Posts Tagged ‘niger’
Africa’s first coup d’état? A history of Niger’s Sawaba movement
In a new book on Niger, Dutch author Klaas van Walraven charts the history of what he calls Africa’s first coup d’état. The Sawaba movement, formed in 1954, was opposed to French colonial rule and pushed for independence. It developed into a militant social movement, aligned with Eastern bloc states, as well as Algeria and Ghana. But it was stopped in its tracks, repressed by France’s fifth republic. Can we really call this Africa’s first coup?
Tuareg links to AQIM
Tuaregs with their camels, 2009, CC licence: Marco Bellucci
It has been over two months since the kidnapping of seven people in Niger by the North African wing of Al-Qaeda. The hostages, who worked for French nuclear firm Areva, were snatched in the northern town of Arlit by a group known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM. But what’s the true face of AQIM? And what should we make of recent reports that members of the Tuareg nomadic people are involved?
