UPDATED: Spanning the area from Senegal to Eritrea, situated between the Sahara to the north and the African tropics to the south, the Sahel region has long faced severe, complex security and humanitarian crises.
Niger will remain the “weakest link” to comprehensive military-economic integration within the Sahelian Alliance so long as it continues hosting the US’ two drone bases there. Its interim authorities aren’t “Trojan Horses” like some might wildly speculate, but are simply ensuring their country’s national interests as they sincerely understand them to be given the very difficult circumstances that they found themselves in after ECOWAS threatened to invade.
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger recently established the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), three countries that in the last few years have seen a wave of new military governments come to power that have sought to reorient away from the former colonial power France and the United States. This security pact, which was finalized on Sept. 16, follows the July coup in Niger. After the government was ousted, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea (in a separate communique) stated that they would come to the aid of Niger in the event of an invasion. AES institutionalizes the policy that an attack on one country is considered an attack on the other two.
Violent Extremism in the Sahel
By the Center for Preventive Action
Background
Spanning the area from Senegal to Eritrea, situated between the Sahara to the north and the African tropics to the south, the Sahel region has long faced severe, complex security and humanitarian crises. Since gaining independence in the 1960s, many countries in the Sahel have experienced violent extremism due to the confluence of weak and illegitimate governance, economic decline, and the worsening effects of climate change. Violence, conflict, and crime have surged over the last decade, transcending national borders and posing significant challenges to countries both in and outside the region. The epicenters of violence and humanitarian disaster are in the Liptako-Gourma and Lake Chad Basin subregions.
Liptako-Gourma is in the central Sahel, in the borderlands of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Current instability is associated with the collapse of the Libyan state in 2011, which led to the proliferation of weapons and armed fighters in the region. The influx of extremists into northern Mali reignited the dormant Tuareg rebellion [PDF] in 2012, which had previously surfaced in 1963, 1990, and 2006. Representing only 10 percent of the Malian population, the Tuareg people, organized under the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), sought an autonomous state and aligned themselves with multiple Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and Ansar Dine to push government forces out of the north. Then-President Amadou Toumani Touré was deposed in a March 2012 coup by the army, which disapproved of the government’s failure to suppress the rebellion. The consequent collapse of state institutions in the north enabled the MNLA to capture the regional capitals of Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu; the group had declared the independent state of Azawad [PDF] in northern Mali by April. The MNLA quickly split from al-Qaeda and other allied Islamist groups in June following their attempt to impose Islamic law and declare an Islamic caliphate over the northern territory.
After a period of relative calm, the crisis deteriorated in January 2013 as AQIM, MUJAO, and Ansar Dine pushed further south to capture Konna in central Mali. In August, Mali transitioned back to a civilian-led government under Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, which later signed a peace agreement with a coalition of Tuareg independence groups including the MNLA in 2015. The coalition excluded Islamist organizations, which quickly took advantage of the agreement to expand their control, spreading further into central Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Liptako-Gourma has since become a hotbed for violent extremism in the Sahel.
Notable attacks targeting the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali, the Splendid Hotel in Burkina Faso, and L’Etoule du Sud Hotel in Ivory Coast in 2015 and 2016 demonstrated the extent of the Islamist threat to the Sahel and West Africa. In September 2016, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) surfaced in Burkina Faso, launching its first major attack on a border post near the Burkinabe city of Markoye. In 2017, several al-Qaeda affiliates merged to form Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM). The emergence of ISGS and JNIM—as well as the often contentious, occasionally cooperative relationship between the two—have intensified violence in the Sahel. Both JNIM and ISGS have pushed farther south in Liptako-Gourma, threatening the security of West Africa’s relatively stable coastal states. JNIM has more recently gained control over territory in northern and central Mali, while ISGS has been confined to northern Burkina Faso and western Niger due to clashes with JNIM that began in 2020.
