Joachim Hagopian, The Niger Crisis – Africa’s Next ‘Ukraine’ or Africa’s Rejection of Western Neocolonialism

Joachim Hagopian

Major changes within the last month are sweeping through the geopolitical landscape worldwide. Even the West is now braced for Ukraine’s defeat against Russia. Western national economies are all failing, undergoing a perilous backslide into emerging economic depression, ultimate collapse of Western civilization and crumbling of the centralized banking infrastructure. Meanwhile, amidst this political and economic shakedown, the rising challenge of the multipolar world is destined to crush US unipolar dominance and hegemony as the international power dynamics radically shifts from West to East.

Within the context of unfolding events within Africa, remnant chains of neocolonialism are finally being broken by the economic and political alliances made with the emerging Eastern powers Russia, China and Iran. This geopolitical analysis examines ongoing developments representing today’s rapidly changing dynamics moving away from the unipolar to the multipolar world where the world nation majority of the Global South is embracing its strategic realignment with the multipolar Eastern powers.

At nearly twice the size of Texas, the landlocked sub-Saharan West African nation of Niger is the sixth largest country in Africa and ranks 22^nd largest in the world. Niger is located in the Sahel region of Africa, a geographic strip across the African continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, lying south of the Sahara Desert and north of the Sudanian savannah.

On July 26, 2023, the head of Niger’s presidential guard, General Abdourahmane Tchiani led a military coup overthrowing its elected leader in 2021, 63-year old President Mohamed Bazoum. Two days later, General Tchiani proclaimed himself to be “president of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland.” Niger is a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) along with 14 other regional neighboring countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. On Sunday July 30^th, ECOWAS demanded that the ousted Nigerien President Bazoum be returned to power by an August 6^th deadline, or face possible military intervention by ECOWAS.

A week after the deadline expired, it now appears that the ECOWAS threat was merely a bluff. With West Africa’s strongest regional bloc supported by both France and the US, it optically now looks weak with no action taken in the face of growing domestic junta support. Thus, on Thursday August 10^th the regional organization feebly ordered “activation” and “deployment” of a standby force ostensibly to restore constitutional order in Niger. This coup’s essence is a rejection of France and Western neocolonialist control over Africa. In predictable response, France and the European Union immediately suspended their security cooperation and financial aid to Niger.

All these latest developments come after deputy US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s visit to Niger last Monday August 7^th proved futile in changing the minds of the now ruling military junta. Zionist neocon war-making regime changer Nuland last month received a promotion as now second in command of all US foreign policy, and her one-day African trip was clearly intended to intimidate Niger’s new defense chief and his three commandos that she met with. But Nuland’s strongarm tactics delivering threats and warning Niger’s new government to not dare align itself with the Russian mercenary group Wagner, apparently fell on deaf ears.

In response to Niger’s junta threatened by the ECOWAS invasion last weekend, the newly formed Niger government requested assistance from Russia’s battletested mercenary Wagner Group. Its ever the opportunist leader Evgeny Prigozhin told media via the phone on Tuesday August 8^th:

I am proud of the boys from Wagner. Just the thought of them makes ISIS and Al Qaeda small, obedient, silky boys. And the US has recognized a government that it did not recognize yesterday just to avoid meeting the Wagner PMC in the country. This brings joy, Mrs. Nuland.

Victoria Nuland had requested that she meet with deposed president Bazoum as well as General Tchiani but was refused and instead met with General Tchiani’s substitutes. The snubbed Nuland remarked:

I was denied a meeting with President Bazoum, who was removed from power, and with General Tchiani. Tchiani refused me entry.

Speaking to Reuters afterwards, Nuland summarized her failed meeting:

These conversations were extremely frank and at times quite difficult, because, again, we’re pushing for a negotiated solution. It was not easy to get traction there. They are quite firm in their view of how they want to proceed, and it does not comport with the Constitution of Niger.

