Niger: a Sahel country bumping along (catch all)

[Jedburgh]

MICROCON, 21 Dec 09: Circumstantial Alliances and Loose Loyalties in Rebellion Making: The Case of Tuareg Insurgency in Northern Niger (2007-2009)

The goal of this paper is to specify the nature of the Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice (MNJ) as a non-state armed organisation and to make sense of its shaky existence since its inception, almost three years ago, with a particular focus on the period that made the MNJ a serious political and military opponent to the government. Our argument is that circumstantial alliances and percolation of grievances provoked by local micro-political dynamics and long-standing disenfranchisement of some sections of the Tuareg youth permitted the movement to take off as a credible rebel group. Ultimately, we want to verify if existing analytical tools made available by the theoretical literature on non-state armed groups are adequate to make sense of the MNJ’s organisational trajectory, particularly considering Jeremy Weinstein’s seminal book “Inside Rebellion” (Weinstein, 2006). By putting too much emphasis on “initial conditions”, Weinstein’s model, we argue, fails to properly acknowledge the micro-social dynamics that shape armed groups and their erratic trajectory, and we stress the need to investigate what armed organizations are sociologically made of rather than bluntly postulating their existence.

[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