By Felix Onuah
ABUJA (Reuters) -The West African bloc ECOWAS on Thursday ordered the activation of a standby force for possible use against the junta that took power in Niger in July, saying it wanted a peaceful restoration of democracy but all options including force were on the table.
After a summit of its heads of state in the Nigerian capital Abuja, the bloc pledged to enforce sanctions, travel bans and asset freezes on those preventing the return to power of democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum.
“No option is taken off the table, including the use of force as a last resort,” said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, the ECOWAS chair.
“I hope that through our collective effort we can bring about a peaceful resolution as a roadmap to restoring stability and democracy in Niger,” he said. “All is not lost yet.”
After Tinubu spoke, an official communique was read out which included a resolution asking the bloc’s defence chiefs to “activate the ECOWAS Standby Force with all its elements immediately”.
Another resolution spoke of ordering “the deployment of the ECOWAS Standby Force to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger”, immediately followed by another that spoke of restoring such order “through peaceful means”.
Security analysts say a regional force could take weeks or longer to assemble, potentially leaving room for negotiations.
The ECOWAS statement did not spell out how the force would be funded, which countries would participate or how many troops and what hardware they could contribute.
The junta in Niamey had defied an Aug. 6 deadline to stand down set by ECOWAS, instead closing Niger’s airspace and vowing to defend the country against any foreign attack.
ECOWAS accused the generals in charge in Niamey of “defiantly repelling” all the bloc’s attempts at diplomatic engagement and sought to project an image of resolution and unity.
ECOWAS SPLIT
The bloc is split, however, with suspended member states Mali and Burkina Faso, both ruled by army governments that seized power in coups in the past two years, siding with the Niger junta and vowing to defend it.
The summit statement did not acknowledge the split, even though Mali and Burkina Faso have been vocal in their opposition to the pressure being put on Niger.
So far, the coup leaders in Niamey have given little sign that they were prepared to back down or engage in meaningful negotiations.
Hours before the summit in Abuja, they named a new government in an apparent move to entrench their position and present themselves as a legitimate government for Niger after the July 26 coup.
The United Nations and Western powers have backed ECOWAS efforts to persuade the junta to relinquish power and free Bazoum, who is being detained in his residence.
Western countries fear Niger could follow Mali’s footsteps and seek help from Russia’s Wagner Group, which the U.S. has designated a transnational criminal organisation. Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has welcomed the Niger coup and said his forces were available to restore order.
Despite being one of the world’s poorest countries, landlocked Niger, which is more than twice the size of France, has strategic importance as the world’s seventh-largest producer of uranium, a crucial material for nuclear power.
Until the coup, it was also an important ally of the West in a region where other countries have turned against former colonial power France in favour of closer ties with Russia.
U.S., French, German and Italian troops are stationed there as part of an international struggle against a long-running Islamist insurgency that spread across the Sahel from Mali displacing millions and causing a hunger crisis.
Prior to the coup, Niger had fared better than its neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso in stemming the violence.
Following a pattern seen after the coups in those two countries between 2020 and 2022, the junta in Niamey has engaged in vitriolic anti-French rhetoric, seeking to blame France for Niger’s problems and accusing it of a range of violations of sovereignty, which Paris has denied.
(Additional reporting by Nellie Peyton, Alexander Winning, Edward McAllister, Boureima Balima, Abdel-Kader Mazou, Joel Honore Kouam, Ngouda Dione, Thiam NdiagaWriting by Estelle ShirbonEditing by Robert Birsel, Philippa Fletcher and Nick Macfie)
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