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(Washington Post) Could the crisis in Niger could reach a tipping point this weekend?

Posted on August 4, 2023 by Kendall Harmon

The crisis in Niger could reach a tipping point this weekend. ECOWAS, the geopolitical bloc of West African states, has set an Aug. 6 deadline for the coup-plotting Nigerien junta to step aside and restore the country’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum to power. The generals so far have shown little indication of heeding the bloc’s demands. Instead, a delegation from the Nigerien junta courted the support of the coup-plotting juntas in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso. The two countries upped the ante, putting out a statement earlier this week that warned that an ECOWAS intervention in Niger would constitute a declaration of war against their own countries.

The West African bloc suspended the membership of Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea after recent coups in those countries and analysts suggest the region’s leadership wants to draw a line in the sand around Niger, a poor nation whose fledgling democracy had shown a degree of resilience under Bazoum. While Mali and Burkina Faso slipped into Moscow’s orbit under their juntas, Niger remained something of a pro-Western redoubt in the Sahel, the semiarid African region below the Sahara Desert that is increasingly shaped by state failure and metastasizing insurgencies. Even as the junta entrenches itself in the capital, Niamey, Niger remains host to U.S. and French military bases.

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Posted in Foreign Relations, Globalization, Military / Armed Forces, Niger, Politics in General