Thde Washington Post Today's WorldView by Ishaan Tharor with Sammy Westfall :. If coup holds, ‘whole world will be destabilized,’ Niger envoy says

 

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By Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall  Email   If coup holds, ‘whole world will be destabilized,’ Niger envoy says Protesters chant slogans during a rally in Niamey, Niger, on Thursday. (Issifou Djibo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) The crisis in Niger could reach a tipping point this weekend. ECOWAS, the geopolitical bloc of West African states, has set an Aug. 6 deadline for the coup-plotting Nigerien junta to step aside and restore the country’s democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum to power. The generals so far have shown little indication of heeding the bloc’s demands. Instead, a delegation from the Nigerien junta courted the support of the coup-plotting juntas in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso. The two countries upped the ante, putting out a statement earlier this week that warned that an ECOWAS intervention in Niger would constitute a declaration of war against their own countries. The West African bloc suspended the membership of Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea after recent coups in those countries and analysts suggest the region’s leadership wants to draw a line in the sand around Niger, a poor nation whose fledgling democracy had shown a degree of resilience under Bazoum. While Mali and Burkina Faso slipped into Moscow’s orbit under their juntas, Niger remained something of a pro-Western redoubt in the Sahel, the semiarid African region below the Sahara Desert that is increasingly shaped by state failure and metastasizing insurgencies. Even as the junta entrenches itself in the capital, Niamey, Niger remains host to U.S. and French military bases. I spoke to Kiari Liman-Tinguiri, Niger’s ambassador in Washington, about the fraught state of play, his expectations from the international community and what’s at stake for the broader region and the world. The conversation is edited for brevity and clarity. TWV: As the ECOWAS deadline approaches, and the junta shows no sign of backing down, how real is the prospect of open war in the region? Liman-Tinguiri: ECOWAS has laid down a set of sanctions with a clear gradation that goes from cutting economic transactions, banning import and exports, cutting electricity supply and to, at last resort, the use of force. As we speak, sanctions are showing impact. People are in the dark. Prices are rising up for many goods. The reality on the ground is that people are starting to suffer. And if this attempted coup goes on, the suffering will only increase. So now I think it’s time for the junta to realize this and to go back into their barracks. Can we avoid going into confrontation? I think ECOWAS has been very clear. Confrontation is not off the table. It’s the last resort, but it has not been ruled out. So unfortunately, if the junta persists, we may go that route, but really nobody who loves Niger would like it. The juntas of Mali and Burkina Faso put out a joint statement warning against an ECOWAS intervention, saying it was tantamount to a declaration of war. To claim that we’re going to go to war is almost calling for the war. I don’t think it’s a credible threat because I don’t think they have the means to threaten the rest of the region. Would you take seriously a threat from Mali or Burkina Faso to go to war against Nigeria or Côte d’Ivoire or Senegal? You just have to compare GDP to know that this is not serious. If they don’t have anything positive or constructive to say, it’s better to shut up. ECOWAS has failed to thwart coups in your neighborhood. What makes this moment different? There are many differences, but number one is that the coup in Niger has no justification whatsoever. The [junta’s] claim of deteriorating security is false. Security in Niger has been improving. And for the last two years, it has been better than any time before in the last six or seven years. There was no political tension. Opposition and majority leaders discuss in parliament; debate was happening. Even if you compare this moment to the history of earlier coups in Niger, this one has no basis nor justification. If Niger falls, if you go from democracy to dictatorship, like in the two neighboring countries, it means Niger will go under the control of Wagner. The whole central Sahel will be under Wagner. What will then happen is that the Islamist militants will have it very easy to go directly and attack the coastal West African country. So that will destabilize the whole region, from the Sahara to the Gulf of Benin. From Libya to the coast, you will have no real states. That’s what is at stake. Realizing that, ECOWAS has been strong. [Nigerian President Bola Ahmed] Tinubu has been clear and loud that we will no longer tolerate any sort coup against a democratically elected government. So that is now a test for ECOWAS. So Niger’s democracy is a