Representatives of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger at the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States. An interview with journalist Alex Anfruns Millán on the “Pan-African revolution” in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Picture: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation of Mali
By Pascual Serrano
In recent years, three West African countries, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, have experienced coups d’état with a common denominator: a national and sovereign uprising against France, its former metropolis, still dominant in the economy, defence and international relations. Military leaders have overthrown puppet rulers of France and established provisional governments, at the same time provoking indignation, sanctions and threats of military intervention from Western powers.
It is not easy to obtain rigorous information in the West that is free from the interests of the European powers in these events. Hence the value of Alex Anfruns Millán in writing the book “Niger: another coup d’état… or the pan-African revolution?”
Although born in Catalonia, Anfruns has been living between France and French-speaking Africa. For four years he published the monthly Journal de l’Afrique and has translated and written about the wars and coup attempts in Mali, Syria, Venezuela and Nicaragua, specialising in Africa and Latin America. He is currently a professor in Casablanca and researches the right to development from a pan-African historical perspective.
Below is an excerpt from an interview conducted by author Pascual Serrano with Alex Anfruns about his book and the events in the region during his time in Barcelona:
Pascual Serrano: Last July, a group of soldiers overthrew the Government of Niger and established a transitional government. What do you think this blow means for the country and the region?
Alex Anfruns: On July 26, 2023, a group of well-known military personnel who are part of the Niger Presidential Guard take power. That date is the culmination of a regional sovereignty process that already began in 2020 in a coup d’état in Mali, which then had another coup in 2021, and in 2022 in Burkina Faso as well.
That is, in the space of about 3 years, we have a series of military coups d’état that contradict the dominant vision that states that the place where the Army should be is in the barracks, and that it does not have to get involved in political life. In the case of these African countries in the Sahel, in West Africa, what happens is that they react to a progressive awareness among the people. Many African people, millions of people, have been mobilising for a number of reasons.
In recent years, there has been a rebirth of a feeling of dignity and struggle for sovereignty among the population, particularly in Mali. When the rejection of the presence of French troops in the territory began, they managed to expel them and then progressively also in Burkina Faso and Niger. It is an entire regional process in which the military intervenes in Niger for several reasons.
Mali has what is known as the triple border, the region of Liptako-Gourma, where all terrorist groups circulate from one territory to another. It so happens that there has been foreign military dominance for more than ten years in those countries, especially France. One of the pretexts for that presence was the fight against terrorism.
The people have begun to wonder how it could be that a presence of more than a decade on the ground of thousands of foreign troops, with the most advanced technology of Western armies and with an impressive defence budget, fails to counteract or neutralise those terrorist groups that multiply over the years.
So two countries, which reject the foreign military presence and which have their own military forces, rebel and are later joined by Niger.
I consider the Niger coup to be a culmination of this process. They observe that there was connivance, or at least acceptance, on the part of France of these Islamist terrorist groups, because they could not eradicate them. The people think that terrorism was an alibi or an excuse simply to justify the foreign military presence, but then they did not eradicate these terrorist groups.
This is part of the discourse of African people. If we listen to the leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and now Niger, the discourse is that the source of terrorism is Western.
For example, the Chief of Staff of the French Army, who was in charge of the French troops in Mali, said that his presence in the country should be for at least 30 years. Nobody can believe that the French army needs three decades to eliminate African terrorist groups.
On the other hand, those in charge of the French army have given legitimacy to the Tuareg groups as political actors that demand an independence that implies a territorial partition of Mali, even the French media collect the statements of their spokespersons. But everyone in the Sahel knows the close relationship between those Tuaregs and terrorist groups.
PS: Numerous analyses of the region address the role of Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States. Can you explain it?
AA: Ecowas is a regional group of fifteen West African countries, founded in 1975, whose mission was to promote the economic integration of the region. It was an economic development project, but the problem is that, in recent years, it has become a tool of interference in the hands of France.