Violent extremism in the Lake Chad Basin at the intersection of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria prevailed in the same period with the reemergence of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. Founded by Muhammed Yusuf in northeastern Nigeria in 2002, Boko Haram was forced underground in 2009 after Nigerian police forces killed over seven hundred members, including Yusuf, during a raid that July. Remaining members dispersed to Afghanistan, Algeria, Chad, northern Mali, Niger, and Somalia. In June and August 2011, Boko Haram indicated its more expansive and aggressive strategy by launching suicide attacks on police and the UN headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria. The group gained international notoriety following its abduction of 276 girls from the town of Chibok, Nigeria, giving rise to the global Bring Back Our Girls movement in April 2014.
In 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed Islamic State and rebranded as the Islamic State in the West African Province (ISWAP). A splinter faction of the original Boko Haram was active until 2021, when ISWAP killed its leader, absorbed its territory, and relegated its members to remote islands in Lake Chad. ISWAP has since established control of northeastern Nigeria and parts of Niger.
Experts attribute the expansion of violent extremism in the Sahel to persistently weak governance, characterized by corruption, democratic backsliding, legitimacy deficits, and human rights violations. Many countries in the region share similar internal dynamics of inequality—state power tends to be concentrated in southern, urban regions while rural, northern areas remain underdeveloped and ripe for exploitation by extremist groups. Thus, Sahel countries are consistently ranked high on the Fragile State Index, particularly Chad, Mali, and Nigeria. Frequent transfers of power are also a problem: Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger experienced a combined twenty-five successful coups d’état between 1960 and 2022, most often resulting in the military overthrow of democratically elected civilian governments. Consecutive military coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, resulting in Mali’s current interim government under a military junta, launched the region’s most recent so-called coup epidemic, which saw similar occurrences in Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger.
The death of Chadian President Idriss Déby on April 20, 2021, created a leadership crisis in regional counterterrorism efforts. Under Déby, Chad and its military acted as a linchpin in regional security coalitions across both Liptako-Gourma and the Lake Chad Basin. The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF)—comprised of Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria—was activated in 2014 to respond to the threat of Boko Haram, organized crime, and banditry in the Lake Chad Basin. In February 2017, France and the Group of Five for the Sahel (G5) countries—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger—announced the creation of the G5 Sahel Force, a five-thousand-troop-strong counterterrorism force aimed at fighting militant groups with an expanded mandate to cross borders in the Sahel region. Increasing civilian casualties and severe human rights violations by security forces in Chad, Mali, and Nigeria have further undermined regional and national efforts.
In 2013, international involvement began in earnest when French forces entered Mali at the request of the Malian government. Operation Serval, later transformed into Operation Barkhane, became a three-thousand-strong force based in N’Djamena, Chad, focused on rooting out violent extremists in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, in partnership with local governments and with the support of Chad and Mauritania. In 2015, Operation Barkhane’s mandate expanded to provide additional support to the MNJTF in its fight against Boko Haram. Operation Barkhane was quickly succeeded by the establishment of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and, in 2020, support from the European Union–led Task Force Takuba. By 2020, France had deployed 5,100 troops supported by 15,000 UN peacekeepers from around the world. The United States has also provided logistics and advisory support to both the MNJTF and G5 Sahel Force. In addition, the U.S. military has increased its presence in the Sahel, deploying approximately 1,500 troops to the region and building a drone base in Niger as a platform for strikes against groups across West and North Africa. Despite the relatively small contingency of U.S. forces, American service members have been in the direct line of fire. On October 4, 2017, members of the U.S. Special Operations Task Force were ambushed by an Islamic State–affiliate group in Tongo Tongo, Niger, leading to the deaths of four servicemen.
Despite increased international involvement, the campaign against militants has instead caused the spread of militancy to countries across the Sahel. That failure, coupled with France’s growing tensions with and unpopularity in its former colonies, led French President Emmanuel Macron to announce on July 13, 2021, that Operation Barkhane would end in the first quarter of 2022. Violent extremists exploited the resulting security vacuum with heightened attacks across the Sahel. Many attacks have specifically targeted MINUSMA, which has been dubbed the United Nations’ most dangerous peacekeeping mission. In lieu of French support, the Malian military junta sought security assistance from the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organization involved in other fragile contexts including the Central African Republic, Libya, Mozambique, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine. Since its introduction in December 2021, the Wagner Group has deployed one thousand mercenaries to Mali housed at fifteen outposts, including former French bases.
