Two Francophone African States in Trouble

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

In tropical Africa the French domain was larger than that of any other power, extending from southern Algeria to the Congo, and east to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. 

The African populations in French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa had the legal status of subjects and did not enjoy political and civil rights. 

They had to endure forced labour, imprisonment without trial, and taxation without representation. Autocratic colonial rule did little to build a democratic culture.

They all attained independence, starting in 1958, but most remain economically poor and saddled with weak political institutions.

Mali is somewhat better known to Canadians of late, because of Ottawa’s decision to participate in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in that torn country. Two of its francophone neighbours fare little better.

In next-door Niger, thousands of protesters descended on Niamey, the capital, in March, to denounce a new finance law they deemed “anti-social” for imposing taxes that they feared would raise living costs for citizens, while subsidizing the country’s utilities companies. 

Since October, opponents and supporters of the law have taken to the streets over the issue. Such grievances had already led to uprisings that precipitated a 2010 coup against President Mamadou Tandja.

The authorities have now imprisoned activists, journalists and opposition leaders for allegedly inciting rebellion.  Some have now been killed by the security forces of President Mahamadou Issoufou, who was elected in 2011.

He won a second term in 2016 through elections that U.S. and European officials declared free and fair despite numerous irregularities. Presidential contender Hama Amadou, for example, was seized on charges of baby trafficking. An opposition boycott followed.

As in Mali, the Tuareg ethnic group has periodically rebelled against the central government in response to political and economic marginalization.

But Issoufou needn’t worry, because he is propped up by both the United States and the European Union. Washington uses Niger as a base for counter-terrorism activities against Islamist terrorists in the Sahel region – four American soldiers were killed in Niger last October. 

And the EU needs him block migration from the northern Nigerien city of Agadez, as it is a gateway to the Sahara, Libya, the Mediterranean and, ultimately, to Europe. 

In 2016, therefore, the EU increased its economic aid to Niger, with a $635 million package, in return for Issoufou keeping a lid on migration.

Things are far worse in the misnamed Central African Republic, where years of rebellion, mismanagement and sectarian violence have left President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s government unable to exert much authority beyond the capital, Bangui. 

More than a dozen armed groups and a local militias control about 80 per cent of the country. At least 600,000 people have been uprooted from their homes, and another half-million have fled into Chad and Cameroun.

Today’s internal wars stem from the nationwide outbreak of armed conflict in 2013, when the predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power and primarily Christian militias known as anti-Balaka fought back. 

A United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSCA) deployed about 10,050 military peacekeepers and 2,000 police across parts of the country in 2014, but has struggled to establish security and protect civilians. 

In fact the crisis has since intensified since the Seleka alliance, which lacks a unified hierarchy, has disintegrated into competing factions. 

The Union for Peace in the Central African Republic, a Seleka faction, has carried out some of the worst attacks. Fighters from the Central African Patriotic Movement, another Seleka faction,  have also been implicated in massacres.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) and a Special Criminal Court continue to investigate crimes committed in the country. Last October UN officials raised alarms about “early warning signs of genocide.”

Some analysts have referred to the Central African Republic as, not just a failed state, but a “phantom” state.