The Chiefs of Staff of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will meet on Thursday, August 17 and Friday, August 18 in Accra, the capital of Ghana, to “discuss a possible military intervention in Niger to restore democratic order,” as stated on Tuesday, August 15, a spokesman for the regional bloc. In parallel, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a dialogue with Mali’s military leader, in which they highlighted the importance of a “peaceful resolution” to the crisis in Niger after the coup on July 26.
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The next meeting of the heads of the Army of the member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (Cedeao) already has a date. According to statements by a spokesman for the regional bloc collected by Reuters, the military leaders will meet on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 August in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Its main objective will be to deal with the possible military intervention in Niger, which would take place in the event that diplomatic channels for the restoration of democracy in the country fail.
A military junta ousted the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, on July 26. Since then, the coup leaders have refused to dialogue with Cedeao, which initially called for negotiations for the restitution of the democratic government.
Currently, the military junta is holding the ousted president along with his family, and on Monday, August 14, it announced that it would try him for “high treason” due to his conversations with foreign leaders.
The international community strongly condemned that statement, as a sign that the junta is refusing a peaceful resolution. The UN assured that the situation is “alarming” and ECOWAS considered it a “provocation”.
“The board does not have the legitimacy to judge anyone. These people who committed this heinous act, this act that is more than treason, which is a criminal act, cannot morally claim to judge anyone,” Hassoumi Massoudou, deposed Niger’s foreign minister, said in an exclusive interview with France 24 , asking that the constitutional order be restored.
Hassoumi Massoudou considers that “the situation is reversible” and explains that, from his perspective, there is no crisis among Nigeriens, but rather a small group of soldiers who decided to take power by force. “Cedeao can no longer accept that the law of weapons wins over the law of the ballot box,” he declared.
The official recalled that this would not be the first military operation to safeguard democracy in the area, recalling the ECOWAS intervention in The Gambia in 2017, when the former president refused to give way to the winner of the elections. For Massoudou, it is not a “war against Niger, nor against the Nigerien people”, but a “routine intervention” to prevent the Sahel region from relapsing into the extreme violence that he experienced in the 1970s.
Since the coup in Niger, there have been “pogroms with hordes of young people motivated by racial and ethnic hatred,” Massoudou said. “Therefore, it is urgent to put an end to this in order to return Niger to the path of peace, stability and economic progress, and that is what we want. That is what ECOWAS decided was of interest to it and that is its perspective, not another’s”, he stated.
J’ai eu un entretien téléphonique avec le Président Routine. Nous avons evoked the situation du Niger. Il a souligné l’importance d’un réglement pacifique de la situación pour un sahel plus stable. pic.twitter.com/po6U2meRw1
— Colonel Assimi GOITA (@GoitaAssimi) August 15, 2023
Parallel to the ECOWAS announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mali’s military chief, Assimi Goita, held a telephone exchange. Goita came to power in Mali after the 2020 coup.
In a statement, the Kremlin stated that: “The parties specifically focused on the current situation in the Sahara-Sahel region and emphasized, in particular, the importance of resolving the situation in the Republic of Niger exclusively through diplomacy and political means.” peaceful”
Russia’s growing influence in the region
Russian flags were seen waving at pro-junta demonstrations in Niamey, the capital of Niger.
With Niger, there are already three countries that since 2020 have experienced a coup in which the new military leaders align themselves with Russia. In the particular case of Mali, the coup leaders hired Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group to combat the insurgency that opposed the overthrow of the democratic government.
In the call with the head of Mali, Putin “insisted on the importance of a peaceful resolution to the crisis in Niger, for the stability of the region as a whole,” Assimi Goita published on X, formerly Twitter. For his part, the head of Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin welcomed the initiative of the military coup in Niger.
The growing influence of Russia in the region worries Western powers, since Niger was a strategic ally in the area due to its uranium wealth and its key geographical position in the fight against extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the self-styled Islamic State in the region.
Niger’s coup military junta broke military agreements with France, which Paris dismissed on the grounds that the group did not have the legitimacy to do so.
It is feared that a military resolution of the crisis in Niger will further impoverish and destabilize the Sahel region, where Islamist militias have already displaced millions of people and induced a crisis of extreme hunger.
with Reuters
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