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Niger announces nationalisation of its only gold mine
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this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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So the nation can share its own wealth instead of bowing to modern day colonialism
Let's hope so. Military juntas don't have a great track record though.
Neocolonialism wasn’t doing the country any favors either
It's a military dictatorship, that wealth is going to the military leadership, and no one else.
No, that's not how it works. Previously, all of the wealth was going to Australian imperialists and a few compradors, now that wealth stays within Niger. Through opposing Australian imperialism and nationalizing industry, Niger gets to use that wealth on developing themselves, which is in the interests of the proletariat of Niger. This is a fantastic thing, and you're finger-wagging them for kicking out the imperialists.
I'm saying that a dictatorship never cares about the people.
Because Niger is a military dictatorship not a communist utopia.
At best, that wealth will be spent on a lavish palace that will be used by the general and only the general.
At worst, it will buy weapons that will be used to further subjugate the people.
The post-coup government is broadly supported by its people precisely because it kicked out the comprador government that actually did spend all of their kickbacks on lavish material goods as bribery from siphoning all of that wealth outside. You're justifying the western narrative against the Sahel States despite the people supporting the new government as though you know better than them. No investigation, no right to speak.
Nice bit of ableism there. I'm going to cheer for what materially benefits the people of Niger and how they choose to chart their own course, and I'm going to call out chauvanists that think they should be able to tell the people of Niger what to think and how to best express their soveriengty.
Niger has representative democracy, it isn't a dictatorship. The incredibly unpopular previous government was couped and the new government is far more supported. Stop batting for imperialism and judging countries you have no familiarity with.
They literally suffered from a military coup two years ago.
Gen Tiani rules the country with an increasingly iron fist. He has promised a return to civilian rule, but those promises keep slipping. First it was three years, now two years later, it's another five years.
Sounds like Ukraine
Yes, a popularly supported coup, against an unpopular government. Would you be saying that, in the event of a coup against Trump, that this is actually a bad thing? Even better, the government is aligned with other progressive states and against imperialism.
Yes, progressive states like Russia and North Korea.
You are stanning for a military dictatorship that's been disappearing protesters and journalists.
They were kicked out of the African Union for being a repressive military dictatorship.
I'm not "stanning" anything, I'm supporting a progressive national liberation movement against imperialism. French and Australian imperialists are working overtime to smear and depict the Sahel States in as negative a light as possible, when these countries are trying to regain sovereignty over their own industry and resources. National liberation against imperialism is progressive, but western chauvanists will cry and bleat, just like they did with the Haitian revolution, Algerian revolution, Burkina Faso's revolution under Sankara, the Cuban revolution, Korean revolution, Chinese revolution, Vietnamese revolution, Nicaraguan revolution, and countless others.
Every accusation of yours is a confession, you're complaining about a popular movement to nationalize industry at great personal cost in the short term. If the gov just wanted to profit, they would work with the imperialists, and live as compradors, rather than facing sanctions from the west for exerting sovereignty.
Read How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney and stop being a far-right chauvanist.
We follow the money and we will know, right? If they start getting new infrastructure we know the guy is for real.
The money is being concentrated in Gen Tiani's hands, and nowhere else.
He's abandoned much of the country to Jihadists, while only securing the capital...
Although that's technically not true, he's brought in mercenary units from other countries, including the Wagner Group, (the Russian neo-Nazi brigade that tried to coup Putin)
Tiani has given the mercenaries free rein in the countryside, as long as they help protect his capital.
And like any other dictatorship, the war against the media has been intense, with even random bloggers being disappeared off the street.
Easy money is made by making a corrupt backroom deal with Australia so they can plunder the mine for pennies on the dollar.
Kicking out the colonists is a risky move which isn't good for short term profits which is what an exploitative government always seeks.
Does this make the Junta 100% epic good and based? No. But this specific action is good.
Say that in a year when it's revealed that the Junta is using slave labor in the mine that they seized.
Military dictatorships are never good for the people. Full stop. We have thousands of years of examples of militaristic rulers, from warlords to kings. Every single time someone seizes power in a coup, the people suffer for it.
The problem is that that western countries usually fund campaigns and insurgents to overthrow the govenrment that is interferring with their moneymaking. Pop goes the president and a new guy steps in to take loans from the IMF. I mean it's not beautiful but you mean to say the people are doing great under western puppet govenrments because that is a rich take. I'd say we still have to see. It's dedinitely a bet for better but I'm sure France will try to bring the civil war to them soon enough.
At worst, I'd say it's a neutral change. Even the scenarios you've outlined are better than the alternative. But the truth is, we won't know until we know. Simple as that.
For what it's worth, I don't think they are a communist utopia either, and I think people get carried away hyping them up. I just don't think arguing about it is a hill worth dying on.