Russia’s client dictators push for ‘alliance of military juntas’ in Africa
Joel Gehrke
Video Embed
Niger’s aspiring military dictator would bring “death and destruction” upon the country if he partners with Russia’s Wagner Group paramilitary force, a prominent U.S. official warned amid a tense effort to restore Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum to power.
“Any attempt by the military leaders in Niger to bring the Wagner forces into Niger would be a sign, yet another sign, that they do not have the best interests of the Nigerien people at heart,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “Everywhere we’ve seen the Wagner Group arrive, death and destruction has followed in their wake.”
DONALD TRUMP INDICTED: THREE TAKEAWAYS FROM FORMER PRESIDENT’S THIRD INDICTMENT
Niger’s coup plotters reportedly have sent a delegation to Mali, a neighboring West African state ruled by a military junta with the Wagner Group’s backing. Those reports have fed suspicions that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to use the coup to expand Russian influence in the region, where Mali and another Russia-backed dictatorship already have threatened to go to war on behalf of the conspirators in Niger.
“I warn that any military intervention against Niger will be considered as a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali,” the Mali junta’s point-man for “territorial administration and decentralization,” Col. Abdoulaye Maiga, said Tuesday. “The transitional governments of Burkina Faso and Mali, One: have expressed their fraternal solidarity of the people of Mali and Burkina Faso with their brothers in Niger who have decided of their own accord to take their destiny in hand and to assume their sovereignty.”
Maiga issued that statement in response to an ultimatum from the Economic Community of West African States, which condemned Nigerien Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani’s detention of Bazoum and threatened to orchestrate a military intervention if the president is not released. While independent analysts question the capacity of Mali and Burkina Faso to project power into Niger in a crisis, the threat nonetheless represents a startling demonstration of a desire to expand a network of Russia-backed dictatorships in the region
“They’re … basically trying to create an alliance of military juntas in West Africa,” Joseph Siegle, the research director at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told the Washington Examiner. “It shows you the vulnerability to external exploitation when you have a military government that’s not accountable to the citizens.”
The seizure of Bazoum is widely perceived to be an act of treachery by a general, Tchiani, who expected to get fired by the president. Neither Russia nor Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin are believed to have participated in the plot, but the crisis flared last week as Putin hosted an Africa summit in St. Petersburg, where the commander of the junta in Burkina Faso asserted an ideological alignment with the Kremlin.
“Russia made great sacrifices to liberate Europe and the world from Nazism during World War II. We have the same history,” said Ibrahim Traore, the Burkinabe captain who managed to declare himself “interim president” in a coup last year, according to Russian state media. “However, a slave who does not fight is not worthy of any indulgence. The heads of African states should not behave like puppets in the hands of the imperialists.”
Tchiani and the other juntas have tried to claim for their maneuvers the heritage of opposition to Western colonialism, but the detention of Bazoum has been condemned most vehemently by Niger’s neighboring democracies.
“(The) military option is the very last option on the table, the last resort, but we have to prepare for the eventuality,” Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace, and security, was quoted as saying by France24.
In any case, there are voices within the Nigerian system that seem optimistic about their ability to overwhelm Tchiani.
“Will we have war? I don’t think so. Will Niger be invaded? Yes, we will likely have that by ECOWAS, mainly Nigerian troops. The military government of Niger will collapse,” former Nigerian Foreign Minister Bolaji Akinyemi told the Africa Report. “An agreement, such as amnesty for the coup leaders, is likely to be signed. I don’t think this will be a long-sustained war in Africa.”
In that case, the Niger crisis might bear some passing resemblance to Prigozhin’s own abortive uprising last month. Yet any military intervention would be a high-stakes operation, as U.S. officials have noted, given Bazoum’s current vulnerability in the custody of his former bodyguards.
“Our sense is they want to posture themselves to have a very strong reaction, to make clear to everybody involved in this of the challenges [and] the impact it will have on the country, so they can avoid actually executing that,” a senior State Department told reporters this week. “But they want it to be credible.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has maintained contact with Bazoum throughout his detention, including with a call late Tuesday to express “continued unwavering support” for Bazoum’s return to power. State Department officials reportedly are preparing for a potential evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Niamey, the Nigerien capital, but Blinken’s team still holds out hope that the “attempted takeover of the country” can be thwarted.
“We’ve seen a military junta attempt to seize control of the country and attempt to remove the democratically elected leader from power,” Miller said Wednesday. “We have been trying our utmost to reverse that situation.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Tchiani seems to have allowed Bazoum to meet with Chadian President Mahamat Deby, who posted a photo of himself with the beleaguered president on Sunday. “In Niamey, I had extensive exchanges with … General Abdourahamane Tchiani, with President Mohamed Bazoum and former President Mahamadou Issoufou in a brotherly approach that aims to explore all the paths to find a peaceful exit to the crisis shaking this neighboring country,” Deby wrote on Facebook.
But it’s far from clear that the insubordinate general is looking for an amnesty. “I don’t see signs of openness to compromise; they instead seem to be moving to taking a more hard-line position,” said Siegle. “There’s every reason for them to see the value in negotiating an off-ramp, but I’m not sure that’s how they’re seeing it.”