril Petkov. Corruption and inflation were the top concerns for voters in the former Soviet ally, which has struggled to form a durable ruling coalition in recent years. Final results are expected later this week.
2: Burkina Faso’s military junta has expelled two French reporters in its crackdown on journalists. The junta, which seized power in a coup last September (the country’s second in 2022), has not offered an official reason for the move, but it comes after one of the journalist’s publications investigated the execution of children inside military barracks in the northern part of the conflict-plagued West African country.
17: Japanese bear encounters have been on the rise in the wild … and at dinner. A new vending machine in Semboku, northern Japan, is clawing a profit by selling wild bear meat for $17 (2,200 yen) per 250 g. It’s proving so popular that the operator is getting mail-order requests from as far away as Tokyo.A supporter of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacts as people gather after polling stations were closed in the presidential election in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
What We're Watching: Brazilian runoff, Burkina Faso coup 2.0, Ukraine's response to Russian annexations
Lula’s bittersweet first-round win
Left-wing former President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva won the first round of Brazil's presidential election on Sunday but fell short of the outright majority needed to avoid an Oct. 30 runoff that might now be tighter than expected. With almost 97% of the ballots counted, Lula got 47.9% of the vote, 4.2 percentage points more than his nemesis: the far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro. Although Lula is still favored to also win in the second round, the result is good news for Bolsonaro because he outperformed the polls, which had him trailing Lula by a wide margin and led many to believe his rival could win it all in the first round. Some experts think that Bolsonaro is consistently underestimated because many Brazilians are hesitant to admit they vote for him — a theory pollsters deny. Lula's narrower-than-expected victory might give Bolsonaro even more fodder to claim that the surveys are rigged against him. Brazil's president has spent months firing up his base with baseless doubts about the integrity of the election process, and no one would be surprised if he tries to pull a 6 de Janeiro if he loses the runoff.
Coups and counter-coups in Burkina Faso
Coups are always messy affairs, but the West African nation of Burkina Faso is taking it to a whole new level. Late on Friday, Col. Ibrahim Traoré announced the removal of Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba — who ousted democratically elected President Roch Kaboré in January — for failing to defeat an Islamist insurgency. The next day, Traoré claimed Damiba was planning a counter-coup with help from former colonial power France. Pas moyen, says Paris, as protesters attacked French interests in the capital, Ouagadougou, before Damiba agreed to step down on Sunday. Meanwhile, Traoré's junta is reaching out to "new partners" to fight the jihadists — possibly code for Russian mercenaries employed by the notorious Wagner Group, already active in neighboring Mali. The Sahel remains a hotbed for Islamist insurgents despite almost a decade of French military presence, which has hurt France's reputation in many of these countries. A Russian-propagated conspiracy theory that the insecurity is a ruse by Paris to protect its interests is also fueling anti-French sentiment in the Sahel, where coups are making a comeback.
Ukraine won’t give up
Ukraine is claiming a strategic victory in one of its four regions recently annexed by Russia. Lyman, a logistical and railway base in the eastern Donetsk province, has been cleared of Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday. Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin blasted Vladimir Putin’s recent nuclear threats, calling them “irresponsible” and “nuclear saber-rattling.” As for the Russian president and his recent land grab of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk, interesting times are ahead: after holding a ceremony to sign accession treaties, Moscow is expected to process the documents through its parliament, after which Russia will consider the annexations complete. Next up? Russian laws and prosecutors would be imposed on the regions; militias fighting for Russia in Donetsk and Luhansk would be incorporated formally into the Russian military; the Russian ruble would be made the only legal currency; and after an oath of loyalty, residents would officially become Russian citizens. Meanwhile, the leaders of nine NATO countries issued a joint statement on Sunday condemning Russia's annexation of Ukrainian territories and pushing NATO to increase military assistance to Kyiv.
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