2023-09-07 03:00:04
Rice or cereals whose price is skyrocketing. Worsening power cuts. Containers of emergency nutritional products blocked at the Beninese border. The heavy economic sanctions imposed on Niger by the Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in response to the putsch at the end of July are not without consequences, far from it. But their effectiveness and relevance raise questions in one of the poorest countries in the world.
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The debate on the merits of sanctions is almost as old as this weapon whose history dates back to Greek antiquity. In the 20th century, blockades and embargoes were formally integrated into the arsenal of Western countries, notably in the pact of the League of Nations, in an attempt to prevent conflicts. With often mixed results, as recalled The Economic Weapon. The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War (Yale Press University, 2022, untranslated), by the American economist Nicholas Mulder.
In the 1930s, punitive economic measures aimed at restraining Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan accelerated the radicalization of these states. Closer to home, the containment of Russia, weakened by numerous circumventions, has so far failed to stop the war against Ukraine and bring the Russian economy to its knees. In other cases, such as in Haiti or Iraq, the blockades have drawn criticism for having hit the civilian populations much harder than the leaders.
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A priori, however, sanctions appear to be the most appropriate intermediate tool, between ineffective diplomatic negotiations and the use of force, which is potentially very destabilizing. In West Africa, ECOWAS has made extensive use of it for three years to put pressure on the soldiers who took power in Mali as well as in Burkina Faso and Guinea. In addition to measures targeting individuals (asset freeze, travel ban), it decreed a commercial and financial blockade in Mali from January to July 2022.
“Automatic weapon”
The West African organization continued on this path in Niger, but with even more severity. While it had negotiated for many months with Bamako before enacting the embargo, ECOWAS brought out the heavy artillery less than a week after the coup d’etat perpetrated in Niamey. This time, basic necessities were not exempted from the suspension of commercial transactions, nor the supply of electricity, which Niger mainly imports from neighboring Nigeria.
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