France uses the allies it has in the region such as Ouattara [Alassane Ouattara, president of the Ivory Coast], or president Macky Sall, who has recently left through the back door in Senegal. These actors are joined by Bola Tinubu, who is in Nigeria.
They are actors who have put themselves at the service of French interests, and Ecowas has revealed itself in the cases of Mali, as well as Burkina Faso and Niger, as a tool to exercise a policy of sanctions. These sanctions have caused suffering in populations with incredible extreme poverty, and it is then that it is clearly seen that Ecowas does not care about the suffering of the population.
They are subjected to a blockade of all kinds, so that the population lacks access to electricity, medicines, and food. It is seen that this association no longer fulfils the function for which it had been created and these three countries make the historic decision at the end of January of a definitive irreversible departure from Ecowas. So, the neocolonial architecture of France is being dismantled a little.
In the case of Ecowas, it has been an actor whose weight is now in decline.
PS: I would like you to explain a little more about how Nato’s intervention in Libya has affected the region.
AA: The war in Mali already has as its origin the destabilisation in Libya. In fact, it has been a lesson that the African people and leaders have learned, because they have realised their historical error in not opposing in a clear and frontal manner, and in not protecting Gaddafi, who also had a pan-African vision. Whether European politicians and Western public opinion in the hegemonic media like it or not, Gaddafi’s Libya is perceived, including his legacy, as a historic contribution to Pan-Africanism.
His legacy has been so influential that, despite Libya being located in North Africa, at two points in Niger’s recent history there have been two coups d’état related to Libya. One was shortly after the president of Niger established relations with Gaddafi’s Libya, in the case of Hamani Diori, who suffered a coup in 1974.
A few months earlier he had made a defence agreement with Libya. And in the case of Mamadou Tandja [president of Niger overthrown in 2010 by a coup d’état], one of the reasons why he was deposed was because he clearly opposed the interests of France and established relations with China, with Iran, with Venezuela, and also welcomed Gaddafi.
That same France that also occupied a large part of the territory of Mali and that did not allow the Malian Army to solve its terrorism problems, because it prevented its own National Army from accessing its territory, because it was under French military control.
In the case of Niger, the French imperialist strategy is stopped and that has historical significance. In my opinion this has a very strong symbolic load, something like the battle of Dien Bien Phu in the war between Indochina and France. That is to say, there is an awareness that the moment when Vietnam defeated the French Army in 1954 is being repeated.
Then, the awareness was created within the African people that the defeat of the European man, the white man, was possible and from there an anti-colonial movement began that was greatly reinforced. That is to say, on a symbolic level, Niger is important because of the hope it also gives to the African people to see that it is possible to defeat these threats of war and these sanctions policies.
PS: Isn’t there the possibility that these new governments and movements, moving away from France, could approach the United States and end up falling under another imperialism?
AA: That is one of the hypotheses. In fact, the United States, when the Niger coup d’état took place, had a pragmatic position and accepted it. It is not as clumsy an imperialism as that of France and it tries a bit to, let’s say, not oppose it too much. They clearly defend the overthrown regime, but they do so with a low profile.
I point out in my book on Niger the possibility that the United States will try to recover this dynamic, but events are showing that in Niger there is a clear vision of defending sovereignty. And the key is popular support and mobilisation.
So I think the facts are showing that in Niger there is a very clear vision of considering foreign military troops as an occupation, as neocolonialism. And the demand that the US military bases that exist in the capital, and also in the north, with a multi-million-dollar investment, with a drone base, leave and abandon Nigerien territory as quickly as possible.
It is showing that the people are not going to stop at a single measure, there is a truly entire plan of sovereignty and popular sovereignty. Not only at the level of the defence of each nation, but there is what I consider a bit the hypothesis of the book, that is, that we are moving towards a Pan-African revolution from the moment in which this is no longer a question of defending simply their own nation, but to create cooperation and put resources in favour of the rights of the peoples of the region.
PS: What is the role of Russia, China or the BRICS in the Sahel region?
AA: I believe that we are at a crossroads and that, whether we like it or not, we are in a situation of a new cold war.
