the ECOWAS delegation leaves without having met the head of the junta

On the night of Thursday August 3 to Friday August 4, a delegation from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) left Niger after having “proposals to end the crisis” to the junta, in power in the country since its coup and the ousting of the elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, on July 26.

Although the emissaries did not meet the leader of the junta, General Abdourahamane Tiani, nor the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, they spoke at the airport with military coup leaders, according to the Nigerien government daily. The Sahel. Everything indicates, according to a spokesperson for the delegation, that the July 26 putsch “was very improvised in nature” and it is not certain that the junta “can count on the lasting support of the population”.

On July 30, ECOWAS, which imposed heavy sanctions on Niamey, gave the putschists until Sunday to restore the president, Mohamed Bazoum, to his duties, under penalty of using ” strength “.

Events

A meeting of chiefs of staff of the economic community must end in parallel on Friday afternoon in Abuja, Nigeria, while several West African armies, including that of Senegal, say they are ready to send soldiers if a military intervention was decided.

“It is unlikely that the intervention of extra-regional forces can improve the situation”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow, while calling on the “rapid return to constitutional order” in Niger.

The German government called on him on Friday to continue the “mediation efforts” to find a political solution and to avoid any armed intervention. For Berlin, it seems that the negotiation process is only“at its beginning”.

Friday morning, a hundred demonstrators from several West African countries gathered in Niamey to protest against any military intervention in Niger. In the west of the country, in Tahoua, a competing demonstration brought together hundreds of people “to provide unwavering support to the President of the Republic, Mohamed Bazoum, and to demand his unconditional release”according to a local journalist on the spot.

The putschists, who promised a “immediate response” To “any aggression” from an ECOWAS country, have also announced the lifting of the curfew in place since July 26.

Cooperation agreements with France denounced

Late Thursday, the putschists denounced “cooperation agreements in the field of security and defense with France”, a former colonial power, whose military contingent of 1,500 soldiers is deployed in Niger for the fight against terrorism in this country undermined by jihadist violence. Paris said on Friday that only “the legitimate Nigerien authorities” had the power to renege on these agreements. These authorities “are the only ones that France, like the entire international community, recognizes”underlined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In addition to the denunciation of the military agreements, the Nigerien ambassador in Paris was sacked by the putschists, as were the representatives of Niger in the United States, Togo and Nigeria. The diplomat, Kané Aïchatou Boulama, told Agence France-Presse on Friday “to be always” the ambassador “of the legitimate president, Mohamed Bazoum”adding that she rejected “as null and void” the decision of the putschists.

President Bazoum, detained with his family since the day of the putsch in the presidential residence, spoke Thursday, in a column published by the American daily washington post. He warned of the consequences “devastating” of the coup for the world and the Sahel, which could pass, according to him, under the” influence “ of Russia through the Wagner Group. “I call on the US government and the entire international community to help restore constitutional order”he writes, “as a hostage”in this statement.

On Thursday, the programs of Radio France internationale (RFI) and the news television channel France 24 were interrupted in Niger, “a decision taken outside any conventional and legal framework”, according to the parent company of the two media, France Médias Monde. France condemned “very firmly” this decision, as well as the European Union on Friday morning. RFI and France 24 are already suspended in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, where the ruling Niger military sent delegations on Wednesday.

Incidents on Sunday during a demonstration in front of the French embassy in Niamey led to the evacuation on Tuesday and Wednesday of 577 French people. On Friday morning, a Spanish Air Force military plane landed in Niamey, to evacuate Spanish nationals – estimated at around 70 – wishing to leave Niger, according to Madrid. The United States, one of Niger’s main partners with France, has for its part chartered a plane to get its non-essential personnel out of the country, and the American President, Joe Biden, has called “to the immediate release of the president [nigérien, Mohamed] Boom”.