Imagine: You are in the middle of overthrowing your government; you are gauging the trustiness, obedience, and loyalty of your fellow military officers... You are pestered by civilian officials about the salaries that need to be deposited at the banks. You need to explain the reasons for your coup against the perfectly operating semi-civilian rule of the government to your own people and to the world. And amid millions of seen and unseen technicalities of overthrowing the government, there is a U.S. official at the door!
Of all the people, Victoria Nuland is the one knocking at your door! Acting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland! The very architect of the 2014 coup in Ukraine. Yet, the unsuccessful conspirator of the July 15, 2016 defeated coup by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in Türkiye. (My take on the details of which is here.)
“What does she want?” you ask. She wants to talk to Niger's ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, immediately. As a matter of fact, she eventually met with the military government’s defense chief Moussa Barmou and some other senior commanders; and she would later describe the negotiations as “extremely frank and at times quite difficult.”
The times were really difficult for those Niger coup leaders because their fellow Africans in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional political and economic union of 15 countries located in West Africa, meant business when they said they were going to invade the country and reinstate the ousted President Bazoum.
Nuland and the ECOWAS leaders were actually worried that the coup leaders would undo the ties Bazoum created with the United States and France, and they would put an end to the exploitation of mineral riches of the county, namely uranium. The new leaders could seek the help of the Wagner Group, a Russian state-funded private military company. It has been recently disgraced after its failed uprising against Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the U.S. says it is still being manipulated by Putin.
The U.S. government could seek to have some new channels opened with the Nigerian leaders and could have legitimate worries about losing control in Africa. Niger, with multiple coups and rising anti-French sentiments in the region, became France's partner and established strong military cooperation with the U.S. under Bazoum’s rule. The Joe Biden Administration would definitely like to keep him at the helm of the country.
But why Victoria Nuland? Because of her expertise in regime changes? Or her crafty disregard for diplomatic niceties? Remember her leaked phone conversation with the U.S. ambassador about how to “glue the relations with the new Ukrainian regime” she helped to come to power.
If there is a mess in Kyiv today, “the new Queen Victoria” was definitely behind it for her role during the 2013-2014 mass protests that eventually led to the overthrow of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.
Nuland was among the Western officials who publicly supported the demonstrators. In fact, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has been referring to Nuland’s handing out sandwiches and cookies in the center of Kyiv to demonstrators and law enforcement personnel when she wrote on her Telegram account:
“Victoria Nuland thought that in Niger it would work like in Ukraine: It will be enough to bring a cellophane bag full of cookies and play everyone for a fool. But such a banana (republic-style) regime, like the one in Kyiv, cannot be found anywhere else.”
Niger is a key ally for the West, particularly French and American; but there are also Turks in the country. Along with anti-French sentiment, there is Russian influence growing with the Wagner Group presence in the capital, Niamey.
Since the opening of the Turkish Embassy in 2012 in Niamey, a total of 29 agreements were signed with Niger; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the then-prime minister, visited the country in 2013. The Foreign Ministry said: “Within the framework of developing the legal ground of the relations with Niger, several legal instruments have already been enacted, in the fields of health, education, communication, military, political consultations and visa exemption for holders of a diplomatic passport.”
“Türkiye has been one of the factors behind the rise of anti-colonialist sentiment in West Africa, experts say. Erdoğan’s strong criticism of the ongoing injustices in Africa and the brutal policies carried out during the colonial period must have been an important factor in the impatience about the slightest indication of servility toward the West, in general, and the French, in particular. There is growing dissent against French neo-colonialism in West African countries such as Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso.
“The new administrations of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger declared that they would unite against France by fighting on the same side, if necessary,” said professor Enver Arpa, director of the Regional Studies Institute of the Ankara Social Sciences University, who spoke to Anadolu Agency (AA) about the rise of anti-colonial sentiment in West Africa, especially among the youth.
Despite all the efforts of Mrs. Noland and her ilk, France eventually had to withdraw its troops from Mali; probably it will from Niger, too. Perhaps, that is the real reason behind all that intimidation with Wagner and Russia. The main purpose behind all that demonization is the fact that 14 former French colonies that have been using banknotes printed at the French central bank are about to change it as they become capable of acting independently of France.
But still, the five coups since the independence in Niger – Nigeria: 5; Mali: 6; Burkina Faso (also Upper Voltan): 12, Chad: 6, Guinea:2 to mention a few of the fellow ECOWAS countries – are not making the expression of any political will and ideology to be taken seriously. How could it be? A new queen Victoria would rush to your capital city with her cookies, and the next day, your coup leaders would change their opinion about the ways to become a developed and civilized nation.
Perhaps, the Paris, London and Boston graduate elites of Africa and Asia should reread Ibn Khaldun, a leading 14th-century theorist in political thought, who explains the cyclical rise and fall of civilian (read: civilized) powers results directly in social backwardness and economic underdevelopment. But reading a thousand-page treatise would be difficult on this smartphone and YouTube age; better yet, we can do the exact opposite of whatever the Nulands and Wagners of the West and the East tell us to do.
Unless your elites care about “their reputation for probity,” neither peace nor civilization is going to be as easy as you and I wanted it to be.
