Allies of Niger’s president ask U.S. and others to save his life
After nearly three weeks of appealing to the United States and other allies to help restore Niger’s president to power, friends and supporters of the democratically elected leader are now making a simpler plea: save his life.
President Mohamed Bazoum, leader of the only remaining Western-allied democracy in a vast expanse of Africa’s Sahara and Sahel, is confined with his family in a dark basement of his presidential compound, without food supplies, electricity or cooking gas on orders from the junta that overthrew him, Niger’s ambassador to the United States told The Associated Press.
“They are killing him,” denounced Ambassador Mamadou Kiari Liman-Tinguiri, a close associate who holds daily telephone conversations with the detained leader. The two have been colleagues for three decades, since the 63-year-old president was a young philosophy professor, a teachers’ union leader and a democracy advocate noted for his eloquence.
“The junta chief’s plan is to starve him to death,” Liman-Tinguiri told the AP in one of his first interviews since mutinous soldiers allegedly cut off food deliveries to the president, his wife and 20-year-old son nearly a week ago.
“This is inhumane, and the world should not tolerate that,” the ambassador added. “It cannot be tolerated in 2023.”
On Saturday, the president’s captors allowed a doctor to visit the family for the first time and brought some food, a presidential aide told the AP. The adviser, who was not authorized to make statements and spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to give details.
Bazoum is confined to the dark basement, the ambassador said. He answers the phone when a call comes in from a friend or someone else he wants to talk to. The president and his ambassador, whom board members have declared unemployed, speak once or more a day.
Bazoum has not been seen in public since July 26, when military vehicles blocked the gates of the presidential palace and security forces announced they would seize power. It is not possible to independently determine the president’s circumstances. The United States, the United Nations and others have repeatedly expressed concern over what they called the deteriorating conditions in Bazoum’s detention, and warned the junta that they would hold it responsible for the well-being of Bazoum and his family.
Separately, Human Rights Watch reported on Friday that it had spoken directly with the detained president and others in his circle, and received similar accounts of mistreatment.
However, Insa Garba Saidou, an activist who supports Niger’s new military rulers in his statements, said the reports of the president’s dire condition were false. Saidou maintained that he was in contact with some members of the junta, but did not explain how he was aware of the president’s condition.
“Bazoum was lucky they didn’t take him anywhere,” Saidou declared. “They left him in his palace with his phone. Those who did that have no intention of hurting Bazoum.”
Niger’s military coup and the plight of its ousted ruler have attracted worldwide attention, but not because such turmoil is unusual in West Africa. Niger alone has had some six coups since independence in 1960. Niger’s rulers have suffered in previous coups, most notably in 1999, when an army-installed leader was assassinated by the same presidential guard unit that instigated the current coup.
Niger’s return to coups by disgruntled military officers is reverberating in the United States and internationally for two key reasons: one is that Bazoum came to power in a rare democratic presidential election in Africa’s volatile Sahara and Sahel, in the only peaceful and democratic transfer of power Niger has ever achieved.
Washington has invested nearly $1 billion in Niger in recent years to support its democracy and provide aid, in addition to developing national forces capable of containing armed groupings allied with the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda in North and West Africa.
The U.S.-backed counterterrorism presence is the second key reason Niger’s coup resonates. The Americans have a strong security presence with 1,100 troops and have built bases in the capital and in the north of the African country at its main outposts to counter armed jihadist groups in West Africa. President Joe Biden’s administration has not yet called what has happened in Niger a “coup d’état”, arguing that there are laws that would force the U.S. to cut off many of its military partnerships with that country.
The Niger region is dominated by military or military-aligned governments, and a growing number of them have established security partnerships with Russia’s Wagner mercenary group.
The soldiers who ousted Bazoum have announced a governing structure, but said little publicly about their plans. Victoria Nuland, U.S. undersecretary of state, met this week with members of Niger’s junta in the capital, but noted that they had been unreceptive to her demands to restore democracy in the country.
“They were quite adamant about how they want to proceed, and it’s not in support of Niger’s constitution,” Nuland told reporters afterward.
The junta also warned Nuland that Bazoum would die if the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened militarily to restore democracy, U.S. officials told the AP.
This week, the ambassador downplayed that threat, noting that the junta is already on track to kill Bazoum by holding him and his family with little more than a dwindling supply of dry rice and no means to cook it.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken several times with the detained president and expressed concern for his safety and that of his family. The U.S. says it has cut some aid to the government and suspended military cooperation. Blinken has expressed broad support for ECOWAS, whose diplomatic efforts have been rejected by Niger’s junta, which has warned that it will resort to military force as a last resort.
Blinken said in a statement Friday that he was “particularly dismayed” that Niger’s mutinous soldiers had refused to release Bazoum’s family as a gesture of goodwill. He did not elaborate.
While Saidou, the junta’s adviser, denied that the junta threatened to kill Bazoum if ECOWAS invaded, he said Bazoum’s death would be inevitable if that happened.
“Even if the junta’s senior officers do not touch Bazoum, if a gun is fired on one of Niger’s borders to restore Bazoum, I am sure there will be soldiers who will end his life,” he said.
Bazoum told Human Rights Watch that family and friends who brought him food were denied entry, and that the junta had denied medical care to his son, who suffers from a heart condition.
Bazoum and his undetained allies want the intervention of regional partners, the United States and others. With Bazoum vulnerable in captivity, neither he nor the ambassadors specify what they want Washington and other allies to do.
Bazoum belongs to Niger’s small minority of nomadic Arabs in a country of diverse cultures rich in tradition. Despite his political career, he has retained his people’s devotion to livestock, raising camels which he adores, said Liman-Tinguiri.
Despite all his hardships, the ambassador said, Bazoum remains in good spirits.
“He is a mentally very strong man,” he added. “He is a man of faith.”