An acute humanitarian crisis is exacerbating violent extremism’s threat to regional stability. The last decade of conflict has displaced 2.6 million people in Liptako-Gourma and 2.8 million people in the Lake Chad Basin, with hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into neighboring countries. Sahel countries consistently rank among the world’s poorest with compounding issues [PDF] of poverty, food insecurity, high unemployment, and the world’s fastest-growing population. The Lake Chad Basin crisis has long been recognized as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world due to the severe harm of climate change and weak governance in rural areas. Temperatures in the Sahel are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, directly damaging the livelihoods of millions dependent upon natural resources. Diminishing land and water resources have led to increasingly frequent clashes between herding, farming, and fishing communities. Violent extremist organizations have not only helped worsen humanitarian conditions, including by targeting humanitarian workers, but have also exploited [PDF] insecure conditions to recruit and control populations in the Sahel. In addition, the weakened economies and proliferating violent extremists have increased illicit activity and criminal organizations in the region, further contributing to instability.
Concerns
The persistent and growing strength of violent extremist organizations in the Sahel threatens to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis and spread instability across Africa, posing significant security and financial risks to the United States and Europe. The impending collapse of international counterterrorism support, as well as weakening leadership in regional efforts, has created a vacuum in which violent extremism can expand. The Wagner Group has already taken advantage of that vacuum, moving into Mali and launching indiscriminate operations against Malian civilians. The possible convergence of security threats, including increased cooperation amongst terrorist organizations, principally ISGS and ISWAP, and between terrorist and criminal organizations, could intensify the danger those groups pose in the region and beyond.
In addition, the Sahel remains a principal transit point for migrants traveling from sub-Saharan Africa to northern coastal states and on to Europe. Further violence could exponentially increase the rate of displacement and migration from the region, compounding pressures on northern and coastal African states and Europe. A worsening humanitarian situation would further strain U.S. and international aid efforts, particularly as the United States continues to have long-standing development and security commitments in the region. The United States remains a top donor of humanitarian assistance; continues to provide military training, such as the Flintlock program; and has delivered millions of dollars in arms sales to the region.
Recent Developments
In February 2022, France and its European allies comprising Task Force Takuba announced their intent to withdraw all troops from Mali, ending their nearly decade-long intervention. Emboldened by the removal of foreign forces, extremist organizations have stepped up violence in the region. The first six months of 2022 saw a dramatic increase in attacks, particularly in the Liptako-Gourma area and spilling into coastal West Africa. More than two thousand civilians were killed during this period, an over 50 percent increase from 2021. March 2022 was the deadliest month recorded by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project since 1997—coinciding with renewed activism by ISGS along the Niger-Mali border and the Moura massacre in central Mali. On March 23, Malian soldiers accompanied by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group launched a five-day attack on the town to root out Islamist militants, killing more than three hundred civilians. The United Nations has since called for an investigation into the incident, which has been part of a larger pattern of increasing human rights violations by the Malian security forces since the introduction of the Wagner Group in December 2021.
In May 2022, the Malian government officially terminated its Defense Cooperation Treaty with France alongside the Status of Force Agreement formerly governing France and the European Union’s operations in the country. Mali’s military government also pulled out of the G5 Sahel—greatly diminishing the organization’s counterterrorism capacity. In June, JNIM killed 132 villagers in central Mali, the deadliest attack on civilians since the coup. Regional patterns have indicated a marked increase in civilian targeting across Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger in particular. In June 2023, Mali’s government demanded the departure of MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping force. The UN agreed to withdraw within six months, raising concerns of a power vacuum and setbacks for Mali’s transition to civilian rule, for which the junta claims a June 2023 referendum was a first step. MINUSMA has also played a key role in assuaging Tuareg separatists, who warn that the UN departure will deal a “fatal blow” to the peace agreement.
