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Niger: Did the coup sink the AREVA deal? No.

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I.S. Gaoh of LE TEMOIN argues that the just announced scaling back of Areva's Imouraren mine schedule shows that backers of the coup (Hama Amadou?) were part of an agreement that AREVA would get a better uranium deal if Tandja was overthrown. This is built on the false assumption that what Tandja said about his deal was accurate, that it was some sort of hardball defense of Niger's interests (a portion of the ore to be sold on the market by Niger, more Nigerien staff). When in fact, the real hardball was likely more cash upfront to Tandja, on top of the 1.2 billion Euros upfront announced. Since the details are not public, we'll never know, unless the CSRD releases them, as they are unlikely to do. This would embarrass Areva (ergo, the French government) and likely mean Niger would have to repay the money Tandja took.

Gaoh then says that the junta must break the deal now, and go after China or other neocolonial patrons to break France's grip before the next (corrupt) government.

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Mali: Release of two of five AQIM hostages

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Philomena Kabour, the Burkina-Italian wife of Sergio Cicala, kidnapped near in Mauritania was released, along with Alicia Gamez, one of three Catalan aid workers kidnapped north of Nouakchott. All appear to have been taken to a AQIM camp in the remote Saharan north of Mali. Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta (the Catalans kidnapped November 29) and Cicala (kidnapped December 18) remain hostage. There is no word on what was exchanged. Burkina authorities were the intermediaries for Kabour's release.

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Mali: ‘Bandits’ attack truck on Gao – Ansago road

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Unidentified armed men attacked a truck carrying goods and passengers on the Niger river road from Gao to Ansago on Monday. The truck’s driver was killed, several wounded, and the bandits made off with cash and property. This was somewhere between 100 and 200 km west northwest of the attack on a Nigerien military post that same morning, and more than 300 km south of the carjacking of two aid workers near Kidal last week. See my comments on the carjacking for a summary of what I think is going on (short answer guns + poverty + demobed insurgency + corruption = crime). Please leave your Bin Laden fantasies at the door.

Follow up: (2010-03-13)

An anonymous commentator on the Kidal.info message board poses these details: “The attack is locally attributed to Peul individuals. The truck is owned by Ely Ould Hennoun an Arab trader who resides in Bamako. A young Arab died (the driver) and a Tuareg who accompanied him was seriously wounded in the head. … The killers stole two Thuraya satellite phones and the small sum of about 25,000 FCFA [~ 38 Euros]… This at the cost of two lives.”

I haven’t the vaguest clue if the ethnic insinuations are true, and it would be sad should the Gao-ites be overly concerned about ethnic identity in this sort of crime. But it speaks to the general insecurity and the desperate straits of northern Mali, that someone would kill for a handful of goods. It certainly doesn’t suggest that everyone there is flush with drug money.

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Niger: Military post raided on Mali border

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Reports are coming in of an attack by unknown assailants on the army post at Tiloa, a village around 12km from the Malian border. Several soldiers were killed. North of the more inhabited Zarmaganda plateau, Tiola is a tiny stop in the desert north of Tondikiwindi rural commune, Ouallam Department, Tillabéri Region. This is the same area in which Nigerien forces clashed with alleged AQIM members last year after a Saudi hunting party was attacked. It is west southwest of where tourists were kidnapped (likely by AQIM themselves) before that, including one Briton who was murdered. More prosaically, this area, just north of sedentary agriculture ends, is a prime smuggling location and an east-west transit route of Tuareg and Arab nomads between Gao and the Air mountains. It is also 20-30 km north of an area plagued by recurring conflict between sedentary and nomadic communities that goes back to before the 19th century.

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Togo: Oppostion promises “popular uprising”

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Protestors confront police in Lome, Togo

The headlines from Lome, Togo are tension inducing. For Togolese or those with family there, it must be excruciating. It appears that President and dictator's son Fauré Gnassingbé has been elected, while the main opposition leader vowed struggle: “We will launch a popular uprising until victory is ours.”

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Niger: Canadian gold company reporting two new strikes

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The Canadian run Samira Hill mine near the Niger/Burkina border reports two new expansions. Pres. Tandja received the first gold bar in 07, and apparently signed big deals in 2009, of which this is fruition. SEMAFO CEO Benoit La Salle: "The Samira Horizon remains an important mining district for SEMAFO, hence our decision earlier this year to proceed with a two-year $6,000,000 exploration program on the property…. We are encouraged by these new discoveries at Samira Hill, the results of which may become part of our reserves and resources base and ultimately extend mine life. We believe that our continued exploration programs to fully define the property will ultimately benefit from existing infrastructures and contribute to increase value for our shareholders." It would be interesting to see the full contracts signed with the Tandja government, and where that cash went, and to see if any went to protect the nearby W Transboundry Park from the arsenic pools used to process ore.

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Niger: Mining protestors squat French hq in Niamey

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A Dakar based corespondent for Kenya's Nation paper reports says that Nigerien activists have set up camp at French government uranium miners AREVA's Niamey offices. There is as of yet no independent confirmation of this, or if they are occupying the offices. The name given in the report is "Areva ne fera pas la loi au Niger" ("Aveva is not the law of Niger") This same slogan is used by Tuareg activists of the Tchinaghen collective of Agadez, as well as French anti-neocolonial campaigners Suivre. Activists have long tried to draw attention to the horrible radioactive pollution, the awful working conditions, and the neocolonial exploitation of the huge open pit mines in the Arlit area of the Nigerien Sahara. These provide %40 of the fuel for France's nuclear power industry, upon which they are dependent for electricity. See http://www.tchinaghen.org/ http://areva.niger.free.fr/ http://www.survie-paris.org/

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Togo:A foregone conclusion

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Togo is holding a presidential election today. Success, according to the international community, will be if the army does not butcher voters and soldiers are not photographed running from polling stations with voting boxes under their arms. While these may seem low standards, that was the 2005 election, in which Faure Gnassingbé the son of a 22 year dictator, was jobbed into power by the army after his father's death, and thousands fled the country. Today's outcome is foregone. The main opposition candidate, son of the first President of Togo whom Faure's father murdered, was excluded from running. A relative unknown, Jean Pierre Fabre, was chosen in his stead, rumored to have been pushed by the government itself. While the ruling RPT is divided too (Faure's brother, Kpatcha had much party support before being arrested in 2009), this is a single round election facing five members of what one candidate himself called the "most stupid and criminal opposition in the sub-region."

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Niger: Tandja’s spymaster’s wasted funds

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"Norbert" in Niamey's "Le Courrier" paper has interesting piece on the ineffectiveness of Tandja's Interior Minister Abouba Albadé. Albadé, a Tandja-ist of the first water served briefly as PM and importantly headed up the police and internal paramiltary (FNIS) services. He was one of the men most associated with Tandja's power grab. While the author refers to Albadé's well funded "Gestapo", the fall of the President suggests those funds may have gone somewhere other than for intelligence. Le Courrier repeats rumors that Albadé was getting 120,000 Euros a year directly from Tandja. When PM Ali Gamatie (on whom the writer hangs the Hausa slur "Bak'in Bature" : essentially "an Uncle Tom") tried to cut the funds, Albadé went over his head to keep them. The piece ends with a bizarrely obscure Diderot quote from his 1769 harangue against Frederick II ("Pages contre un tyran"), saying that when power praise "truth" while lying, people may only yearn for truth even more. True?

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