For more than a month in Niger’s capital, Niamey, the democratically elected president has been a prisoner in his own home. The camouflage-clad generals who seized power say they may put him on trial. Talk of foreign intervention is met with threats of his execution.
To many people, the military takeover in Niger in late July was obviously a coup. And yet, in a prime example of contorted diplomatic-speak, Biden administration officials have so far carefully danced around the word.
That, they say, is because the word “coup” has major policy implications: Congress has mandated that the United States must halt all economic and military aid to any government deemed to have been installed by a military coup until democracy is restored in that country.
That might seem a fitting punishment for military leaders who have sabotaged a fragile African democracy. But U.S. officials worry it could also reduce America’s leverage over Niger’s future, jeopardize military operations against militants in the region, invite Russian influence and exacerbate humanitarian suffering in one of the world’s poorest countries.
The Biden administration has already paused most U.S. aid to the West African country, and spokespeople for the National Security Council and the State Department said the Biden administration was pursuing diplomacy as it evaluated America’s democratic and security goals for Niger. A formal determination with long-term policy consequences would originate in the State Department’s legal office.
Sarah Margon, the director of foreign policy for the Open Society Foundations, noted that such debates are growing familiar in Washington. In 2013, the Obama administration held long internal deliberations after a military takeover in Egypt, which President Barack Obama never labeled a coup.
“It is increasingly a politicized determination, predominantly influenced by security concerns — especially counterterrorism,” said Ms. Margon, whose nomination for a top State Department human rights post was blocked by Republicans last year.
Many foreign policy and pro-democeracy experts say the Biden administration should forcefully, and formally, declare the events a coup — shorthand for the French phrase “coup d’état,” which roughly translates to a blow to the state — now that several weeks have passed and the military leaders who detained President Mohamed Bazoum are refusing to even negotiate.
The question has particular significance given that President Biden has made the defense of democracy a centerpiece of his foreign policy agenda. Biden administration officials have paid particular attention to democracy in African countries; in an August 2022 speech in Pretoria, South Africa, laying out the Biden administration’s vision for sub-Saharan Africa, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken used the word “democracy” 11 times, calling it one of four pillars of U.S. policy on the continent.
At stake for Niger, a U.S. ally, is hundreds of…
2023-09-06 09:40:18
Source from www.nytimes.com
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