Following violent protests over the government’s counterterrorism efforts, a military coup in Burkina Faso led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba overthrew democratically elected President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré on January 24, 2022. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) subsequently banned Burkina Faso, and the African Union followed suit. Since then, ISGS has launched a series of deadly attacks, including the massacre of one hundred civilians in the northern village of Seytenga in June 2022. In September, Damiba was deposed by Captain Ibrahim Traoré in a second military coup. Traoré has since dissolved the government, suspended the constitution, and closed the country’s borders. Speculation regarding Traoré’s connection to the U.S. military has prompted investigations into the role of U.S. military training in the region’s coup epidemic, as the Pentagon has been unable to confirm or deny the link to Traoré.
On October 24, 2022, the United States and the United Kingdom announced the recall of embassy officials from Abuja, Nigeria, citing a heightened risk of a significant terrorist attack. That decision came after several spates of gun violence across northern Nigeria not officially attributed to extremist organizations—including an incident that same month where a gunman opened fire on villagers in Nigeria’s Benue State, leaving thirty-six people dead.
In January 2023, UN experts advocated for an independent investigation into potential war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by government forces and the Wagner Group in Mali. The experts claimed a “climate of terror and complete impunity” characterized the Wagner Group’s activities in the country, pointing to the Moura massacre in March 2022. Wagner’s future in West Africa is less certain after the group’s failed June 2023 rebellion in Russia, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia would allow its African operations to continue. In July 2023, the United States accused Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin of orchestrating Mali’s decision to expel MINUSMA to advance Wagner’s interests. Neighboring Burkina Faso has denied contracting Wagner Group, but the interim president said Russia is a strategic ally.
In 2023, security forces in Mali and Burkina Faso faced allegations of civilian massacres. First, in April, survivors of a massacre in Burkina Faso blamed the military for the deaths of 136 civilians. Then, in May, the UN released a report accusing Malian soldiers and foreign fighters of executing more than five hundred civilians in a March 2022 operation. Meanwhile, armed groups have stepped up attacks on poorly trained civilian volunteer forces. The withdrawal of the UN from Mali raises the risk of violence against civilians, as extremist groups might attempt to seize urban centers as they have in Burkina Faso.
A July 26 coup d’etat in Niger, the ninth attempted overthrow of a West African government in the last three years, dealt a significant blow to counterterrorism and stabilization efforts in the Sahel. Niger’s government fended off a coup attempt in March 2021, two days before President-elect Mohamed Bazoum assumed office, but the most recent coup attempt succeeded in unseating him. Despite pressure from ECOWAS, including sanctions and the threat of military intervention, the coup leaders have refused to cede power and declared a new government. Nearby military regimes Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Mali have backed junta, with the latter two vowing to treat military intervention in Niger as a “declaration of war.”
Niger had become the West’s last major counterterrorism partner in the Sahel in recent years after a series of coups in neighboring countries, but the takeover threatens to upend its status as a bulwark against an expanding power vacuum. Shortly after seizing power, the coup leaders ceased military cooperation with France, which moved its troops to Niger in 2022 as its relations with Mali deteriorated. The United States maintains around one thousand troops in the country, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Niger a “model of democracy” during a March visit. After the coup, Blinken warned that while Russia’s Wagner Group likely did not instigate the coup, it is “taking advantage” of Niger’s instability.
The Newly Formed Sahelian Alliance Will Reshape Regional Military-Strategic Dynamics
By Andrew Korybko
Niger will remain the “weakest link” to comprehensive military-economic integration within the Sahelian Alliance so long as it continues hosting the US’ two drone bases there. Its interim authorities aren’t “Trojan Horses” like some might wildly speculate, but are simply ensuring their country’s national interests as they sincerely understand them to be given the very difficult circumstances that they found themselves in after ECOWAS threatened to invade.