According to a Tuesday August 8^th warnews247 article, Victoria Nuland greenlit a 25,000-man ECOWAS army on standby to invade Niger, per French sources. As a result, preparing for the planned invasion, Niger’s armed forces are fortifying its capital Niamey and securing the Niamey Airport. The French radio station RFI reported that the ECOWAS army of 25,000 is planning to invade Niger, no doubt with full backing by US, France and EU. According to an Associated Press article released on Friday August 11^th , Niger’s ruling junta told Nuland if ECOWAS does militarily intervene to try and restore to power the deposed leader currently on house arrest, the junta will kill him first.

Meanwhile, it appears that in recent weeks since the July 26^th coup, a majority of Niger citizens view the government change as a welcome opportunity to finally move away from the neocolonialist policies of the past. Niger’s junta isn’t the only group looking to Russia for support. According to The Economist, 60% of Nigeriens surveyed, view Russia as their country’s most reliable foreign partner.

While the Western media narrative always following the same mono-script contends that Islamic State and al Qaeda terrorists that the US, Israel and oil-rich Gulf States historically created, trained and financed for decades, pose greater risk now amidst this regional instability to usurp power in Niger. That makes no sense when the ruling junta specifically requested military assistance from Russia’s veteran fighters in the Wagner Group with a proven track record opposing Islamic terrorists in Syria, Chechnya and Africa. So, the jihadist terrorist threat raised by Western media hype appears yet more deceptive propaganda.

Only a few months ago in March 2023, for the first time in history, a US Secretary of State in Antony Blinken visited Niger, pledging $150 million in aid, paying high homage to Bazoum as his Great Black Hope in Africa. After all, with four coups in Niger since its 1960 independence, Mohamed Bazoum was seen among a dwindling number of pro-Western leaders in Africa, i.e., a neocolonialist lackey eager to do the bidding of his imperialistic masters. That’s why the Niger citizen majority welcomed this coup, tired of the same old neocolonialist vassal in charge that allows their resource-rich nation to be plundered by Western interests.

Additionally for this very same reason, the Niger people have been demanding that imperialist France leave their country entirely. Yet since the coup, the 1,200 French troops stationed in Niger are refusing to leave, primarily because 70% of France’s total energy supply depends on nuclear power from its ex-colony Niger as the world’s fourth largest uranium producer. Richly endowed in uranium ores, Niger produced 2,020 metric tons of uranium in 2022, about 5% of the world mining output. For years France has been fleecing Niger for its pure uranium ores as its main nuclear energy source.

Meanwhile, Africa provides so much in the way of raw materials and energy for its former colonialist European powers yet it has constantly struggled to keep the lights on and especially in rural Africa the standard of living has only made marginal improvements. Mounting justified resentment has been building throughout Africa blaming the former colonial West for the resource-rich continent’s rising insecurity, insufficient progress in its critical infrastructure and resulting impoverishment.

Aljazeera on Wednesday August 9^th reported that Niger coup leaders are accusing France of violating and bombing its airspace and additionally “unilaterally freeing captured terrorists.” As one of the poorest areas in Africa, the Sahel region in recent years has fallen prey as a hotbed for jihadist terrorist groups affiliated with ISIS and al Qaeda.

With a coup last year in nearby Burkina Faso and Mali the year before, both former French colonies, France was forced to withdraw its troops from those nations, mostly redeploying them in Niger. Both Burkina Faso and Mali have pledged to fight on the side of Niger against ECOWAS and/or Western military. French and American intelligence services are also becoming more actively involved in neighboring Nigeria and Libya, particularly since the African continent is clearly increasing its ties with both Russia and China. ECOWAS met on Thursday August 10^th after their proclaimed Sunday deadline, to reinstate Niger’s prior president, Mohamed Bazoum, defied by the junta. As is typical, Western media is already throwing its slings and arrows accusing Russian “meddling has spiked” in the last couple weeks since the coup.

