Short Text on the Niger Situation Its Consequences
On July 26 of this year, Niger had a military coup that ousted president Mohamed Bazoum and his allies. Following that, the new leaders sought to end colonial relations with France, sparking outrage from the financial capitalists of that country and its allies. In the meantime, neighboring Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea—each of which had its own coup to instate its current government—expressed support for Niger’s military leaders, getting them removed from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). ECOWAS benefits French imperialism, and the rise of forces hostile to France threatens it.
Since the French colonization of these territories, the Sahelian strip and the majority of the countries of the Gulf of Guinea have been a very stable ‘preserve’ of French interests in Africa. Two major inter-governmental institutions act for French interests here: the “G5 Sahel” in terms of military cooperation (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad); and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) for economic cooperation. Therefore, today 3 members of the G5 Sahel openly reject French imperialism, including Mali, which announced its withdrawal from the organization last year. Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger are suspended from ECOWAS. The situation is even more serious for French imperialism because Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso are the vast majority of the circulation area of the Franc CFA area, a colonial loophole that allows France to guarantee the monetary political control of the countries.
For several years, French imperialism has been losing ground in Africa. The participation of French investments on the continent has fallen from 10.6% in 2002 to 4.4% in 2022, in particular with the new competition from Chinese social-imperialism. It nevertheless remains one of the main ones, for example being the second largest investor in sub-Saharan Africa behind the United Kingdom (2021 figure). The French monopolies control a sprawling network there, well helped by the governments they know how to corrupt since independence. BNP, Société Générale, Axa, Groupe Bolloré, Dassault, Alstom, ArcelorMittal, Bouygues, Carrefour, Danone, Engie, Michelin, Total, Orange, Vinci, etc. So many groups and hundreds of subsidiaries that are the exploitation and misfortune of African peoples who dare to stand up today. [Source]
We already went over a history of imperialism in Africa and the main imperialist actors in the continent here; that is why this commentary will be short. France has historically been involved in subjugating the African nations to feudalism, bureaucratic-comprador capitalism, and imperialism. Thus, these forces that seek to attack France’s exploitation are progressive to some extent. Supporting France and its allies and puppets in Africa in their planned attacks on these new governments is downright reactionary and against the interests of the masses in this region and across the world.
However, the leaders of Niger are not proletarian-led, so they are not successful New-Democratic revolutionaries. They are following a similar path to that of Thomas Sankara, a military leader who led a similar coup in Burkina Faso back in 1983. A World to Win analyzed this coup, its bourgeois nature, and its inevitable demise in its 10th issue:
On August 4, 1983, this column of future ministers marched into the capital city of Ouagadougou and took over the government, proclaiming the “revolution.” This “left” coup relied on a totally bourgeois military line of tactically outmaneuvering the temporarily disorganized alliance of right-wing and “moderate” forces within the neocolonial army; it was at best tentative and required hasty efforts to consolidate its urban social base among the radical left organizations which were influential in the urban petit bourgeois sectors, particularly in education and among civil servants, in order to hold onto state power. As Sankara put it candidly, “Without them we couldn’t have won, they prepared the masses for us.” And, somewhat surprisingly, “Our main support is from the organized workers” (by which he means, of course, the trade unions based on the civil servants in the capital!).
