Special forces from Niger are mentored by a Canadian special operations officer, right, near Jacqueville in Ivory Coast. The Canadian forces have been training Niger’s military for the past decade, with as many as 50 Canadian soldiers deployed to Niger every year.Cheick Sylla/The Globe and Mail
For a decade, Canada has pursued a quiet campaign to stabilize the fragile West African country of Niger, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on development and security projects to defend an impoverished democracy surrounded by autocratic regimes and Islamist militias.
Today, those expensive efforts are in jeopardy. A coup in Niger has deposed the Western-backed president, Mohamed Bazoum. This has left the country in the hands of military leaders who seem to have abandoned the democratic gospel the Canadians were preaching.
The coup leaders have named General Abdourahamane Tchiani as the new head of state, although Western and African governments have refused to recognize him.
The ousting of Mr. Bazoum last week by Niger’s army is the latest in a wave of coups across the Sahel region of Africa in recent years, including in Niger’s neighbour, Mali, where Canada had made similarly elaborate efforts to prop up a fragile government with troops and foreign aid. The emergence of military juntas across the region has cast fresh doubt on the effectiveness of the Canadian strategy.
Niger and Mali have been two of the biggest recipients of Canadian support on the African continent, but Canada was not alone in its involvement: the United States and France also focused much of their aid on the same two African countries, amounting to thousands of troops and billions of dollars. Now, the West is searching for answers, while hoping that there still might be time for Niger to reverse the coup.
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Global Affairs Canada, in a statement on Friday, joined other Western governments in condemning the Niger putsch. “We reaffirm our support for Niger’s democracy,” it said, adding that respect for democracy “is essential to preserve cooperation efforts and stability” there.
Canada provided more than $520-million in development assistance to Niger in the period from 2000 to 2020, followed by an additional $59.3-million in 2021-2022 alone, according to Global Affairs.
The Canadian Armed Forces have been training Niger’s military for the past decade, under a Canadian program called Operation Naberius. As many as 50 Canadian soldiers have been deployed to Niger every year to train the national army in counterterrorism operations. This has included “leadership training” on human rights and the laws of armed conflict, according to a Department of National Defence website.
Canadian military trainers have also focused on helping Niger’s military officers in the annual U.S.-sponsored training exercise known as Flintlock. This year, when The Globe and Mail visited the Flintlock exercise, the Canadians were working closely with some of those officers. One senior Canadian officer said the training included Canadian military values, such as respect for democracy – a value that was seemingly ignored when the coup was launched last week.
Niger central to Sahel security
West African nations have imposed sanctions and threatened
force if Niger’s coup leaders do not reinstate ousted President
Mohamed Bazoum after the latest coup in the Sahel
Tillabéri region: Regular
target of attacks by
Al Qaeda and Islamic
State-linked terrorists
200km
Agadez
U.S.: About 1,100
troops at two locations
including drone base
Tillia
Germany:
About 200 troops
Menaka
MALI
Tiloa
Tiloa
France: 1,000-1,500
troops as part of Operation
Almahaou in Tillabéri region
NIGER
TILLABÉRI
Diffa
Niamey
Italy: 300
troops
BURKINA
FASO
Attacks by Boko
Haram terrorists
NIGERIA
graphic news
Niger central to Sahel security
West African nations have imposed sanctions and threatened
force if Niger’s coup leaders do not reinstate ousted President
Mohamed Bazoum after the latest coup in the Sahel
Tillabéri region: Regular
target of attacks by
Al Qaeda and Islamic
State-linked terrorists
200km
Agadez
U.S.: About 1,100
troops at two locations
including drone base
Tillia
Germany:
About 200 troops
Menaka
MALI
Tiloa
Tiloa
France: 1,000-1,500
troops as part of Operation
Almahaou in Tillabéri region
NIGER
TILLABÉRI
Diffa
Niamey
Italy: 300
troops
BURKINA
FASO
Attacks by Boko
Haram terrorists
NIGERIA
graphic news
Niger central to Sahel security
West African nations have imposed sanctions and threatened force if Niger’s coup leaders
do not reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum after the latest coup in the Sahel
Tillabéri region: Regular
target of attacks by
Al Qaeda and Islamic
State-linked terrorists
200km
Agadez
U.S.: About 1,100
troops at two locations
including drone base
Tillia
Germany:
About 200 troops
Menaka
MALI
Tiloa
Tiloa
France: 1,000-1,500
troops as part of Operation
Almahaou in Tillabéri region
NIGER
TILLABÉRI
Diffa
Niamey
Italy: 300
troops
BURKINA
FASO
Attacks by Boko
Haram terrorists
NIGERIA
graphic news
Defence Department spokesperson Daniel Le Bouthillier said the Niger training program’s future is unknown. There has been no decision made yet on whether Canada will go ahead with the next planned training session, in the fall of this year.
