Massacre in the North of Niger

08/10/07

On October 1^st, the FAN Forces Armee du Niger (Army of Niger) had stopped five vehicules in the far North of Niger close to the Algerian border, headed North. The passengers were urged to leave the vehicules. The FAN then separated the dark-skinned passengers from the lighter-skinned persons who were supposedly thought to be Touareg.
The soldiers of the FAN then shot those persons to death.

One day later the same army detachment of the FAN attacked people in the region between Assamaka and Arlit in their tents, took 17 individuals from their tents and shot them subsequently arbitrarily and without any reason.

According to reports from NNJ Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice (Movement of Nigeriens for Justice) these persons did not at all belong to the armed oppostion movement.

All persons executed have not been involved in a combat situation at that time. There have been no charges laid, there is no court verdict involved at all.

The FAN and the Nigerian Government are again violating the Geneva Convention as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Furthermore, the RFI journalist, Moussa Kaka (RFI Radio France International) is still being held incarcerated in Niger. He had repsored about the conflict in the North and thus also had contacts to the MNJ; now, he is being accused by the Nigerian Government for this contacts.

This is a violation of the Freedom of Press.

Among others, Reporters with Frontiers is pushing to get him liberated from Niger incarceration.

Nigerien government continues down the road of confrontation with Tuareg rebels

16/08/07

The Nigerien military is continuing to arbitrarily arrest civil servants from the department of Agadez in Niger, leaving no trace of them. At the same time landmines belonging to the military have been discovered that both the civilian population and Tuareg fighters acknowledge the existence of.

In recent weeks more and more sympathisers of the "Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice" (MNJ) have defected from the "Force armée nationale" (FAN) and the "Force nationale d'intervention et de sécurité" (FNIS) to take up arms with the MNJ. In May soldiers guarding a uranium mine owned by the French company AREVA, deserted and joined the MNJ, taking with them money and weapons.

In response to this the Nigerien government accused AREVA of funding the MNJ and therefore the Tuareg rebellion. This particular crisis peaked with the exiling of Dominique Pin, a representative of AREVA in Niger. At the end of June, Gilles Denamur, a security expert for AREVA was also exiled, due to accusations by the Nigerien government of aiding the rebellion of 1990 – 1995. AREVA has repeatedly denied the accusations.

On July 27^th, French President, Nicolas Sarkozy intervened and pushed for a rapid solution. Following talks between both the French and Nigerien governments, and AREVA, Niger agreed to extend AREVA’s mining contracts. Until now AREVA has held the monopoly in uranium mining in Niger. The new contracts stand to greatly improve the Nigerien government’s financial gain from the uranium mines.

Because the Nigerien government still does not have control over rebel movements in the north, it has requested assistance from neighbouring countries to help contain the fighters. The president – Mamadou Tandja – still belittles the rebellion and the rebels, referring to them as "armed bandits" and "drug traffickers", making negotiations until now impossible. In mid-July, Burkina Faso offered to act as a mediator between the rebels and the government as in the previous rebellion, successful peace talks were accomplished with the help of Burkina Faso, among other countries.

On July 15^th the MNJ set up a political office whose intention it is to reach the Tuareg – Diaspora living in the western world, to establish international representatives and relations and to co-ordinate charity campaigns.

The MNJ is still, and repeatedly, showing it's willingness to engage in negotiations. This willingness was reinforced by the release of six soldiers who were arrested during the attack of Tazerzayt.

From the 9th to the 10th of August the MNJ attacked an electricity station that provides power to a uranium mine belonging to AREVA, and a fuel deposit that is used by the FAN, in an attempt to have their demands heard. In successive fighting between the MNJ and the FAN, two civilians have been killed by the Nigerien military.

New Tuareg rebellion: hypothecary burdens of the past?

20/07/07

Since February 2007 new riots are flaming up in the north of the Republic of Niger. Numerous victims and missed people have been counted yet, among those a significant proportion of civilists. Will unresolved conflicts lead to a repetition of the situation between 1990-1995?

A great number of Tuareg have gathered together around veterans of the nineties’ Tuareg rebellion to form a new front they call ”Mouvement des Nigériens pour la justice”, MNJ. Since then it has come to armed conflicts several times between the Nigrian military troops and the MNJ. Several times foreign commercial institutions like an Uranium mine of the French enterprise ”Areva” have been attacked.

Arrestment and murder of three old aged Tuareg civilists by the military in the region of Tezirzayt (this piece of information has been confirmed by several sources in Niger, also by the military itself) and over 250 missed civilists who were arrested brought the conflict to escalation. As an act of revenge the MNJ rebels launched an attack against the military base at Tezirzayt, where 17 soldiers of Nigers military troops were killed, 43 hurt and 70 imprisoned. Directly after the attack, MNJ rebels called the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to ensure medical support for the severely wounded prisoners. June 25 the 30 most heavily wounded soldiers were set free and handed over to a delegation of the ICRC who brought them to Arlit hospital.

Despite of the international attention that those occurrences gained during the last weeks the government of Niger still speaks of ”armed bandits” and ”drug traffickers”. Government refuses to acknowledge the Tuareg rebels and their organisation MNJ, who, after their web-page, works for all the people in Niger, independent of their ethnic belonging. This is why many non-Tuareg people have joined the MNJ-fighters by now. Besides the government’s refusal to acknowledge the rebellion as existent it actively suppresses the free press by massive censoring: July 1 the independent newspaper ”Aïr Info” in Agadez was suspended for three months because of having reported on the actualities in the north. Three other private newspapers in Niamey got threatened. Most recently it came out that the French radio station RFI (Radio France Internationale) was forbidden emission in Niger for one month.

The Tuareg rebels have signalled again and again their willingness for parley with the government, just under the condition that the latter acknowledges their organisation MNJ as a movement of rebellion.

Information has circulated several times (although unconfirmed) following which the government of Niger had asked other countries for military support. The latest information on this was published on the MNJ homepage on July 3 saying that President Mamadou Tandja wanted to buy military helicopters type MI-24 from the Ucraine in order to attack the MNJ camps.

Reasons for the conflict are the ongoing disadvantaging of the north as well as the exploitation of the rich Uranium fields (especially by France and China), which constitute a severe risk for the health of the population as well as for the ecologic system. By mediation of France, Algeria and Burkina Faso in 1995 the last armed Tuareg rebellion was ended by a treaty of peace between the rebels and the Nigrian government. This treaty includes besides encompassing administrative and military decentralisation of the country also increased investment in the northern region, especially concerning the educational and health systems. Moreover, the population of the north, which consists of mostly Tuareg, was granted certain self-governing rights. According to the MNJ these promises from the 1995 peace contract were hardly kept, or not at all, by the government.