EDITORIAL: NIGER COUP, IMPERIALISTS MINE THEIR DOWNFALL

A reading and discussion of the latest editorial in Challenge.On July 26, a group of generals in Niger staged a coup and seized control of the country. Although Niger is no stranger to coups, with five to date, the latest is yet another blow to capitalist rulers’ liberal democracy and to U.S. and French imperialism in the Sahel region of Africa. Niger joins Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Chad, and Sudan among nations in the Sahel region of Africa that have dumped U.S.-friendly stooges like ex-President Mohamed Bazoum in favor of military juntas aligned with Russian imperialists. This pivot is a telltale sign that the old U.S.-led liberal world order is imploding. Despite sanctions and threats of war from the spurned imperialists and their allies in the West African bloc Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the coup leaders are showing no signs of backing down. To this point, threats of intervention have been all bark and no bite. Even so, the region’s chaos and volatility, plus the desperation of competing capitalists, could mean that war in Africa is on the horizon. Meanwhile, the Niger generals are rallying thousands of workers behind them in a move to oust the post-colonial French bosses, who maintain four military bases and two thousand troops in the country.If history is any guide, however, the latest set of misleaders will do nothing to improve the lives of workers in Niger. As in Mali and Burkina Faso, these workers will be forced to renegotiate the terms of their misery and exploitation with Russian imperialists and military gangsters. The only way out of this imperialist hell is a communist revolution. True independence for workers means smashing the deadly capitalist system that breeds imperialism, poverty, and war in the first place.