Niger soldiers confirm coup
2010-02-19 07:07
Niamey - Renegade soldiers in armoured vehicles stormed Niger's presidential palace with a hail of gunfire in broad daylight on Thursday, kidnapping the country's strongman president and then appearing on state television to declare they staged a successful coup.
The soldiers also said that the country's constitution had been suspended and all its institutions dissolved.
The spokesperson for the soldiers said the country is now being led by the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy.
He asked citizens and the international community to have faith in their ideals which "could turn Niger into an example of democracy and of good governance".
Smoke rose from the white-hued multi-storey palace complex and the echo of machine-gunfire for at least two hours sent frightened residents running for cover, emptying the desert country's downtown boulevards.
Traore Amadou, a local journalist who was in the presidency when the shooting began, said President Mamadou Tandja was kidnapped by mutinous troops.
Polite escort
French radio station Radio France Internationale reported that the soldiers burst in and neutralised the presidential guard before entering the room where Tandja was holding a Cabinet meeting.
They politely escorted him outside to a waiting car which drove him toward a military camp on the outskirts of the capital. His whereabouts remained unknown hours later when the soldiers took to the airwaves to announce the coup.
Tandja first took power in democratic elections in 1999 that followed an era of coups and rebellions. But instead of stepping down as mandated by law on December 22, he triggered a political crisis by pushing through a new constitution in August that removed term limits and gave him near-totalitarian powers.
Niger has become increasingly isolated since then, with the 15-nation regional bloc of West African states suspending Niger from its ranks and the US government cutting off non-humanitarian aid and imposing travel restrictions on some government officials.
Volatile region
The ease with which Niger's democratic institutions have been swept aside has marked a setback for a region struggling to shake off autocratic rulers.
In Guinea, a military junta seized power in December 2008 after the death of the country's long-time dictator, only to have the junta leader go into voluntary exile after he survived an assassination attempt a year later.
The nation's latest troubles began suddenly in Niamey on Thursday afternoon, when gunfire broke out around the impoverished nation's small presidency.
"Armoured vehicles came into the palace and began shooting at the building," said Moussa Mounkaila, a palace driver.
He said the mutinous troops had come from a military barracks at Tondibia, about 12km west of the capital. Mounkaila said he saw some smoke rising from the damaged presidency before he jumped over a wall and fled.
Tandja had just gathered government ministers for a Cabinet meeting when the gunfire erupted outside.
A diplomat in neighbouring Burkina Faso said the mutinous soldiers are led by Colonel Abdoulaye Adamou Harouna, the former aide-de-camp of Niger's previous coup leader Major Daouda Mallam Wanke.
Coup leader
In Niamey, soldiers contacted by telephone inside their barracks said the coup was led by Colonel Adamou Harouna, but gave a different first name - saying it was Djibril, not Abdoulaye.
It was Wanke that led the 1999 coup, seizing power after the country's former military strongman was gunned down in an incident that was dubbed "an accident". Wanke, however, organised democratic elections less than a year later, which Tandja won.
The diplomat, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said that Harouna -once Wanke's top aide - is part of an army faction that is deeply disillusioned with Tandja for violating his constitutionally mandated term limit.
They see him as having violated the trust the military initial placed in him when they ceded power in elections 11 years ago, he said. It was not immediately possible to confirm the diplomat's account or to resolve the discrepancy in the name.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was closely following developments and receiving regular updates from his Special Representative for West Africa Said Djinnit, UN deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe said.
"It would be recalled that the secretary-general has called on the stakeholders in Niger to swiftly revert to constitutional order in the settlement of the political crisis that developed in that country last year," Okabe said at UN headquarters in New York.
Curfew, borders sealed
In their broadcast on state TV, the soldiers said the country was now under a curfew and that all its borders had been sealed.
An Air France flight that was scheduled to land at Niamey on Thursday afternoon was diverted to neighbouring Burkina Faso, said a company spokesperson.
So was the private plane of the Senegalese foreign minister who had been dispatched by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade and who was prevented from landing in Niger by the army, said Senegalese government spokesperson Bamba Ndiaye.
Just days before Thursday's coup, Wade had been named mediator for Niger's political crisis by Ecowas, a regional bloc of 15 West African countries.
Niger has gained notoriety in recent years with a spate of kidnappings in its lawless northern deserts. A low-level rebellion finally calmed last year in the uranium-rich north, where al-Qaeda's North Africa branch has claimed responsibility for taking a handful of foreigners hostage.
- SAPA