The interim military-led governments of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger signed the Liptako-Gourma Charter in Bamako on Saturday that provides for mutual security and closer economic cooperation. This development will reshape regional military-strategic dynamics since it represents the creation of a sub-bloc within ECOWAS among three of the four countries whose participation in the latter was suspended in recent years. Guinea isn’t part of this “Sahelian Alliance” but it could possibly join in the future.
The most immediate effect is that ECOWAS will now think twice before launching a French-backed Nigerian-led invasion of Niger since that would instantly lead to a wider war with the Sahelian Alliance. In the event that this worst-case scenario is deterred, then those three newly allied countries will be able to focus more on helping one another deal with unconventional security threats. They’re each fighting jihadists, while Mali is also struggling to deal with a renewed Tuareg insurgency.
About that, rebels recently seized a northern town and are poised to make further gains in violation of the 2015 peace agreement that each side accuses the other of violating. Russia is Mali’s preferred security partner nowadays so Moscow is expected to assist Bamako in managing this crisis. Interim Burkinabe President Ibrahim Traore confirmed last month that he discussed military cooperation with a visiting Russian delegation so their strategic alliance might expand in that direction too.
In that case, the Kremlin would end up playing a multinational anti-terrorist role in West Africa and thus de facto replace France’s traditional responsibilities in the region, albeit as a truly equal partner of those two as opposed to the hegemon-proxy relationship that characterized Paris’ ties with them. Two out of the Sahelian Alliance’s members would therefore become Russia’s military allies, but this sub-bloc as a whole might not formally partner with Moscow due to the US’ continued military presence in Niger.
The top US Air Force commander for Europe and Africa revealed last week just days before this group’s creation that his country resumed its intelligence and surveillance missions there after having largely stopped them right after this summer’s military coup. It was argued here that this was almost certainly the result of Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s trip to Niamey in early August and the negotiations that she held with the junta during that time.
The US’ goal is to prevent the further expansion of Russia’s regional influence after Moscow’s military inroads in Mali and its impending ones in Burkina Faso, which were brought about by those two’s latest coups. These regime changes were carried out in response to their people becoming more politically aware and accordingly agitating for the full completion of their decolonization processesvis-a-vis France. As French influence receded, Russian influence grew, and this posed a challenge to American interests.
The US therefore seems to have reached a deal with Niger’s military authorities whereby it’ll call off ECOWAS’ threatened invasion of that country in exchange for them keeping its two drone bases and not following in its neighbor’s footsteps by requesting Russia’s military assistance. This informal arrangement would account for last week’s announcement and could also serve to prevent Niger’s incorporation in the federation that Burkina Faso and Mali are seriously considering forming.
Not only that, but the US could contrast its potentially successful anti-jihadist security assistance to Niger with Russia’s struggle in helping Mali and possibly also soon Burkina Faso counteract these same threats, not to mention the first’s renewed Tuareg insurgency. If the situation in US-allied Niger improves while worsening in Russian-allied Mali and possibly also Burkina Faso, with the latter two’s turmoil likely being due to American and/or French meddling, then Washington can divide-and-rule the Sahelian Alliance.
Additionally, the US could artificially manufacture an information warfare narrative alleging that their opposite fortunes supposedly prove the merits of allying with America and the pitfalls inherent in allying with Russia. This might not have much of a tangible effect in Mali or Burkina Faso, but it could manipulate perceptions in other countries by splitting incipient anti-imperialist movements there into American- and Russian-aligned camps over who best to ally with for replacing French influence.
Those who might seize power in any forthcoming military coups carried out in response to their people’s rising political awareness and associated protests aimed at fully completing their decolonization processes vis-a-vis France would therefore be forced to choose between those two New Cold War rivals. Russia wouldn’t automatically be their preferred security partner if the plotters are influenced by the abovementioned information warfare campaign into thinking that there are risks in allying with it.
