I appreciate this perspective, and I don’t suppose I actually support every coup in Africa, for example I definitely didn’t support the counter-coup by Blaise Compaoré against Thomas Sankara. I hesitate to wash off crimes of governments against which coups have been performed due to being elected, however, knowing that democratic processes are often and have been, even within Africa, manipulated in ways to prevent popular parties or factions from participating, or in ways as to ensure a particular outcome is more likely, and still upheld by international watchdog organizations as democratic. The popular support for the coup domestically in Niger would also suggest that despite being elected through a democratic process, that process was not representative of the will of the mass. I could be wrong though, Niger has had so many coups in the last 40 years, maybe the people are just used to it by now and prefer it to democratic methods of grievance redress.

Have we seen warmongering from the junta in Niger? Or is it that the people within the coup were warlords prior to takeover? All of the statements I have seen from the junta, while strong, have suggested the opposite, that they intend to try to hold power without bloodshed if possible. They’ve not closed down the foreign uranium mines in their countries, I haven’t heard about mass civilian deaths, but I could be out of date. They at least claim to be holding a public trial against the ousted government, instead of just shooting them like you’d expect a warmonger to do. They’ve asked foreign militaries to leave, and those militaries have refused, but I haven’t heard about them attacking those bases or even threatening to. I feel like we’ve seen separate juntas, because I just don’t see the warlord angle from what I’ve seen or heard.