Niger - August 12, 2023

A preventive coup to control the irruption of the masses

On July 26, a coup overthrew President Bazoum, a Nigerian government openly servant of French imperialism and for that reason hated by the masses, who was arrested along with several ministers and members of his party. General Tiani of the presidential guard led the coup supported by a large part of the army. He proclaimed himself the new leader of the country with his National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP) and declared the suspension of the institutions, the closure of the borders and a night curfew. A few days later he broke the military agreements with France, but he maintains all the economic agreements.

The coup generals anticipate an independent irruption of masses against imperialist looting

This military coup was to control the masses and prevent them, inflamed with hatred, from clashing openly against imperialism and breaking out in revolutionary uprisings as we are seeing in Senegal or Kenya and before that in South Africa. The predisposition to the anti-imperialist struggle of the masses was seen the day after the coup, when thousands of exploited, taking advantage of the gaps left by the "division" of the Nigerien bourgeoisie, took to the streets of Niamey, the capital of Niger, demonstrating their hatred for years of over-exploitation, looting and plundering by France, a power that colonized them for decades until independence in 1960 and that steals all their uranium to feed their nuclear power plants. Such is the hatred towards French imperialism that thousands marched to the French embassy and tore off the nameplate and stomped on it.
That's why they hit. It is about a national bourgeoisie that poses as anti-imperialist, just as the “Bolivarians” did in Latin America, who, taking advantage of the imperialist crisis and the mass combat, negotiate to keep a few more coins than what imperialism loots.

The slaves in Niger who revolt against their colonialist masters in France raise the Russian flag with false illusions, believing that it will give them better treatment and better living conditions. Today, the governments of the African national bourgeoisie want to pass off the Wagner group and the Ukrainian butcher Putin as national liberation forces, using the fact that the former USSR collaborated with the revolutions for the independence of the African nations to the coming out of the second world war. When in reality it was precisely Stalinism and Maoism who sold out this anti-colonial struggle, setting up governments of the new black bourgeoisies.
Today, Putin and the mercenaries of the Wagner brigade are the ones who take care of the businesses of the transnationals of the French, US, British, etc. imperialist powers. as they do in Libya being guardians of British Petroleum. Russia's anti-imperialist pose is a verse, if in Syria they were the ones who massacred the revolution, doing imperialism's dirty work, and more than a year ago they invaded the oppressed Ukraine with blood and fire. Russia is not and will not be the liberator of any nation. She settled in Africa to carry out her arms sales business, since she has 40% of that market there.

The coup generals are the same ones who for decades controlled the masses and protected the looting and now want to abort the anti-imperialist struggle.
Just as in Latin America, the "Bolivarian revolution" spoke against "the empire", it spoke of the Latin American revolution but it did not touch any of the interest to imperialism, while it sold oil to US imperialism, it paid foreign debts to the IMF and they did big business with the European imperialist bourgeoisies. It is that these national bourgeoisies tremble before the uprisings of the masses because they certainly know that if they deepen their combat, they would also wipe out this cowardly bourgeoisie. For this reason, they fear the masses and their actions more than imperialism, which is why they run to negotiate with it and allow it to continue stealing all the wealth of the colonies and semi-colonies.

The imperialist crisis and the negotiations with its minor partners: the native bourgeoisies and their generals

The crisis in the metropolises and in France in particular is the one that has opened enormous gaps through which the millions of hungry people who enter the fight in their colonies in Africa and in their own territory slip through.
It is that the French imperialist bourgeoisie was left isolated and losing enormous businesses. And within it, it had to face the enormous struggle of the working class that, in a mass political struggle, fought against the pension reform and to overthrow Macron. In addition, the most exploited sector of the French working class, the working youth daughter of immigrants, who set fire to all of France before the murder of Nahel at the hands of the police, came out to an anti-imperialist combat. The same attack that is an inseparable part, brother to that of his brothers on the African continent who today rise up against their colonizers.

Now, they are in a big negotiation. France and its West African lackey governments move troops and threaten an invasion, while declaring, with their spokesperson the president of Nigeria and ECOWAS, that they want to exhaust diplomatic and negotiating stances first. The coup government of Niger declares that it does not give in and relies on the mobilized masses, controlling them, to negotiate. Burkina Faso and Mali do the same as the latter, taking into account that the masses expelled the French invasion troops there too.
However, it is not ruled out that imperialism promotes a fratricidal war to discipline the rebellious masses of the region and encourage their looting. Imperialism is thirsty for blood and profit and has already shown that it is capable of taking the lives of millions to obtain its precious resources. It has done it before in the Congo with Rwanda, to give just one example.

The working class and the poor peasants are the only ones who will be able to free Niger from the clutches of imperialism

They are the ones who can expropriate without payment and under workers' control the uranium and all the natural resources that the coup generals leave in the hands of imperialism. Imperialism must be kicked out! Down with all the pacts and agreements that bind the nation to its yoke! Expropriation without payment and place under workers' control all the imperialist transnationals!
The definitive break with the looting and the imperialist yoke will never come from the hand of these national bourgeoisies, who, moreover, for years served from the Niger army as guardians of the imperialist plunder. We already lived the experience of the anti-colonial wars of the entire African continent, aborted by Stalinism and the emergence of a black bourgeoisie that maintained imperialist looting and today millions of starving slaves have to risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean in order to at least get a job. We also lived the experience of Latin America with the Bolivarians and today a looted continent was left behind.

Enough of deception! For a free and sovereign National Assembly, with recallable delegates, 1 for every 100,000 inhabitants, with a single chamber that assumes executive, legislative and judicial functions, that breaks with imperialism and guarantees the land to the peasant. Never again fratricidal confrontations for the use of land promoted by imperialism! The land for the Nigerien people to guarantee food for all! The uranium for its true owners!
We must expropriate all the banks into a single national bank!

In order to achieve this, it is necessary to set up mining committees, companies, that are coordinated by city and at the national level. For committees of common soldiers who are truly on the side of the people and break with the officer caste, both with coup leaders who negotiate with imperialism and with their direct servants! It is necessary to arm the masses, for this reason let us set up worker and peasant militias to make the expulsion of imperialism a reality! Out with France! Get out the USA!
Out with all their military bases and those of the rest of the imperialist powers, from all of Africa!

Pan-Africanism has already failed, since it was a junior partner of the imperialists in the looting of our nations, they plunged black Africa into absolute hunger and misery. It is time for the working class and poor peasants to establish their own power, wrest it from this vassal bourgeoisie of imperialism, and impose a black worker and peasant republic.
Together with our brothers from Somalia, Senegal, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso etc. Let's set up a Federation of Black Republics of Central and South Africa!

James Sakala for the WIL Zimbabwe
Ana Negri, Luisa Campos and Leandro Hofstadter correspondents of the International Workers' Organizer

Niger's coup generals

Mobilization in front of the French military base in the capital of Niger

Mobilization against France in Nyamey