Niger 7 – Niger: France’s cash cow for uranium and gold. Has the spigit been turned off?

Demonstration in downtown Niamey, Niger capitol. The poster translates “France must leave”. To the left, in the background, a Russian flag. To the left of that the poster reads “The sovereign people of Niger demand an immediate end to the exploitation of our uranium. Long live the CNSP (new government) Long live Niger. Photo credit: Daily Sabah

Tonight we’ll turn to France, to the disastrous turn of events in Francophone Africa where country after country is literally kicking France out the door.

After centuries of exploitation, of humiliation, of on-going economic subjugation. Even when the tricolor (French flag) was run down the flagpole and the flags of nominally independent countries were run up France continued to dominate everything meaningful in the lives of their former colonies in West Africa.

The national language remained french; the currency remained the french currency, in this case nowadays the franc. The bank guarantees, the gold deposits are all in the vaults in Paris. Countries like Niger, where a military uprising, backed it seemed by millions of the population of that country, has overthrown a french puppet government as has happened in country after country over this last period. France has counted on its soft power and the corruption of the political class in its former colonies to keep it in “the peacock position.”

But these days are rapidly coming to an end. And France is now threatening military action to overturn the usurpers who overthrew, and now hold as a prisoner in the presidential palace, the former puppet ruler of Niger.

–  George Galloway –

France has been squeezing all the uranium, gold and some oil from Niger for decades under the neocolonial pretext of “cooperation,” Repression, super profits for France, utter poverty – Niger one of the world’s poorest countries – nuclear waste and foreign military occupation for Niger. Corruption has been at the heart of the so-called “joint venture” between Niger and France, a relationship negotiated from the French mining giant Société des mines de l’Aïr (Somaïr), formally known as Areva, which owns and operates the uranium industry in the country. As Prashad and Musavuli noted “Strikingly, 85 percent of Somaïr is owned by France’s Atomic Energy Commission and two French companies, while only 15 percent is owned by Niger’s government.” Niger’s uranium is of a very high quality although it produces only 5% of global uranium production. Still Niger uranium is particularly strategic for France where one in three light bulbs are powered by the stuff – at the same time that 42% (I have seen higher figures) of Niger’s population live below the poverty line.

Commenting on Niger’s uranium exports to France, Ali Idrissa, coordinator of a coalition of campaign groups called the Nigerien Network of Organizations for Budget Transparency and Analysis, noted, “There’s no win-win partnership. Niger has had no benefit from uranium mining.” Another Niger analyst, Tchiroma Aissami Mamadou added to this: Uranium “has brought us only a landscape of desolation … all the profits went to France. And now both Washington and Paris are scrambling to keep Niger within “the imperialist fold”.

Niger’s history as a French neo-colony is a sordid history. Here are some highlights:

At the end of the 1950s France found the ways and means to retain control of its former colonies and their mineral wealth that were part and parcel of the Sahara. To accomplish this goal they created the Organisation des Regions Sahariennes (OCRS) in which France dominated the economic, financial and ultimately political direction of the newly independent states that had been former colonies. At the heart of this strategy:retaining control of the mineral wealth of Niger, especially its uranium and gold deposits. Over the years since Niger changes in governments were directly related to Niger leaders attitude towards the price France would pay for uranium extraction.

