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US/France threaten intervention in resource-rich Niger - Fears of war in West Africa
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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Hmm, so we have Russia sponsoring a coup and installing a military junta, and somehow this is western neocolonialism?
Those mouthpieces and farmed trolls really don't pretend to be trying hard anymore. Sure thing this is helping the population of Niger, one of the poorest in the world, right?
oh look at you spreading conspiracy theories https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/africa/italy-dismisses-russias-involvement-in-niger-coup-as-joe-biden-urges-bazoum-release-articleshow.html
Yeah and all those Russian flags and "vive Poutine" signs just happened to have been found laying around, a country that's "just" 5000km away. How delusional must you be :)
Edit: almost forgot https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/republic-world/
Imagine being utterly ignorant of western colonization of Africa and the role USSR played in African liberation. People in Africa support Russia today because of that history. It's not a mystery for anybody with even a modicum of historical literacy. Meanwhile, nice ad hominem there, are you disputing the factual content of the article or just making a clown of yourself as usual?
Imagine (insults put aside) being so out of touch with the real world to think 1940's geopolitics constitutes a reasonable case to portray Russia, a different state, as a well-meaning player in the region today, all the while Russia, being in an open war of aggression with its neighbours, is very much exerting the kind of "neocolonialism" and expansionism it accuses its enemies of doing.
These aren't 1940s geopolitics. USSR provided education, built infrastructure, provided food, and helped Africa shake off western imperialism. People who got education in Patrice Lumumba university in Russia are still alive today. Meanwhile, the west continues to oppress and colonize Africa today. That's why Africans are aligning with Russia. The fact that you don't understand this shows profound ignorance on your part just as does your framing of the war in Ukraine.
France hasn't threatened anyone. It states that it would défend its citizen and assets, should they be attacked. CDAO announced they would intervene if the elected president is not freed and reinstated.
Defend it's asset huh?
But isnt it weird that nigers uranium produces 40% of Frances electricity while only 11% of nigers citizens even have access to electricity?
France does not sources 40% of its uranium from Niger, quite far from that. 10% of uranium it uses comes from Niger. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/uranium-mines-niger-worlds-7th-biggest-producer-2023-07-28/
Apologies, didn't fact checked and didn't meant to spread misinformation. Allow me me to rephrase the unanswered question:
Defend it's asset huh?
But isnt it weird that nigers uranium produces ~6% of Frances electricity while only 11% of nigers citizens even have access to electricity?
Unfortunately your comparison still makes no sense, you are comparing the proportion of fuel coming from a location to the proportion of the population that benefits from a service that use the fuel in question.
Really not meaningful 😅
Had to read your sentence 4 times to understand what youre trying to say. Could have just said "no I don't think it's weird at all"
My point is not that it's not weird at all, it's that in addition to quoting completely false numbers, you put forward a comparison that makes absolutely no sense. The numbers compared are not "weird" or "not weird", they are absolutely not comparable.
Interesting, now I doubt that we just have super opposing political views, rather we have super different working brains 😅
Hope you will answer to this one too!
Let's say you have a garden. I take fruits and vegetables from your garden and add them to the dishes of some of my family members, maybe only to garnish the dishes of my 6 favorite kids. Meanwhile, most of your family members don't have any food at all. You start to complain, want me to stop taking fruits and vegetables for my well-fed family because the garden is yours, your family is hungry, it could somehow benefit from the garden and its fruits and vegetables. Then you hear this:
you are comparing the proportion of fruits and vegetables coming from a location to the proportion of the population that benefits from a service that use the fruits and vegetables in question. you put forward a comparison that makes absolutely no sense. The numbers compared are absolutely not comparable.
Would you stop or continue complaining?
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Gotta love that Western "free speech"
Disinformation. France sources 10% of its uranium supply from Niger. It has companies doing business with Niger, as many other countries do. But of course you can blame France for every issue in every African country. It is a really bad country with horrible people in it.
imagine being this user, and looking at a neo-colonized country that has suffered from appalling resource extraction by the french for decades and then saying
It is a really bad country with horrible people in it.
please stfu
I think the criticism is not about companies doing business, more about that those companies are owned by France and that nigers population doesn't really seem to benefit at all from those businesses.
And yet, going back to the article posted by OP, France didn't announce they were going to intervene. It is disinformation pure and simple with the aim at antagonizing the population against France and Western countries in general.
Ok forget the article. You seem like a reasonable and critical person. Why in your opinion is France becoming less and less welcomed in African countries? Is it simply because of disinformation and antagonization, or could there also be other reasons?
I do think that the new generation of Africans genuinely want to emancipate from what is viewed as the oppressive nation, i.e. the one that colonized the country, exploited the resouces and brutalized the population for more than a century.
China and Russia are viewed as plausible partners that don't have a history of imperialism in Africa so why not work with them?
In my opinion, France coming back with military bases to fight islamists after the terrorists attacks of the mid-2010 made things worse, more so because it didn't work that well.
Finally yes, Putin is doing everything he can to undermine Western powers: making Germany dependent on cheap gas, pushing for Brexit, for Trump's election, funding neo-fascists in EU countries and, in the case of France, pushing the anti colonialism narrative everywhere in West Africa. It is working to an extend.
Yea, good points, it remains to be seen if the push for socialism/nationalism in those countries is a) genuine and b) will actually work and not just result in a situation where the old thieves are replaced by new thieves.
Putin is [...] pushing the anti colonialism narrative everywhere in West Africa. It is working to an extend.
Regarding this, I was also super confused by this article: Burkina Faso's new president condemns imperialism, quotes Che Guevara, allies with Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba
It paints a very favorable picture of President Traoré (from a socialist, anti-imperialist viewpoint, really stuff that I find interesting and support, worth a read), but then:
On July 29, Traoré had a private meeting in Saint Petersburgh with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In their talks, the Burkinabè leader praised the Soviet Union for defeating Nazism in World War II.
Like, I cannot even imagine the awkwardness of that moment ... 🤦♂️
Maybe he just had no other friendly things to say, who knows, but it's also possible that he fails to understand that modern Russia is NOT the Soviet Union.
But yea, hoping for the best.