The mounting political volatility in Niger could easily and quickly deteriorate into another bloody West versus Russia Ukraine situation inside the heart of sub-Saharan Africa. With the second in charge attempting to  throw her weight around Niger earlier this week, Vickie Nulander didn’t get very far, describing her Niger sit-down on Monday as a “difficult,” meaning the Niger defense chief and his three commandos were not falling for her threats nor her intimidation tactics she is no doubt infamous for, despite the US maintaining 1,100 soldiers already stationed at four US military outposts in Niger. Because the new regime has closed off Niger’s airspace, the US $110 million drone airbase built in 2019 is currently inoperable.

Since beating up on Russia is an impossibility, the bullying witch of the West Nuland may resort to deploying those 1,100 troops alongside the 25,000 ECOWAS force in yet another of her attempted US coups, aka 2014 in Kiev. But with the world watching her current failure in Ukraine, another botched move in Africa risks only weakening the US paper tiger before the world even more. And with optics everything these days, DC war mongers cannot afford another failure with US power around the globe growing weaker and rest of the world smelling blood in its unipolar demise.

On Thursday August 10^th, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken chimed in:

We echo the ECOWAS condemnation of the illegal detention of President Mohamed Bazoum, his family, and members of the government, as well as the unacceptable conditions under which they are being held, and call for their immediate release.

In another current clash between an African nation reacting to the World Bank’s coercion tactics, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni responded:

They really underestimate all Africans. We do not need pressure from anybody to know how to solve problems in our society. They are our problems.

Museveni’s remark comes after the World Bank threatened to not issue any more loans to Uganda because it passed an anti-gay law in May. The woke, promiscuous, degenerate Western world invariably, selfishly assumes that the rest of the planet must adhere to its particular values and morays, or suffer the imposed grave negative consequences. Yes, from my POV, the Ugandan law carrying a 20-year prison sentence for promoting homosexuality or a death penalty for certain lewd homosexual acts is extreme and unjust a punishment.

But nations possessing far more conservative cultures, religions and values have every right and reason to resist West’s heavy-handed threats. Cultures of the East and Global South generally uphold far more conservative values, especially regarding the traditional family unit as a social institutional bedrock. Thus, it’s understandable with growing defiance they are rejecting Western world’s open decadence, sexual confusion, utter moral chaos and insanity afflicting the West’s Sodom and Gomorrah lifestyle. Last month Putin just banned the transgender movement in Russia. The non-Western world reactively ensures that their nations and cultures do not fall prey, following this same destructive path. Today they are now finally bold enough to stand up to the bullying, openly rejecting uninvited pressures and overt manipulative coercion to comply with Western demands.

In contrast with the West, it was only a few days ago that Putin hosted his African nation summit, promising a supply of much needed grain, debt write-offs and economic support. Many African leaders are busily aligning with China and Russia, away from untrustworthy US/West that historically steals Africa and Third World’s precious resources, not to mention the West’s brutal legacy of imperialism. Again, as the West fades, crumbling and grumbling into the sunset, Global South nations are actively seeking alliances with the Eastern powers in their emerging multipolar world.

Now we are just day away from the world attention focusing on Johannesburg, South Africa while it hosts the all-important BRICS summit August 22-24. With over 40 nations clamoring to join this rising economic alliance, already containing the global population majority and one-third of the global GDP surpassing the G7, BRICS will soon be releasing its own gold backed currency ostensibly to replace the soon-to-be deposed king US dollar as international reserve trade currency. This imminent event is just one more ominous sign that Western civilization is in a crumbling state of freefall collapse, in stark contrast with the Russia-China led Global South multipolar world majority.

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down,” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.

The experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point the current diabolical pandemic hoax and genocide. As an independent journalist for the last decade, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, like Global Research, lewrockwell.com and currently https://jameshfetzer.org. As a published bestselling author on Amazon of a 5-book volume series entitled Pedophilia & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State, his A-Z sourcebook series exposes the global pedophilia scourge is available free at https://pedoempire.org/contents/. Joachim also hosts the Revolution Radio weekly broadcast “Cabal Empire Exposed,” every Friday morning at 6AM EST (ID: revradio, password: rocks!).

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