• For example, the country’s first president,Hamani Diori was overthrown in 1974 after he attempted to negotiate a better price for uranium extraction with the French company Cogema (which later became Areva and now Orano). During the civil regime of Hamani Diori (1960-1974), Nigeriens considered the exploitation of uranium as an affair of “whites”, whereas during the military regimes of Seyni Kountché and Ali Seybou (1974-1991), it was almost forbidden to ask questions and any challenge was considered a national crime, punishable by death penalty. During a pervasive drought that gripped Africa in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, officials of his Government were accused of siphoning off relief supplies and selling them at inflated prices. Still the corruption was less of a concern for the French than Diori’s focusing French exploitation of Niger’s uranium. Towards the end of Diori’s rule he became more and more concerned about Areva’s uranium exploitation. His relationship with France suffered when his government voiced dissatisfaction with the level of investment in uranium production when Georges Pompidou visited Niger in 1972. Thereafter France got rid of him in a coup in 1974 ending his tenure. (1)
• The coup leader, General Seyni Kountche remained in power from 1974, ruling Niger with an iron fist until his death in 1987 leaving the country with a sorry record: despite the uranium and gold wealth, a desperately poor country, the confiscation of huge amounts of foreign aid, and widespread repression. It is also in this period, in 1983, as the Niger economy plummeted downward requiring Niger to apply for IMF, WB, Paris Club structural adjustment loans with their usual suffocating conditions: austerity, restructuring and privatization of public enterprises, suppression or drastic reduction of public financing of agriculture (where more than 2/3 of the population gain their sustenance).  The year after the structural adjustment criteria took effect, Niger along with the rest of the Sahel was hit by a terrible draught made only worse by the country’s inability to counter it as a result of so-called “reforms” which resulted in the country becoming that much more vulnerable to natural disasters. Between 1984-1990 five of seven harvests were inadequate; the grain deficit became structural and added to Niger’s woes, the need to import grain for food.
• A period of general instability followed in the 1990s that included a major Tuareg rebellion and an increasingly declining standard of living in a country already terribly poor. While Areva raked in the profits in uranium and gold, the Niger standard of living, previously rather low essentially collapsed. Life expectancy dropped to 50 years – it has risen some since to 63 but still among the worst worldwide; infant mortality spiked to 163 per 1000 (again it too has dropped to 53 – an improvement, but still terrible by world standards); 2/3 of the population suffered from poverty according to U.N. statistics It has dropped to 41% in 2021; illiteracy in the 1990s was greater than a whopping 70%. As with the other social states, literacy has improved but Niger’s literacy rate is improving among younger generations, but it’s still one of the world’s lowest. On average, 39.7% of Nigeriens ages 15-24 can read, but only 13.7% of Nigeriens ages 65+ can read. By the end of primary school, the vast majority of Nigerien students still cannot read or write. At the time, although, as cited above, 2/3 of the population engaged in some form of agriculture, 1/3 of the population went to bed hungry. Today out of a population of 10 million, some 1.5 million go to bed hungry. By 1991 a national conference was held on the economic crisis. It resulted in a decision, a national consensus to refuse implementing the structural adjustment criteria; rather than cooperate with this country in crisis, international financial institutions (IMF, WB, Paris Club) instituted a financial embargo against Niger, refusing to release funds promised on which by now Niger was completely dependent. The lonas were cut off in an exercise of financial strangulation. Faced with an even more dangerous overall crisis, the country gave in. The national conference of July 1991 ignored the mining sector because the Nigerians had acquired by fear the reflex of silence.
• Then in 1996, by another coup, General Baré Maïnassara came to power. Baré Maïnassara imposed conservative Islamic laws that included the banning of short skirts and a crackdown on the use of contraceptives. He introduced economic reforms – typical austerity programs – and signed an agreement with the IMF while Niger’s debt rose to $1.4 billion. After only three years, in 1999 Baré Maïnassara was assassinated by his own presidential guard in the course of Niger’s third coup since its 1960 independence.
• In 2000, Mamadou Tanja , a former military officer who had himself participated in the 1974 overthrow of Diori Hamani came to power. For the next decade Niger enjoyed a period of relative calm and political democracy  in spite of wide spread corruption and yet another Tuareg rebellion in the north. But in 2010, at the end of his second term-limited time in office he tore off the democratic masque he was wearing, changed the Niger constitution so he could run again and continued to reduce the price of uranium the Niger government was receiving from Orano and other French mining companies. During these years, the Nigerians began to question the usefulness of uranium mining and about its consequences. It is in this context that the civil society organizations, now termed NGO, that are active in the area of mining, were born.
• In 2010, a year into his third term, Mamadou Tanja was overthrown by a group of his officers. A year later, another presidential election was held. A long-time government opponent, Mahamadou Issoufou was elected president, not only a victory for civil leadership but also for Areva as Issou was, among other things, a former National Director of Minea and employee of the mining company; one of his first acts was to guarantee that the uranium contracts would not be reopened.

No doubt a major goal of the new government, which seems to be consolidating its position despite threats of intervention, is end Niger’s asymmetrical relationship with France over Niger uranium mining. To this end, the coup leaders have called for ending uranium and gold exports to France as well as a demand for the end of France’s military presence – some 1,200 soldiers in the country, triggering nothing short of a panic in Paris. Has the spigit been turned off yet? Not quite, but it’s days are definitely numbered.

___________________________

Footnote.

1. Much of the information in this blog entry comes from two sources, both published by the French “Francafrique” watchdog organization, Association Survie. They include:

Raphael Granvaud’s Areva en Afrique. Agone Press: 2012, ISBN: 978-7489-0156-6

http://www.survie.org’s Petit guid de la Françafrique: Un Voyage au coeur du Scandale. (1st edition). 2010. No ISBN

I have noticed that although not crediting Association Survie as such, that it is the source of many statistics being thrown around in the mainstream media in English concerning uranium mining, social indicators, most of which are based upon 2008 data from what I can tell. This is especially the case for Granvaud’s book.

A recent Association Survie video. It is in French … The fine, in depth work, analysis of Association Survie cannot be matched in my opinion.