{"id":1553,"date":"2019-02-20T11:45:42","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T11:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedin\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2020-03-14T21:21:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T21:21:46","slug":"the-price-of-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/2019\/02\/20\/the-price-of-independence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Price of Independence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar in Niamey \u00a9 Satish Sekar (February 2nd<\/sup> 2019)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paradoxes<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to believe now, but in the midst of grinding poverty in Niger is a paradox \u2013 a couple actually. Niger is actually a mineral-rich country, especially uranium. These French interests in Niger were at the heart of the military intervention in Mali \u2013 not to mention finally getting their feet back into Mali militarily over half a century after Mali\u2019s first President, the late Modibo Ke\u00efta, kicked the last French soldiers out of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ke\u00efta would not allow military agreement with Mali\u2019s former colonial power \u2013 others had. The most Ke\u00efta permitted was an agreement on ties to develop the economy and culture. Military bases and defence pacts were, well, out of the question. After the fall of Modibo Ke\u00efta\u2019s government \u2013 he was overthrown by a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat led by Moussa Traor\u00e9 in 1968 and died in mysterious circumstances while being \u2018prepared for release \u2013 France tried again to get the coveted military foothold, and with it a political one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Dictator and Successors<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Despite Ke\u00efta\u2019s overthrow by the Malian military, further attempts were rebuffed by Traor\u00e9 first \u2013 Traor\u00e9 holds the dubious distinction of a spectacular fall from power himself. The former \u2018President\u2019 was sentenced to death on two separate occasions, but eventually was pardoned by his successor, Alpha Oumar Konar\u00e9, who also came to power after coup which followed a rebellion against the autocratic and unsuccessful rule of Traor\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Konar\u00e9 would not permit the bases either. Colonel Amadou Toumany Tour\u00e9 led the coup that toppled Traor\u00e9, and succeeded Konar\u00e9, supporting the pardons of the Traor\u00e9s to facilitate national reconciliation. Konar\u00e9 had already rehabilitated Ke\u00efta in 1992.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Traor\u00e9 was many things \u2013 twice sentenced to death and now retired \u2013 but not even he would acquiesce with French demands to reinstate colonialism by the back door. Neither Tour\u00e9 nor Konar\u00e9 would either \u2013 Tour\u00e9 led the transition to democracy, handing over power to Konar\u00e9, who won the election, in 1992. Konar\u00e9 promoted Tour\u00e9 to General and a decade later handed over power to Tour\u00e9, by then a civilian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Tide Turns<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The best France could achieve under the first four Malian Presidents was obtaining permission to train Malian troops and give technical advice through an accord with Traor\u00e9 in 1985 \u2013 bases and more were off the agenda, and remained so until the chance presented itself more than a quarter of a century later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Niger the first President Diori Hamani maintained good relations with France \u2013 the decolonisation process ensured he would succeed colonialism as the French allowed his party a monopoly in the run up to independence. Hamani maintained good relations with France, but that changed when he criticised France over investment in 1972. Just a year earlier Niger\u2019s first commercial uranium mine began operating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His government, increasingly autocratic and corrupt, was overthrown in a military coup two years later by Lieutenant-G\u00e9n\u00e9ral Seyni Kountch\u00e9 as popular unrest swept through Niger. The exploitation of mineral resources continued \u2013 Nigeriens did not enjoy the benefits of their natural resources. They still don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France has military bases there, but what benefit do Nigeriens get in return? As in Mali, the jihadist insurgencies gave the excuse. France wanted to protect its uranium interests and get a military foot-hold in both countries. That happened, but the hypocrisy was breath-taking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar in Niamey \u00a9 Satish Sekar (February 2nd 2019) Paradoxes It\u2019s hard to believe now, but in the [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[628,629,630,568,205,631,632,633,634,635],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1727,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions\/1727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}