bulwark against lawlessness? If Niger falls, the whole Sahel will collapse. There will be a totally destabilized zone with Wagner on one side, and ISIS and al-Qaeda on the other will be controlling the situation. The whole world will be destabilized. If you give them the whole Sahel, just imagine what will happen on migration, on the security in Europe and the whole world. What is at stake is first a matter for us in Niger, but also then for the region and the world, and the world should understand that. What role did the neighboring juntas have in encouraging or inspiring the coup in Niger? I’m based in Washington and I have no clue about these kinds of things, but the indications we have, the way [the Malian and Burkinabe juntas] talk, it’s clear that they would love to have in Niger a regime that looks like theirs, which means no respect for human rights, no respect for democracy, no respect for anything else than their own interests to call mercenaries for their own safety. They left control of parts of their territory to the Islamist militants, and they use mostly mercenaries to protect themselves and these mercenaries are paying themselves by stealing natural resources. We don’t want that for our country. We are close to the West. We share values. We share democracy, and we want to be ruled by people who we have been voted in ourselves. There are almost daily scenes of pro-coup demonstrators in Niamey waving Russian flags and shouting anti-French slogans. What should we make of that? I would not over-interpret it. Nowhere is demonstration a substitute for elections. You may organize a huge demonstration, but in the balance, you are not ahead. That is not a legitimate way to go to power. When it comes to the Russian flag, most of those who are taking it wouldn’t be able to locate Russia on a map. Personally, I don’t believe there is huge anti-French sentiment. Forty percent of people in my country live with less than $2 a day. I really don’t think that these people are concerned with who is our international partner. Some of the young people now claiming to be “Pan-African” and anti-France have no clue about France, don’t even know what it is. Simply the social media itself, the digital era, made it easier to make a lot of noise out of very tiny things. So, yes, in urban cities, some young people — because they are desperate, because they are looking for someone to blame for the problem they’re facing — they get manipulated by rhetoric. But it’s not really an indication of something deep and wide. The United States and France have, together, more than 2,000 troops already stationed in Niger. Would you want them to intervene against the junta? They have their own protocol. They have their own rules. And these countries have much more experience than ours on these things. So I will not tell them how to intervene and how to use or not use their forces. But definitely the people of Niger are hoping for help from all our friends. Any assistance to help us to restore our democracy, to restore President Bazoum and our parliament into power, will be very welcome. And we will be grateful for it. Do you feel like you’re in a rather difficult situation, as the envoy of a government that has been unseated? My personal fate is not really that important. But our government is not unseated. There’s an attempted coup going on. So we will see, in the coming weeks, who is unseated and who is in power.   1,000 Words Ukrainian soldiers carry a coffin of a Ukrainian serviceman Yurii Yurchenko, who was killed fighting Russian troops in the Luhansk region, on Friday. (Roman Pilipey/AFP) Intense fighting raged in southeastern Ukraine this week as Kyiv continued a major push to reclaim territory. Russia’s main defensive line — a phalanx of trenches, tripwires and anti-personnel and anti-armor mines — remains ahead of Ukrainian forces and their objective to drive south and sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, a key military supply route.   Talking Points • The world has just gotten its first real taste of a planet that is 1.5 degrees Celsius — or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit — hotter than preindustrial times, our colleague Shannon Osaka writes. July of this year was the most scorching July on record, clocking in at somewhere between 1.5 and 1.6 Celsius hotter than the average before the widespread use of fossil fuels — something that has only happened a few times before, and never during hot, summer conditions.  • Across the Middle East, LGBTQ communities face a growing crackdown, echoing U.S. culture wars. Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have always stood out in the region on LGBTQ issues. All have queer scenes, all have hosted Pride parades. But in all three places, the community exists in a legal gray area — neither criminalized nor protected by the law.  • The U.S. military is readying plans to embark armed Marines and sailors aboard the commercial ships of interested private companies after a spate of vessel seizures by Iranian forces in the Middle East. It’s a remarkable escalation that could put Washington and Tehran in direct confrontation. • Two U.S. Navy sailors based in California were arrested in separate cases and accused of passing sensitive national defense information and secrets to China in exchange for money. The two sailors allegedly sent a blueprint for a radar system, technical manuals for vessels, operational plans for military exercises in the Indo-Pacific and details of defensive weapons to Chinese intelligence officers, the Justice Department said.    Top of The Post Trump plans to use charges to revisit 2020 election, a fraught topic for GOP By Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer ●  Read more »   Packed courtroom, somber defendant. A recap of Donald Trump’s arraignment By Tom Jackman and Salvador Rizzo ●  Read more »   Breaking down the 78 charges Trump faces in his three indictments By Derek Hawkins and Nick Mourtoupalas ●  Read more »     Viewpoints Three years after Beirut’s apocalypse, no one is accountable By Lina Mounzer | The Washington Post ●  Read more »   What does it mean to die of heat? By Benjamin Mazer | The Atlantic ●  Read more »   President of Niger: My country is under attack and I’ve been taken hostage By Mohamed Bazoum | The Washington Post ●  Read more »     New birther lie? Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum greets supporters during a rally in Guadalajara last month. (Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images) MEXICO CITY — Claudia Sheinbaum is Mexican. “More Mexican than mole!” the politician proclaims in a tweet. “100% Mexican,” she says in another. She has promoted a song called “Claudia the Mexican.” She’s displayed her birth certificate in a campaign video. She posted the document to Twitter. Twice. Sheinbaum’s made-in-Mexico moment is her response to a new political era in this country, which until now had largely avoided the birther conspiracy theories and identity politics familiar to Americans. Sheinbaum, 61, a leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election, has been trying to quell rumors that she was born in Bulgaria. They’re a backhanded way of reminding this largely Catholic country of her Jewish heritage. A dozen years after President Barack Obama released his Hawaii birth certificate to refute claims he was born outside the United States, Mexico is living its own controversy over candidates’ race, ethnicity and identity. A top opposition candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez, 60, is emphasizing her rise from humble Indigenous roots to successful business executive. Some have accused her of not being Indigenous enough. Then there’s Enrique de la Madrid, who trails in the polls. The opposition candidate is “güero” — White. He’s a Harvard graduate, an ex-Cabinet minister, and one very confused guy. “They tell me I’m too White,” he says in a campaign video. “What’s the problem with being White?” Perhaps not since the Mexican Revolution has the subject of national identity been so central to a presidential campaign. “There never really was an identity politics here,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister. “It didn’t exist before. It does now.” What changed? Mexico is one of many countries that began to re-examine their ethnic and racial histories after the outbreak of the “Black Lives Matter” protests in the United States. Perhaps more critically, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has transformed politics here. The veteran leftist has made himself one of the hemisphere’s most popular leaders by promising to tackle his country’s deep inequality. He has focused his presidency on the poor and downtrodden — “el pueblo bueno.” The good people. His rhetoric encompasses not just class but ethnicity. His party, the National Regeneration Movement, is known by its Spanish-language acronym MORENA — also a word for “brown-skinned.” He dismisses those who oppose him as “fifis,” people of European ancestry who live in posh neighborhoods. López Obrador’s critics accuse him of using polarizing language to divide the country. Supporters say he’s simply recognizing the discrimination against darker-skinned Mexicans that’s lurked below the surface for decades. But now his narrative is being upended by a woman who rides a bike around Mexico City, wearing an embroidered Indigenous dress and firing back at the president in the same earthy language he uses. Gálvez, the daughter of an Otomi Indigenous teacher, has catapulted into the lead for the opposition coalition with a rags-to-riches life story. She went from a girlhood selling tamales on the street to a career as an entrepreneur. That could be a problem for López Obrador because the top two candidates in his own party’s primary aren’t that “morena” at all. (The president is ineligible to run for reelection). Both Sheinbaum, the former Mexico City mayor, and Marcelo Ebrard, his former foreign minister, are of European ancestry. – Mary Beth Sheridan Read more: A new birther lie? ‘Claudia the Mexican’ fights back.   Afterword