The continued viability of Operation Naberius “is dependent on the developing security situation and, as with all operational deployments, Government of Canada direction,” Mr. Le Bouthillier added.
While there is no current training program in Niger, a small number of Canadian soldiers – fewer than 10 – are now in the country, planning for future training, Mr. Le Bouthillier said. He said about 210 Canadian Armed Forces members have deployed on Operation Naberius since its inception.
He also said the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command has not provided training to Gen. Tchiani or Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the head of Niger’s special forces, who is also believed to be a leader of the coup.
Canada’s dilemma in Niger is similar to its earlier quandary in Mali, where the federal government provided $1.6-billion in development aid from 2000 to 2020. It also sent about 250 troops to Mali from 2018 to 2019 to support Canadian helicopters in a United Nations peacekeeping mission, and it has continued to deploy dozens of other Canadian troops and police officers in the UN mission. Despite this support, Mali’s military has launched two coups since 2020, and the UN is now withdrawing its peacekeeping force after Mali’s military junta demanded its departure.
Adam Sandor, a researcher at the University of Bayreuth, in Germany, said it is difficult to determine if any of the military members trying to take power in Niger received training from the Canadian Forces. But he said it is “most likely the case,” since so many soldiers have undergone Western military training across the Sahel.
He said it is hard to say for certain what training Canadians provided in Niger, because the CAF describes it as “capacity-building training,” which could involve any number of exercises. Dr. Sandor said training for special forces would be tactical and would cover responses to diverse threats. Basic-level training would show trainees how to shoot and reload, among other things.
Structured basic training usually involves human-rights courses, but there is not much of an emphasis on democracy training, Dr. Sandor said.
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Bruno Charbonneau, a professor at the Royal Military College Saint Jean and director of the Centre FrancoPaix in Conflict Resolution in Montreal, said the coup calls into question the purpose and impact of military assistance programs.
“Military training is about improving the capacity of military personnel to do military things. Military and security foreign assistance does not often address the issue of civilian control of the military, which is arguably the key problem behind these coups. If it does, a course on human rights or civilian control cannot address institutional matters and power dynamics,” he said.
“A course can hardly change the state’s capacity to manage civil-military relations. Hence, the dilemma is whether military foreign assistance should be offered with or without assurance of better civilian control.”
Lori-Anne Théroux-Bénoni, regional director for the West Africa, Sahel and Lake Chad Basin office of the Institute for Security Studies, said there is a real need for capacity building, training and restoration of the security sector in West African countries.
“Even if a soldier trained by a foreign partner ends up involved in a coup, it doesn’t call into question the necessity for this training to have taken place,” she said. “What about all of the others who might be doing their job more efficiently and contributing to the development trajectory?”
It is also possible that the impact of Western training is overestimated, she said. “We are currently in West Africa in a context where democracy has not delivered the type of outcomes that were supposed to come with it, and so there is some level of frustration with the way in which the political system works.”