That is why it is important to focus on the facts. For example, observing that France has first a colonial and then a neocolonial policy in the region, with a series of mechanisms such as the CFA franc currency, the legal tender of Western and Central African countries. It means African Financial Community Franc, although at the time of its creation it meant “French African Community”, this is undoubtedly a limitation of the economic sovereignty of those countries because the currency was first linked to the French franc and now to the euro.
We all know that States have interests, it is not a question of friendship, but there are relations between States that are respectful and that look to mutual benefit. And in that sense, relations with Russia are very good, but not only with Russia, but also with China, Iran and Turkey.
These are relationships in which these countries are allowed perspectives other than economic subjugation, and above all, development is not prevented. When we talk about development, we have to know what the living conditions of the Nigerien people are. Niger is among the world’s leading uranium producers and, on the other hand, has the lowest human development figures.
At the time of the coup d’état, extreme poverty was 42 percent, with a huge lack of access to electricity and with a large part of the population living in subsistence agriculture, depending on rain.
In Niger the military is considering and in fact is advancing a series of projects that will allow more income for the State, and I believe that they will achieve greater development and social benefit.
PS: What would be the development and sovereignty measures of Niger and in general of the Sahel countries that are developing in response to Western sanctions?
AA: First of all, when the sanctions occur, we have the sending of humanitarian convoys from Burkina Faso to Niger, with which we see that, although all the borders of the Ecowas countries are blocked, the fact that these three countries are united, it allows them, even if they do not have access to the sea, a certain solidarity and inter-African co-operation.
In the case of Niger, after these months of resistance, what it has achieved is good. They have completed the construction of a photovoltaic plant and are now working on oil production, which is going to increase greatly. This has made it possible to sell fuel to neighbouring countries. With the development capacity of the oil industry, they will be able to reduce their dependence on energy.
Also, regarding its gold extraction industry, it is planned to create gold refineries. Not only that, but there are actually a series of industrialisation initiatives, and food sovereignty is being proposed, which is something that can be achieved, it is not a utopia.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are countries where there is still food insecurity. There are enormous resources and now, by expelling the neo-colonial actors, very positive perspectives for change are opening up.
PS: Comparing these three countries that are experiencing these changes, their three governments do not necessarily have a similar ideology, beyond a common position of recovering their sovereignty and nationalism in the face of French colonialism. Do you see ideological differences between them, or do you think that is irrelevant?
AA: It is an issue that is now being debated, since these governments are considered military transitional governments and at some point, or another should give way to civilian governments.
However, the current situation is that in Mali the activity of political parties is prohibited, because it is proposed that it is first necessary to truly and totally recover national sovereignty.
In that sense, I believe that the priority is placed on addressing the problem of terrorism in these three countries, but, at the same time, laying the foundations to defend their strategic resources, decide on them and not depend so much on imports.
Ibrahim Traoré, in the month of October, had a meeting with the employers of Burkina Faso, with the country’s capitalists. He told them, until now the products, the food that the Burkinabe people are consuming, are largely imported, national production is not being supported.
And he added, from now on, you are going to dedicate 10 percent of your capital to national production. What Traoré was doing, who, in a certain way, is the heir to the ideas of Thomas Sankara.
I would like to see how many presidents there are who sit down with the capitalists and give them orders, because normally it is the opposite, it is the economic powers that command the political power.
Here we have a concrete manifestation that it is these leaders who are giving orders, they are forcing there to be a transformation of the economic structure. But this is going to take time, and I believe that it is the next few years that will allow us to see if it will be transformed.
For example, let the masses of the people enter the scene, who are people who mostly live off agriculture, and who have historically been excluded from society, from the destiny of the nation.
So all of this is still developing, but I think for now, the Pan-African revolution is good news.
Pascual Serrano is a journalist and writer. His last book is ‘Forbidden to doubt. The ten weeks in which Ukraine changed the world’.
This article was adapted from an interview originally published on Globalter. This article was published on Peoples Dispatch