Illustrative Image
Written by Eric Zuesse
A potential United States of Africa is now in early stages of formation after a mutiny by Niger’s Presidential Guards immediately expanded into a coup by Niger’s Army on July 26th and overthrew that country’s ‘democratically’ elected U.S.-and-French stooge — and very corrupt — President Mohamed Bazoum. The Nigeran public immediately responded to this coup with massive cheering demonstrations throughout the country, supporting as their liberators the team that was freeing their land from the exploitative grip of the imperialists: France backed by America. Niger, like the other African countries that use the French franc as their currency, has been funding France’s Government and Niger’s own aristocracy, by means of a complex mechanism called “the CFA franc” in which, as the CNN U.S. propaganda network buried in one of their news-reports,
Françafrique has often been criticized for perpetuating neo-colonial practices. For example, few things have sparked more controversy than the Central African franc or CFA, a currency which is used by 14 nations in West and Central Africa including Niger.
Countries using CFA francs are required to store 50% of their currency reserves with the Banque de France, and the currency is pegged to the euro. While Paris asserts that the system promotes economic stability, others say it allows France to exert control over the economy of the countries using it.
So, basically, whatever is shipped abroad by any of those countries, the proceeds, in effect, go 50% to France, and only the other 50% goes to Niger or the other source-country.
As the U.S. regime’s own Brookings Institution had earlier obliquely put it:
Some African economists consider the broader dependency on European monetary policies as a restriction to growth due to a hyper-fixation on inflation. However, African elite and wealthy individuals, the primary beneficiaries of the CFA franc zone configuration, support its continuation.
The only beneficiaries are the individuals who control the international corporations — especially the ones that are headquartered in France and in America, and that have subsidiaries in the given African colony. As a scholar at the British aristocracy’s London School of Economics surprisingly admitted:
The CFA franc also encourages massive capital outflows. In brief, membership of the franc zone is synonymous with poverty and under-employment, as evidenced by the fact that 11 of its 15 adherents are classed as Least Developed Countries (LDCs), while the remainder (Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon) have all experienced real-term economic decline.
Finally, they maintain that membership of the franc zone is inimical to the advance of democracy. To uphold the CFA franc, it is argued, France has never hesitated to jettison heads of state tempted to withdraw from the system. Most were removed from office or killed in favour of more compliant leaders who cling to power come hell or high water, as shown by the CAEMC nations and Togo. Economic development is impossible in such circumstances, as is the creation of a political system that meets the preoccupations of the majority of citizens.
In the subsequent days, after the coup, Niger entered into discussions with Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso, which already previously had had coups for freedom from their imperialist masters that the U.S. Government leads. Meanwhile, the U.S. regime’s efforts — which are being led by Victoria Nuland, who had masterminded the U.S. regime’s successful coup that in February 2014 grabbed and absorbed Ukraine into the U.S. empire (and here is the smoking-gun piece of evidence on that) so as to get it into NATO as the nearest bordering country from which to attack The Kremlin and decapitate Russia, which is only 317 miles away from Ukraine — appear thus far to be running into an unwillingness of Governments near to Niger, to shed their peoples’ blood to invade Niger, whose public are determined to achieve freedom from their foreign exploiters and will not give up short of a very bloody war, which would embarrass America and its ‘democracies’ and so strip away that ‘democratic’ mask, which the U.S. regime uses in order to fool publics everywhere.
On August 3rd, CNN headlined “Africa’s latest coup is a headache for the West and an opportunity for Russia”, and pretended that the aggression here, and the opposition to democracy, came from Russia against the United States, instead of from the United States against Russia.
I have previously explained these events in my 6 March 2023 “The Transformative Present Moment in History”.
Whatever the outcome will be from the current events in Niger, it will be a part of that story, and maybe a very important part of it. However, the time is too early to predict what that outcome will turn out to be. In any case, that story began in 1945, when the anti-imperialist U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became replaced by the pro-imperialist President Harry Truman, who shaped the post-WW-II international order, which has lasted till now, and which appears to be soon reaching its climax.
If Victoria Nuland will not be able to turn the screws against Niger’s new leaders in the way that her bosses, Antony Blinken, and, above him, Joe Biden, are hoping — nor to get ‘the free world’ to invade and conquer Niger as they hope — then a successful model will have become established which might be copied by other slave-nations, by means of which they, too, might likewise break away, and free themselves, from their imperial masters, the U.S.-and-‘allied’ (vassal-nation) empire: the U.S. aristocracy, and its foreign dependency ones. If so, it would terminate the hegemon’s hegemony. It would end the Truman-initiated global system (which aspires to conquer — absorb into its imperial web — all nations, and especially Russia and China). So: the stakes are huge in Niger now.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public
hot air & bluster. niger’s rebels will be on their own, its neighbours will fall in line with imperialistic diktat/threats – just like putin sat paralysed like the archetypal rabbit in headlights when vicky nuland led the bloody ukr coup in 2014 – frightened of upsetting the usa gangsters. and after 18 months of a long, long overdue smo, mighty rus still hasn’t secured all donbass territory or prevented kiev nazis killing civilians.
so until like minded countries stand together against us hegemony when & where it matters, the us will continue to call the shots. because in the end everyone – deep down – still wants to be usa’s buddy. and it is that corrupt, money grabbing sycophancy that is the real root of modern colonialism – and the usa knows it!
i agree with your niger analysis. maybe putin did wake up late in ukraine. but russia’s been sitting on virtually everything in donbas worth taking since 2022. kiev’s been frantically trying to take it back because it knows without donbas it’ll starve to death. also, kiev’s ability to kill civilians is getting less every day and will soon stop completely as it gets driven further and further away from civilian population centers by russia.
‘kiev’s ability to kill civilians is getting less every day’
and that’s the least the long suffering civilians of the donbass can expect. up to last month over 4,500 civilians in the donbass have been killed by the afu since the start of the smo (feb 22). this represents almost a doubling of the donbass civilian death rates recorded from 2014-jan 2022. meanwhile russia has failed to take & secure the whole of drp/lpr.
to start a war in africa would be the end of europe.
mali niger guinea and burkina faso, they are united against the french colonials interfering in nthese north african nations, morocco, tunisia and algeria have withdrawn their use of the cfa and are more prosperous as a result.
economic community of west african states (ecowas) nations have been talking about replacing the cfa with a united currency pegged to the euro as they trade principally with the eu. i want to hear more about this and to have it all clearly explained. kudos to the african nations to free their money and introduce their own currencies.