Following fractious negotiations between Niamey and Abu-Dhabi, the Emirati base plan has been suspended.
French soldiers at Fort Madama in Niger. © RFI / Olivier Fourt
Emirati base plans up in the air
August 28, 2019 (West Africa Newsletter) – Following fractious negotiations between Niamey and Abu Dhabi, the project to establish an Emirati base in Niger has been put on hold.
Initially, the Nigerien president Mahamadou Issoufou had been categorically opposed to the setting up of a United Arab Emirates base in the north of the country, but Niamey then softened its line and entered into discreet talks with Abu Dhabi.
With the UAE actively engaged in Libya alongside Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of Libya’s eastern coastal region who is at war with the Tripoli regime, the Emirates had hoped to establish a temporary forward post in the north of Niger.
Located around one hundred kilometres from the Libyan border, the fort of Madama was for a time a candidate for hosting this forward base, boasting as it does a 2 km landing strip and ready sources of underground water.
However, for the time being the talks between the two countries have been suspended. In mid-June, several hundred students demonstrated in Niamey against the presence of foreign troops in the country.
A French base in Niger put “dormant”, the army focuses on Mali
July 09, 2019 (Sputnik French News Service) – The French Armed Forces have decided to put their military base in “ Madama” , in northern Niger, “dormant” in order to redirect the efforts on Mali, the spokesman for the general staff of the armies said.
The base of the French army at Madama , in northern Niger, was “put to sleep” as part of a “concentration of efforts” of Operation Barkhane in the Malian region of Liptako Gourma and on the basis of Gossi, said Tuesday the spokesman of the staff of the French armies.
The French forces have this Madama base as part of the French anti-jihadist operation Barkhane, which mobilizes some 4,500 soldiers in the Sahel .
“The mothballing of the Madama base is part of the concentration of efforts in the Liptako Gourma,” said General Patrik Steiger during the staff’s weekly press briefing.
“The last convoy left [base Madama, ed] yesterday or the day before yesterday. This is not a closure, it allows to maintain a capacity of recovery, of intervention if necessary, “he explained, adding that the Nigerian authorities had been informed.
“The base is not abandoned, there is a Nigerian garrison that is not far. The most sensitive equipment requiring regular maintenance has been repatriated by different convoys, “he said, quoted by AFP.
This “mothballing” is “concomitant” with the “ramp-up” of Gossi’s advanced temporary operational base, which comes “as part of the concentration of efforts in the Liptako Gourma”.
This base, which was occupied by a detachment of MINUSMA until 2018, and since January 2019, was reoccupied by French soldiers, was officially inaugurated on June 26, according to the same source.
Development work
Major development work was done, allowing “to accommodate more than 300 soldiers,” said the general. “This makes it possible to mark the implementation of Barkhane […] and to be able to launch sustainable operations in this area”.
In view of the evolution of the situation, “it was considered necessary to recover the resources available to Madama to engage them further south in the Liptako Gourma,” he added.
Northern Mali had fallen in March-April 2012 under the guise of jihadist groups , largely dispersed by a military intervention launched in January 2013 at the initiative of France. This intervention continues with Barkhane.
But entire areas of Mali are beyond the control of the forces of Mali, France and the UN, despite the signing in 2015 of a peace agreement supposed to isolate the jihadists definitively. Since 2015, violence has spread from the north to the center, and sometimes to the south.
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