The military leaders in Niger have this week ordered the expulsion of the French ambassador Sylvain Itte despite his refusal to recognise the authority of the junta.
Three years of coups around Africa’s Sahel region eight of them in six nations, from Guinea on the Atlantic to Sudan on the Red Sea leave many African and other policymakers frustrated over how to respond. The Sahel’s crises have uprooted more than 4 million people and could add millions more to our record levels of global human migration as Africa’s population grows and its climate destabilizes. Yet the pattern of coups and other evidence notably from USIP’s Sahel fieldwork, counter-coup research and bipartisan analysis teams offer guidelines for effective responses by African, U.S. and international policymakers.
by gwynne dyer if you are a democratically elected leader in one of africa’s sahel countries – let’s say, niger – and you suspect that the army is plotting to overthrow you, what’s the best counte