Despite his sympathies for the plight of the peasants and undoubtedly genuine desires to improve their lives, Sankara did not rely on them and they never became his social base: his outlook and line coincided instead with that of the urban petite bourgeoisie, and from the beginning was one which could not liberate the vast majority of the toiling masses in Burkina Faso. …
The underlying political problem of Sankara’s conception of revolution was his failure to base himself on a correct class analysis and to embrace the only ideology that can liberate the oppressed—that of the proletariat, its science of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Although he admitted he was influenced by and attracted to some aspects of Marxism-Leninism, he eclectically borrowed those ideas which corresponded to his radicalized petit-bourgeois class outlook—that of discontented lower officers in a neocolonial army—and combined them with others akin to Pan-Africanism and tired old nationalism. …
[T]he very practical problem remained that the imperialists had never been ousted from Burkina Faso and that, from its inception, Sankara’s revolution had been waged and developed from the top in a way that did not and could not (despite its rhetoric) rely on the conscious struggle of the masses of people and was not able to formulate a truly revolutionary programme based on their class interests—one which would not only promise but in practice set in motion a New Democratic revolution to break the neocolonial and semifeudal shackles and bring about the conditions necessary for going over to the second stage of a proletarian socialist revolution. This process alone is able to transform the distorted and backward relations of production into non-exploitative ones and unleash fully the potential of the peasantry and other revolutionary masses. [Source]
Based on this, we can safely say that the leaders in Niger, Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso are national and/or petty-bourgeois, so they only have an interest in ousting imperialism insofar as it benefits their capitals. Does this mean their movement is not worthy of support? Of course not, for as Stalin said, “The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement” [Source]. However, it does mean that it is impossible for these new governments to truly smash the chains of imperialism, for they do not have enough class interest to do so, and they did not mobilize the masses in building people’s democracy. This means one of two things are possible: either these leaders must become bureaucratic-compradors for an imperialist country that opposes France and its allies, or they will be overthrown by French imperialists and their puppets.
When he took over the presidency Compaore dissolved the CNR, formed a Popular Front and promised to reinstate the fired teachers, carrying out a “rectification,” but keeping the goals of the revolution. The official line coming out of Ouagadougou is that Sankara was an isolated man, autocratic and trying to silence much of the voice of the left who helped him into power. While it is probable that Compaore might find it useful to continue to mouth “leftist” slogans, his criminal ascension to power put a brutal end to the Burkina Faso experience and a return to a more ‘ ‘sober” recognition of the reality of neocolonialism.
Any genuine revolutionary regime confronting the mammoth task of uprooting the old oppressive relations in Burkina will face extremely difficult obstacles. Since Sankara’s downfall, the bourgeois press has gloated at his inability to hold on as the “troublemaker” in French West Africa. The problem is not so much that Captain Sankara failed, but that his “revolution” could only fail.
Sankara tried to mobilise but could not rely on the peasantry, which has to be the bedrock and main base of support for any real revolutionary transformation in a country like Burkina Faso. He wanted to break out of the clutches of imperialism but stood at the head of a reactionary state apparatus that had been created by the imperialists themselves. The fact that he was shot down by the very neocolonial army in which he served shows once again, as if the proletariat had need of another such lesson, that there is no substitute for the destruction of the state apparatus by the revolutionary masses.
Sankara’s relatively painless seizure of power in 1983 actually left the old state power and the old social system essentially intact. Despite this, the Western imperialists were not indifferent to this attempt to deviate from the traditional neocolonial path, and their overall necessities in today’s world accelerated their political and financial manipulations to normalise the script, after tolerating a brief flirtation with African social-democracy.
The playing out of this scenario, at the price of a tightened grip on the oppressed, strengthens the verdict that no social class other than the proletariat can represent their genuinely revolutionary interests and no shortcuts are available to liberation from imperialism from the difficult and demanding road of people’s war and the conscious struggle of the masses. [Source]
To avoid the outcome of overthrow by pro-French forces from within or an invasion by pro-French forces outside of it, Niger, like its regional allies, will have to “ally” and submit to a rival country’s imperialism. Almost immediately following its coup, signs of Russian imperialism’s interest were clearly visible across the country, and the days following it showed that Western imperialists’ reaction made Niger susceptible to Chinese imperialism, too:
“Some informal Russian sources claimed the coup leaders were associated with the Wagner mercenaries, alleging that Wagner supported the faction of Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane, which seized control of the presidency. The Russian military blogger Boris Rozhin reported that Wagner would soon receive an invitation from a ‘free’ Niger. According to reports of the Atlantic Council, the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, himself recently stated about expanding their presence in Africa. ‘Niger will probably move to the top of the list of countries where the Wagner Group of mercenaries will seek to expand, if Mohamed Bazoum resigns from the presidency’, another Yankee-think-tank wrote. Prigozhin described the developments as part of Niger’s fight against the ‘colonisers’. His comments were published at the moment when several hundred people gathered in Niamey and chanted support for Wagner while waving Russian flags. Wagner mercenaries are active in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso. Some coup supporters who ransacked and set fire to Niger’s ruling party headquarters in the capital, waved Russian flags as plumes of smoke billowed from the building.”
