The military coups in Niger on July 26 and in Gabon on
August 30 of this year are the most recent in a series
that have swept through West Africa and the Sahel in recent years.
Western politicians and media condemned these violent government overthrows and call for the return of constitutionally elected presidents.
The African alliance ECOWAS, known as a Western ally, immediately expelled its member countries
after their coups and even threatened the new government in Niger with war.
This creates the impression that the ousted president had governed his people adequately
and that the people needed to be saved from the coup plotters.
However, the latter reacted to the coups in a completely different way.
In Niger, Gabon and also in Burkina
Faso, they cheer the military putschists and celebrate the ouster of the old rulers. How can this enthusiasm be explained?
It is striking that the last six African countries in
which the president was forcibly removed are former French colonies.
Although autonomous for over 60 years, they remain under the
military, financial and economic dictates of France to this day.
1. military:
France still has soldiers stationed in its colonies.
Together with the U.S., they influence the domestic military through training programs for African officers.
2. finances:
As former French colonies, Niger and Gabon are among the 14 West African states required by
France to surrender 85% of their foreign currency reserves and 100% of their gold reserves.
To this day, they must retain as currency the CFA francs [= West African franc] of the colonial era.
Its exchange rate is dictated by the French
central bank to the benefit of France:
In 1994, for example, the latter devalued the CFA franc overnight, causing exports from
the colonies to be worth only half and import prices to rise by 50%.
It is therefore not surprising that nine of the 14 CFA countries are among the poorest in the world despite their wealth of raw materials.
3rd economy:
The systematic economic exploitation and its consequences are brought up by MEP Martin Sonneborn as follows:
There is not a single active gold mine in France.
Nevertheless, this (formerly) criminal colonial state has the fourth largest gold reserves in the world at 2,436 tons.
The (former) French colony of Mali has exactly 0.0 tons of gold, although it has several dozen mines
(including 14 official ones) in the country, where a full 70 tons of it are mined per year.
Of the revenue from nearly 60 tons of gold mined by (an estimated)
600,000 children in the (former) French colony of Burkina Faso, only 10% goes
to the country, but 90% goes to multinational gold mining corporations. [ ...
] The (former) French colony of Niger has the highest-grade uranium ores in Africa
and is the seventh-largest uranium producer in the world, but according to the World
Bank, 81.4% of its citizens are not even connected to the electricity grid.
40% live below the poverty line, one-third of children are underweight, and the illiteracy rate is 63%.
Only half of the inhabitants have access to clean drinking water, and only 16% are connected to adequate sanitation. [ ... ]
How can Africa, which has so much wealth, have become the poorest continent in the world?
According to Sonneborn, political scientist Michael Parenti has a very simple
answer to this question: Poor countries are not 'underdeveloped' but 'over-exploited'.
From this perspective, the recent coups appear to be an overdue attempt
by Africa to free itself from the system of exploitation and oppression.
The new head of state of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, describes the eight years
before the 2022 coup as the most barbaric, violent form of imperial neo-colonialism.
At the African Summit in St. Petersburg in July, Traoré appealed to
all representatives of African states to free the continent from this system.
He said, "The problem is the African heads of state who contribute nothing to
the struggle of the people and even play the same tune as the imperialists.
They call us militias, men who do not respect human rights. What human rights are they talking about?
[...] We African heads of state must stop behaving like
puppets who jump every time the imperialists pull the strings.
But why haven't the African states freed themselves from this system
long ago? Are their presidents really just puppets of Western interests?
Looking at the recent past, former African Union representative to
the U.S., Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao, states that those leaders who
tried to achieve the best for their people were assassinated.
Before a president even comes to power, there are taboos for him:
The military, the finances, the mineral resources.
He must not touch these, because if he does, he might not survive the day.
As long as he avoids these areas, he is allowed to govern as he pleases.
Dear viewers, isn't it a mockery when Western politicians and media talk
about preserving constitutional order, when in reality they mean only those presidents
who stand idly by and watch their countries being sold off?
Against this background, doesn't the call for the reinstatement of the Nigerien president appear in a completely different light?
By what right does the West African confederation ECOWAS, which threatened Niger with war immediately after the coup,
demand the maintenance of a constitutional order that does not provide for a dignified life for its inhabitants?
Obviously, this is not about the protection of democracy, with which Western countries
constantly justify their unscrupulous actions, but about hard-core economic and power politics, for
which ECOWAS as well as Western politicians and media have corrupted themselves.
Therefore, we are all called upon to no longer accept this blatant double standard. It is high time for an independent international people's court to emerge to ensure justice and hold the responsible wrongdoers accountable.