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Burkina Faso's junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore attends the first ordinary summit of heads of state and governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in Niamey, Niger July 6, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Coup bloc, Gaza school bombed, Ukraine in the dark, Tesla in China, Six days in Greece
3: Junta leaders from Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso announced Saturday they would form their own international bloc and “irrevocably” turn away from ECOWAS, just ahead of the latter’s summit on Sunday. Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré claimed the new alliance would stand up to Western influence in Africa, saying “These imperialists have only one cliché in mind: ‘Africa is the empire of slaves’.”
16: An Israeli attack on a UNRWA school in Gaza killed at least 16 people and wounded 50 on Saturday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. UNRWA officials said at least 500 people have now been killed while sheltering in its facilities in Gaza, but Israel claims Hamas often uses the facilities as operating bases, essentially positioning civilians as human shields.
100,000: Russian airstrikes on power infrastructure in northern Ukraine left over 100,000 households in the dark on Saturday night. Targeting energy plants and transmission equipment has become a key strategy for Russia in its attempts to damage civilian morale in Ukraine, and the country’s energy utility says it has lost nine gigawatts of power capacity over the last three months — enough to power the entire Netherlands.
947,000: Tesla has officially been added to a list of approved government vehicle purchases in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, the only foreign-owned EV manufacturer on the list. However, the company manufactured over 947,000 cars at its Shanghai factory last year, most of which were sold in China.
6: Greece is experimenting with a six-day workweek, which allows firms that operate 24 hours a day to schedule employees to work up to eight hours at 40% overtime on the sixth day after a regular 40-hour workweek. They also have the option to spread 40 hours across six 6.5-hour work days. Workers are critical of the new rules, which seem to run against positive experiences some countries have had with four-day workweeks.A member of the military police walks amid tear gas as Bolivia's President Luis Arce "denounced the irregular mobilization" of some units of the country's army, in La Paz, Bolivia June 26, 2024.
Bolivia's coup lasts just hours
It was over almost as quickly as it began. On Wednesday, Bolivian state television broadcast images of armored military vehicles ramming the door of the government complex in La Paz on Wednesday, as soldiers occupied the capital city’s central square in an apparent coup attempt.
President Luis Arce called on irregular popular militias to fight back, but just hours later the soldiers had withdrawn from the square and top General Juan José Zuñiga, apparent leader of the coup attempt, was arrested.
Bolivia has experienced several years of upheaval since 2019, when leftwing populist Evo Morales -- the country's first Indigenous president -- was ousted amid mass protests over election irregularities after seeking an unconstitutional third term in power.
Morales was succeeded by interim president Jeanine Añez, an ultra-conservative opposition Senator, who led a deadly crackdown on protests by Morales’ largely rural and indigenous support base. In 2020, Arce, a one-time ally of Morales’, won the presidential election, and two years later, Añez was sentenced to a ten-year jail term over accusations that she had illegally taken power from Morales.
Part of the backdrop to the unrest is a failing economic model. Morales' once-booming strategy of tapping Bolivia's vast natural gas resources to lift millions out of poverty has long since hit the skids because of lower prices and shrinking production.
Morales himself, still a powerful figure, had denounced the coup on Wednesday, calling on his supporters to take to the streets.
And that's where the plot thickens: Morales and his former comrade Arce are now bitter rivals, jockeying for position ahead of the 2025 presidential elections.
Senegal’s democracy at risk as president calls off election
On Saturday, President Macky Sall called off the election for his replacement without naming a new date, which means he will remain in power extralegally, thrusting the former rock of West African stability into crisis. On Monday, Sall called a special session of Parliament to consider a bill endorsing his decision and allowing a delay of up to six months.
What happened? Karim Wade, son of Sall’s predecessor and a political rival, was running for president but a constitutional court blocked his candidacy last month, alleging he held dual French and Senegalese citizenship. Wade claims he had renounced his French citizenship, and his party launched an investigation into two of the court’s justices last week. Then, in a masterstroke of political judo, Sall backed the investigation – and used it as the excuse to call off the elections.
Will Sall get away with it? The opposition parties rejected the cancellation, and police used tear gas on scattered groups of protesters in Dakar on Sunday, but the mass of civil society did not take to the streets. If elections do go forward – there’s no guarantee – the constitution requires 80 days' notice, and who knows how long the inquiry will take.
On the international stage, the Economic Community of West African States expressed concern but did not condemn the cancellation. ECOWAS has struggled to maintain democratic unity, with military juntas seizing control of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in recent years, all of which announced their withdrawal last week.
Supporters of Burkina Faso's junta attend a rally to mark the one-year anniversary of the coup that brought Captain Ibrahim Traore to power in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on Sept. 29, 2023.
ECOWAS “officially” loses three junta-run states
Junta leaders in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have cut ties with their former French colonial overlords and kicked out French troops meant to fight terrorist groups threatening communities in the arid grasslands south of the Sahara Desert. In their place? Russian mercenaries, naturally, who have allegedly been complicit in a spate of atrocities over the last two years.
While the coups have done little to stave off the terrorists (the region suffered thousands of attacks last year), they’ve done a much better job scaring off troops from neighboring democracies. A threatened military intervention in Niger to be led by Nigeria last year amounted to nothing, and no one in the region is eager to put lives on the line now.
ECOWAS isn’t casting itself in the best light. When coup leaders in Niger invited an ECOWAS delegation to talks about the bloc’s sanctions in the capital Niamey on Friday, only Togo showed up. The other delegates said their plane got stuck in Abuja with mechanical issues.
There may be an odd silver lining in the disorganization, though. Since ECOWAS rules require states to file for withdrawal a year in advance, and no one seems to have bothered to put in an official notice, rejoining may not be such a technical hurdle should the political winds shift. We’ll be watching (but not holding our breath) to see whether Mali and Burkina Faso go ahead with elections scheduled for later this year.
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.