On Monday, August 7, US Department of State Ambassador, Acting Deputy Secretary of State and Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland traveled to Niger and met with some of the bang leaders, in the country’s capital, Niamey. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the purpose of the visit was for the United States to “We express our grave concern about the events in Niger and our firm commitment to support democracy and constitutional order.”
After Mrs. Nuland’s two-plus hour meeting and side talks – with the participants in the coup – Brigadier General Moussa Barmou, who claims the position of Chief of the Defense Staff of the coup, and three of his colonels – Ms. Nuland briefed journalists via teleconference; she was speaking from Niamey.
Ms. Nuland’s trip to Niamey came at the express direction of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, President Biden’s top foreign affairs adviser.
“The secretary asked me to go on this trip,” confirmed Ms. Nuland.
“Before we arrived and throughout the day,” Nuland said, he asked to see ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, “for some health and wellness gestures.” The leaders of the coup denied his request and also prevented him from meeting with the general leader of the coup and current head of the military government, General Abdourahamane Tiani.
“We have spoken to him on the phone, but we have not seen him,” he explained. In addition, “we were not given the opportunity to see the self-proclaimed president, Mr. Tiani. So, we are left to have to depend on Mr. Barmou to clarify, again, what is at stake”.
Notably, Ms. Nuland’s visit is one day after the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) deadline expired on Sunday, August 6 and 14 days after the day the coup occurred. “So a difficult mission, but a necessary one from the perspective of the US interest in trying to see if this very difficult situation can be resolved diplomatically,” Ms. Nuland said.
In other coup events in Africa, such as the Zimbabwe coup in November 2017, there was a lot of public discourse about whether or not to call it a coup. As in the 2017 Harare coup, a general dressed in military uniform addressed the country’s population, from the state broadcaster, after a military coup. in a 1st August Reading, Miller, a spokesman for S=, characterized the coup as a “takeover attempt”, revealing that Secretary Blinken spoke with African Union (AU) Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat. The United States has not yet labeled the coup event a coup, but rather “troubling developments,” Nuland told reporters on Monday.
“We understand our legal responsibilities,” he said.
US government officials may be limited by US domestic law: US Department of State Foreign Operations and Related Program Appropriations Act Section 7008, which would be launched if a “the duly elected head of government is deposed by a coup or military decree in which the military played a decisive role in removing a duly elected head of government.Not only would the State Department be limited in being able to help a country when a coup has occurred, but the US Department of Defense (DoD) could also be restricted by some legal statutes. Regardless, US political advisers and their legal advisers would have to assess the Niger context. Last Friday, August 4, Secretary Blinken stopped some foreign aid to Niger.
Meanwhile, Monday’s meeting means Ms Nuland is now the highest-ranking official in the Biden administration to have an in-person meeting with coup leaders. This is important for the public, professionals, and academics to understand how the Biden administration has evaluated and taken a perspective on the junta’s activity in Niger.
Other people Ms. Nuland was able to see included “a broad cross-section of Niger’s civil society,” Ms. Nuland said. Characterizing them, Ms. Nuland said: “These are longtime friends of the United States. They are journalists, they are defenders of democracy, they are human rights activists. We had a frank exchange about the situation here.”
There are at least 1,100 US troops in Niger because both President Bazoum and the Biden administration consider their relationship important, particularly in the fight against terrorism. He Global Terrorism Index 2023 (GTI) ranges Niger among the 10 countries most affected by terrorism, in terms of “deaths, injuries and hostages,” with a score of 7.6, behind Myanmar.
General Barmou has many years of prior experience working with the US Special Forces in Niger. This made things easier for Ms. Nuland and her team. Ms Nuland confirmed: “So we were able to discuss, in considerable detail, the risks of aspects of our cooperation that historically mattered a great deal to you.”
On the board’s interactions with the Wagner Group, Ms Nuland said: “In my meetings today I got the feeling that the people who have taken this action here understand very well the risks to their sovereignty when Wagner is invited.” , adding that “I wouldn’t say we learned much more about his thinking on that front.”
The United States proposed to the coup leaders to keep “an open door to continue talking,” Nuland said, adding that the goal is for the military junta “to listen to our offer to try to work with them to resolve this diplomatically and return constitutional order.” order.” She said: “Their ideas are not in line with the Constitution. And that would be difficult in terms of our relationship if that is the path they take, but we gave them various options to continue talking and we hope they will accept us.”
What is at stake from the American point of view? Should Niger not abide by its constitutional order? Ms. Nuland explained, “the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in economic and security support for the people of Niger”.
On how to publicly characterize coup activity in Niger, the US Executive Branch, particularly the State Department and Defense Department, may need to be convincingly transparent, along with consistent public diplomacy activity and narratives that provide explanations of their advocacy, foreign, and behavior in political affairs. This is the “third visit of Ms. Nuland to Niger in the two years that she has served as Assistant Secretary in the Department of State.
Blinken paid an official visit to Niamey in March.
Pearl Matibe is a White House correspondent and media commentator with experience in US foreign policy and international security. You can follow her on Twitter: @PearlMatibe
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