It is therefore not surprising that in the hours following the coup, Macron assembled a crisis unit. According to government leaks, he was very angry with the leaders of the DGSE (French secret services), who failed to anticipate the risk of a coup. Very quickly, war propaganda was set in motion, linking the Nigerien junta to Putin and the war in Ukraine to justify any future interventionist policy. Since then, the French president, thinking he is “master” of West Africa, has never ceased to show his fangs, and threatens Niger and its people with a military response in the event of “an attack against the interests of the France “. At the same time, the African Union, the European Union and the United States have announced future sanctions against the junta if it does not relinquish power, again, pushing the power towards to Russian or Chinese interests. [Source]
Therefore, in the event of any conflict in west Africa, the rival camps of capitalist-imperialism will most certainly get involved by exporting loan capital to their respective puppets, arming their militaries to ensure their sides win to secure valuable natural resources and labor-power. This will be yet another front of this intensifying inter-imperialist global conflict.
The military coup d’etat of July 26th in Niger, which deposed pro-French President Mohammad Bazoum, is part of the broader imperialist confrontation of the Western powers (USA, NATO, EU) with Russia and China. This time, the imperialist standoff is focused on the resource-rich region of Sahel, activating the decades-old political divisions in West Africa. Sahel, a vast region stretching from the west coast of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea to the coast of Eritrea in the Red Sea, has attracted the increasing interests of rival imperialist centers thus sharpening the their competition in recent decades.
Using the “fight against terrorism” as a pretext, the U.S. have launched a massive “anti-terrorist” programme since 2005, seeking to establish close collaboration with the military forces of the region’s countries. Similarly, the EU has spent more than 8 billion Euros during the last decade on so-called “counter-terrorism operations”. The same pretext of combating terrorism is also used by other competing imperialist powers in the broader region, such as Russia, China and Turkey, aiming to promote their own monopoly interests, with Russia and Turkey moving towards the establishment of closer military relations.
The mineral wealth of Sahel is enormous, as it includes large deposits of gold, copper, oil, natural gas, bauxite and uranium, which are exploited or overseen by various monopoly giants. Two-thirds of Mali’s exports are gold, while Niger is the world’s fourth largest producer of uranium and has significant deposits of oil, natural gas, lignite, phosphorus and gold. Even tiny Burkina Faso’s main export is gold, exploited by approximately 60 multinational companies.
It is certain that if the new, coup-generated government prevails in Niger and the French monopolies lose access to cheap uranium, the Chinese business giants will be significantly benefited. After all, in recent years China increased its influence in the country’s economy by financing and constructing large infrastructure projects, especially in the field of Energy (oil pipeline, exploitation projects of oil and uranium deposits, modern refinery, etc).
In any case, no matter the outcome of the coup, the price of imperialist competitions will be paid dearly by the working class people of Niger. The workers of Africa, men and women, have no interest to choose any of the two imperialist blocs that covet the mineral wealth of their nations. Only the struggle against all kinds of exploiters, against all kinds of imperialists and, most of all, against capitalism itself, can pave the way for a better future for the people of Niger and all Africa. [Source]
To sum up our position, we do not oppose the coup in Niger or in its allied countries from the perspective of the American, French, etc. financial bourgeoisie. We critically support those changes in the spirit of revolutionary defeatism, for we oppose our own bourgeoisie first and foremost. Nevertheless, we understand that this coup will not empower the people of Niger, and it will simply lead to a capitulation to imperialism in one way or another. Either the new government fails to cut off all imperialist ties with France, it succeeds in doing so and gets invaded by French allies, and/or it withstands those invasions with Russian and Chinese capitalist-imperialist support. The workers, peasants, and small and medium capitalists in Niger and other African countries need proletarian leaders in genuine communist parties that can truly fight imperialism, end feudalism, and push forward to socialism!
As revolutionaries in the French State, our duty is to fight any attempt by the French State to maintain or restore the colonial order. It does not matter the nature of the current Nigerien government, because the bloodbath provoked by France to “reinstate democracy” would only serve the interests of French imperialism, the latter being ready to reduce countries to ashes to defend its large groups. who have been plundering Africa for too long!
Down with imperialism!
Long live the struggle of the Oppressed People! [Source]