Reports reaching the desk of Africa Today News, New York has it that the Junta-led Burkina Faso and Mali has come out to issue a warning that any military intervention in Niger to restore deposed President Mohamed Bazoum would be considered a ‘declaration of war against their two countries’ waring ECOWAS members are considering the idea to keep off.
Niger’s military-ruled neighbors issued a warning the day after West African leaders, with the backing of their Western partners, threatened to use force to restore the democratically elected Bazoum to power and imposed financial sanctions on the coup leaders.
In a joint statement which was sighted by Africa Today News, New York, the governments of Burkina Faso and Mali warned that ‘any military intervention against Niger would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali’.
They noted that the ‘disastrous consequences of a military intervention in Niger… could destabilise the entire region’.
The two also said they ‘refuse to apply’ the ‘illegal, illegitimate and inhumane sanctions against the people and authorities of Niger’.
At an emergency summit on Sunday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) demanded that Bazoum be reinstated within a week, failing which it would take “all measures” to restore constitutional order.
‘Such measures may include the use of force for this effect,’ it said in a statement.
The bloc also slapped financial sanctions on the junta leaders and the country, freezing “all commercial and financial transactions” between member states and Niger, one of the world’s poorest nations, which often ranks last on the UN’s Human Development Index.
Pressure to push the perpetrators of the July 26 coup to quickly restore constitutional order is building from Western and African partners in Niger, a country considered essential in the fight against jihadist groups that have ravaged parts of the Sahel region for years.
Former colonial power France and the United States have between them deployed 2,600 soldiers in Niger to help battle the jihadists.
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Niger’s junta on Monday accused France of seeking to ‘intervene militarily’ to reinstate Bazoum, which French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna denied.
‘It’s wrong,’ Colonna told France’s BFM news channel of the allegation, adding it was still ‘possible’ to return the president to power.
‘And it’s necessary, because destabilisation is perilous for Niger and its neighbours,’ she said Monday evening.
French President Emmanuel Macron has on Sunday vowed ‘immediate and uncompromising’ action if French citizens or interests were attacked, after thousands rallied outside the French embassy in Niamey. Some tried to enter the compound but were dispersed by tear gas.
Colonna said the demonstration had been “organised, not spontaneous, violent, extremely dangerous, with Molotov cocktails, Russian flags appeared, anti-French slogans (that were) an exact copy of what you can hear elsewhere”.
Russia has called for the swift return of “the rule of law” and “restraint from all parties” in Niger.
Macron has spoken to Bazoum several times as well as to regional leaders, the presidential palace in Paris said.
Bazoum — a Western ally whose election just over two years ago marked Niger’s first peaceful transition of power since independence from France in 1960 — was toppled on July 26 by the elite Presidential Guard.
Guards chief General Abdourahamane Tiani declared himself leader — but his claim has been rejected internationally and ECOWAS has given him a week to hand back power.