Eleven West African nations have agreed to commit troops to a military deployment aimed at restoring Niger’s democratically elected president following last month’s coup, an official for the regional bloc said Friday after a defense ministers meeting.
Hope they have a swift victory. No democracy is secure when someone can seize power without repercussions.
Unfortunately, Mali and Burkina Faso (other military dictatorships in the area) said they would also get involved and back Niger’s new military regime. If anything happens, it’ll probably escalate into a regional war.
Why did the coup occur? Do the citizens of Niger support the coup?
It has been reported that the Wagner group (Russia) supported the coup in some way. Russia does have an interest in getting African nations to support them instead of the West, so it would make sense.
I could be wrong because I’m definitely not an expert here, but I don’t think Wagner has been shown to be involved yet. The junta has asked for Wagner’s help and Wagner has been active in several neighbouring countries, so they’re absolutely not a million miles away, but it looks like the actual coup happened without them
While Russia has an interest in weakening the regional power, France, Wagner doesn’t appear to be involved.
The ousted President was going to fire the chief of the military and the Chief moved first.
If the citizens supported getting the president out, why not vote for it? Coups in democracies are almost always the instrument of those who cannot win elections.
Here is a pretty good breakdown about the situation.
I hope they succeed. Unfortunately, the people of Niger will suffer either way, but hopefully they will suffer less if the war is quick.
