Niger coup: How much influence does the US and Europe have with ECOWAS?
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00:00 Well let's bring in Michael Shurkin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington.
00:04 Michael, how do you see the current situation?
00:08 The current situation really is terrible.
00:10 There's very little likelihood of a diplomatic solution.
00:13 I don't really see how the junta could be talked into sort of backing down.
00:19 And also the idea of a military intervention seems just horribly risky to me.
00:24 The ECOWAS countries do have the means to do it.
00:27 I mean, collectively they can absolutely pull it off.
00:29 But what is it?
00:30 And what would it look like?
00:31 And what good would it do?
00:33 And it's just very difficult to imagine how that could have a positive result.
00:40 So right now it's sort of like a standoff.
00:43 And it's hard to see how this has a good resolution.
00:49 And I think ultimately...
00:50 Go on.
00:51 No, it's a good point you make.
00:54 In some ways it seems as though the ECOWAS group, having threatened military intervention,
01:00 having had a deadline passed and the military regime apparently ignoring that, setting up
01:04 their own cabinet government in the meantime, that's almost between a rock and a hard place
01:08 with calls for peace from the outside from the US and Europe as well.
01:12 How much of a sense do you have that the voices from the US, from Europe, are being listened
01:18 to by the ECOWAS group to perhaps steer some narrative?
01:24 I really don't think they're being listened to.
01:25 And I think this is part of the problem that a lot of people tend to see ECOWAS as sort
01:29 of a puppet of Western interests, specifically France.
01:33 I don't read it at all that way.
01:35 I think the countries that are part of ECOWAS and the countries that are pushing for action
01:40 are doing it for their own interests and their own reasons.
01:42 And of course they're looking to see if there's any kind of international support.
01:47 But at the same time, I see no reason to think that this is all in any way being driven by,
01:55 certainly not driven by, quote unquote, Western interests.
02:01 I think what matters far more is the internal politics of these countries.
02:05 So President Ndunubu of Nigeria has to deal with the fact that he has a relatively weak
02:09 political position within his own country.
02:11 He was only recently elected.
02:13 It was a very contested election.
02:15 And there's not that much enthusiasm in his own country for any kind of military intervention.
02:22 I think all the other leaders in ECOWAS have to think about the same sort of thing.
02:25 It's a very good point actually.
02:26 There are some analysts in Nigeria saying that it was a mistake in the past few days
02:30 for President Ndunubu not to speak to military regimes in Burkina Faso, in Mali, despite
02:35 the fact there have been coups there, because we've ended up in a situation where both countries
02:39 have announced that they will side with Niger.
02:42 What's your take on that?
02:44 Well, Burkina Faso and Mali don't, there's really very little they can do to help Niger.
02:50 So it's not like there's going to be some military coalition between those three countries
02:54 that will be of any importance.
02:56 And also even in terms of, you talked about economic aid in order to overcome the sanctions.
03:03 But again, there's really very little that Mali and Burkina Faso can possibly do to help
03:08 Niger.
03:09 So I don't think so.
03:10 I mean, the larger question is, there's always a problem, like if one takes a principled
03:16 stance against military juntas, then what happens is one risks burning bridges with
03:24 them, especially since there's nothing you can do about it.
03:27 Whereas if you don't take a principled stance and you basically say, hey, you know, whatever
03:30 goes, so we're going to work with these military regimes, then what happens is you're also
03:34 giving green light to sort of indicating that there's really very little risk in people's
03:38 countries to do coup d'etat.
03:42 And there's also a lot of principles at stake and it risks undermining the entire region
03:48 in terms of civil military relations.
03:49 I mean, I could go on from this, but there's just so many negative consequences for doing
03:54 either or that it's hard to sort of retrospectively say, oh, somebody was wrong to have condemned
04:00 something or to have supported something, because both options are really terrible.
04:04 Well, in a sense, it's a very difficult path to look both outside in to work out where
04:08 to go next and also for those leaders to know where this is going.
04:12 It seems the situation is very hard to control, the regime calling for people to take to the
04:17 streets today in the capital, Naomei.
04:19 The other thing, in the midst of this, 16 days on, we've had one photo of Mohamed Bazoum,
04:23 the president, apparently smiling in this photo that we've seen.
04:26 That's it.
04:27 Now, since then, we've had increasing fears, first by the UN, Antonio Guterres, saying
04:30 that their food has been restricted, the Hague report from this one phone call he's made
04:35 eating dry rice at one point, apparently.
04:38 And now we've got the African Union saying that his conditions are deteriorating.
04:43 It's small of the junta.
04:46 I mean, it's a terrible situation.
04:48 I also can't think of any precedents.
04:50 I mean, in the previous coup, there always seemed to have been some concern to protect
04:54 the health and well-being of the outgoing executive.
04:58 They just, you know, get him out of here.
04:59 That was always the impetus.
05:00 Like, you know, we're happy to get him out of here as soon as possible.
05:04 And that does not seem to be the case.
05:07 And I see that the junta seems to think that they're going to use him as a human shield,
05:11 which certainly doesn't put them in a good light.
05:14 And I'm also concerned that it's going to serve as a pretext for interventions.
05:17 Already, I heard President Ouattara of Cote d'Ivoire yesterday saying that the holding
05:23 Bazoum hostage was tantamount to an act of terrorism.
05:26 You know, that kind of rhetoric shows that holding him hostage, in effect, is escalatory
05:32 and it tends to fuel kind of extreme rhetoric that I think could put everybody in a very
05:37 dangerous situation.
05:38 Just a brief point, Michael, maybe I'm putting you on the spot here, but if you, you know,
05:42 given your experience of dealing and analyzing previous coups and the situation in the Sahel
05:46 and Africa, where do you see this going?
05:52 Odds are what happens is that everybody's going to end up acquiescing to a military
05:56 junta in Niger.
05:57 I mean, because it seems to be the least worst option.
06:02 And so I feel like sooner or later that's what's going to have to happen.
06:05 Plus, the longer it takes to organize a military intervention, the more time the junta has
06:10 to entrench itself.
06:11 And so politically it becomes more and more implausible to do anything about this.
06:16 The only question is how much damage is going to be done in the region in terms of relations
06:19 between the different countries, relations with the West, relations with the United States,
06:24 certainly relations with France.
06:25 And then, of course, there's always that question lurking in the background of relations with
06:29 Russia.
06:30 Michael, great to hear your thoughts on this.
06:31 Michael Shurkin, analyst in Washington, D.C. for the Atlantic Council.