Niger: a Sahel country bumping along (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

Cross refer for some background on today's post to the thread 'Gaddafi's sub-Saharan mercenaries':http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=12565

The BBC News reports:

Fighters of the ousted Libyan regime, ethnic Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants operate in the remote region. Some Tuaregs fought on the side of the late Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi during this year's conflict in Libya.,,and "guided by Malian Tuaregs".

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15654572

[davidbfpo]

As attention is focussed on Mali along comes the BBC with this report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17506421

For once governance may not be a problem:

Niger has suddenly emerged, after a coup in 2010, as a welcome and unexpected exception in a rough neighbourhood. The new, democratic government was quick to detect the first signs that this year's food crisis would be particularly severe.

I am always wary of reading this:

it is shocking to note the complete absence of men

Death, emigration to work and more can account for this. So can the presence of the media and having gone to fight - shades of Somalia too.

Niger has its own Tuareg's (as reported in previous Posts).

[KingJaja]

Many of their men are in Nigeria, seeking better opportunities and sending money back home. I can attest to that - my gate man and my brother's former gate man are both from Niger.

[davidbfpo]

A BBC report a month old which I missed, which covers several factors, but this is different:

....former rebels have been integrated into government - the new prime minister appointed in April 2011 is a Tuareg, as are most of the local officials in Agadez.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17192212

[davidbfpo]

A backgrounder 'Letter from Niamey' by Andrew Lebovich, who was in country in May 2013, which starts with:

The shifting focus on Niger as a Western partner for counter-terrorism should not blind the European Union, France, and the United States to the West African nation's governance and reform deficits. Internal militant unrest, trafficking and other criminal enterprises, and weak, corrupt rule all threaten Niger’s tenuous stability.

He ends:

In Mali, systemic domestic problems from government corruption to intercommunal rivalries among the military and the ranks of armed rebels fractured its political structure and grievously weakened the state more than terrorist attacks could. In Niger, it appears that similar warning signs are being ignored. For the United States, France, and other European powers, stabilizing Niger’s government and maintaining its security cooperation trumps everything else. Although the onus is on Niger’s government to reform itself, outside powers must make sure such steps are implemented as promised. Western governments set on hunting down Islamist militants cannot ignore impending threats to Niger’s stability that fall outside their narrow focus on counterterrorism.

Link:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/featur...iger?page=show

[davidbfpo]

The last post was in August 2013 and events around Niger have changed somewhat, notably in Nigeria. So this commentary from RUSI is welcome; which starts with:

The country faces a problematic security environment and must urgently address social, economic and governance challenges. Niger sits at the crossroads of a huge area where state actors have limited control. The region is home to a toxic blend of insurgencies, ethnic militias, drug traffickers, smugglers and violent extremist groups. The upper Sahel is nevertheless far from being ungoverned. There are complex layers of political economic and geopolitical forces at play: socio-ethnic kinship; migration; and informal trade in particular create powerful cross-border links.

Link:https://rusi.org/commentary/niger-an...xtremism-sahel



The map is from:By OCHA, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32649461