Truth be told, America’s emerging response to regional multipolar trends isn’t novel since it supported the first wave of decolonization over half a century ago for the same reason related to competing with the erstwhile Soviet Union for hearts, minds, and influence. Back then, the US turned against several of its NATO allies by encouraging their now-former colonies’ independence movements, while this time it’s only turning against France since that’s the only one that still exerts hegemony in parts of Africa.
To that end, the US wants to divide incipient anti-imperialist movements in France’s “sphere of influence” prior to co-opting friendly factions within them. After that, it can either support their representatives’ electoral rise to national leadership (including via Color Revolutions that it could cook up in pursuit of that outcome) or ally with their new military leaders that come to power after a coup. Through these means, the US hopes to slow down, stop, and possibly even reverse Russian influence.
This insight is relevant to the newly formed Sahelian Alliance since it suggests that Niger will remain the “weakest link” to comprehensive military-economic integration so long as it continues hosting the US’ two drone bases there. Its interim authorities aren’t “Trojan Horses” like some might wildly speculate, but are simply ensuring their country’s national interests as they sincerely understand them to be given the very difficult circumstances that they found themselves in after ECOWAS threatened to invade.
Those observers who support multipolarity therefore shouldn’t judge the junta too harshly since it’s literally being forced under the threat of a wider war into keeping America’s two drone bases open. They might have initially been driven by grand ant-imperialist goals into overthrowing their puppet president, but they’re now turning into a laboratory for the US to experiment with its response to regional trends. It’s a disappointing turn of events, but hopefully it’ll at least prevent a wider war from breaking out.
What is the new “Alliance of Sahel States” challenging neo-colonialism in West Africa?
By Monica Johnson
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger recently established the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), three countries that in the last few years have seen a wave of new military governments come to power that have sought to reorient away from the former colonial power France and the United States. This security pact, which was finalized on Sept. 16, follows the July coup in Niger. After the government was ousted, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Guinea (in a separate communique) stated that they would come to the aid of Niger in the event of an invasion. AES institutionalizes the policy that an attack on one country is considered an attack on the other two.
AES was formalized with the signing of the Liptako-Gourma Charter, named after the regional border in which the three countries converge. This alliance signifies a new development in regional political and defense cooperation independent of the ECOWAS regional bloc and other instruments of U.S. and French influence.
Whether or not the pro-West ECOWAS alliance will follow through on its threat to invade Niger is still an open question. But certainly they have not lifted the unjustly-imposed sanctions on the country. In the past few days, Niger has reported a severe shortage of medical supplies that are a direct result of ECOWAS sanctions. Much of the country’s medical supplies travel through the neighboring country of Benin, but 60 containers of desperately-needed supplies have been blocked at Benin’s port of Cotonou or the border between the two countries.
This suffering is typical of how the major imperialist powers impose brutal and deadly sanctions on countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that assert their independence. After decades of severe exploitation and unilateral sanctions, there is growing desire around the world for a different economic order that supports the development of all nations.
Countries in West Africa and around the world now have alternative economic partners. China has recently been providing substantial debt forgiveness to African countries. The Russia-Africa summit held in late July revealed renewed or new opportunities to boost mutual cooperation economically, politically and technologically. These efforts are very much a work in progress, but there is greater readiness to confidently engage in a new direction.
The governments of Europe and the United States claim to be concerned with democracy, human rights and the rule of law. But if left up to them and neocolonial puppets in ECOWAS, Nigeriens would die of preventable disease, starve and suffer. Western “experts” on African politics express surprise and consternation at countries like Niger “not accepting the concept that ECOWAS as a whole has the right to become involved in managing their crises and moving them back towards constitutional rule.”
It is clear to see now that the three Sahel countries are charting a new path that establishes cooperative structures outside the imposition of Western-backed African institutions. But there are major challenges ahead. French troops are still present in Niger and do not recognize the legitimacy of the new government. And the threat of an invasion continues to loom. The Alliance of Sahel States represents an effort to uphold the demands of sovereignty and the right to self-determination — something that the people of Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali have poured into the streets in support of.
africa anti-imperialism anti-war