What does the coup in Niger have to do with Hiroshima and Nagasaki ?

No single oil-based bomb can blow up an entire city, but nuclear-based bombs can do.

The global Uranium battle in Niger

What is Niger about ?

 
It is not about the population of Niger, but about the raw materials, especially those raw materials that are needed for the production of nuclear bombs. And whoever rules over nuclear weapons also rules the world. No wonder, then, that the world powers are fighting over uranium deposits in Niger.
World domination = domination over world profit.
In Niger, the world imperialist powers are fighting over who gets to exploit and oppress Niger in the future. The old colonial masters are being replaced by the new colonial masters - but not in a peaceful way, but through a war of displacement, which is not taking place on the economic battlefield, but also in the military field, the war of robbery as the ultimate means of the distribution struggle between the western (old) and eastern (new) camps of world imperialism.

Who profits from Nigerien uranium?

First, the reverse question:
Who does not benefit from it ?
The working people of Niger !
Today, 80% of Nigerians do not even know that there is uranium in Niger and 99% never benefit from it.
Niger is desperately poor and ranked last among the 187 countries in the UN Human Development Index 2012. This ranking is not least due to the very high illiteracy rate (89%), which is even more pronounced among women.
The health and education infrastructures are not only catastrophic, but practically non-existent.
Three quarters of the population live on less than $2 a day, malnutrition is widespread and the country is plagued by droughts.
Russia bombs Ukrainian wheat to act as "Samaritan" with Russian wheat in Niger - displacement of the old wheat business by new ones with extreme military means. In the Third World War there will then be no more wheat, at least not for millions of starving people in the world, espoecially in Africa.
Although mining accounted for 70.8% of Niger's exports in 2010, it contributed only 5.8% of the country's gross domestic product.
The French imperialists did not have to pay any export duties on uranium, or any taxes on materials and equipment used in the mines. Accordingly, the levies amounted to only 5.5 per cent.
For the uranium in Niger, the mining companies, above all the French Areva, pay only one third of the world market price !
Workers, on the other hand, earn about 138,000 CFA a month for cleaning and packing uranium ore, which is 245 dollars.

Niger is the country with a gross national income that hovers around 900 dollars a year.
Labour unrest results from abject poverty, and protests against poor treatment of workers. The mining companies can do whatever they want with the workers, because the state is neither willing nor able to stand up to the power of the mining companies.
The contracts and agreements signed by mining corporations in Niger, in Africa or elsewhere in the world - are pure colonial contracts.
In the socialist revolution, these contracts must be torn up and the mining corporations must not only be held accountable, but they must also be tried. They have to pay for the damage they have done. And they must make full restitution for everything they have taken out of the country in terms of profit.
* * *
1957 was the discovery of uranium in Niger.
"Liberated" from French colonialism in 1960, t he slavery returned with a radioactive face.

The mines are operated by Areva, a nuclear energy services company 70% owned by France, the colonial power that ruled Niger between the 1890s and 1960.
The two Areva mines produced more than €3.5 billion (£2.9 billion) worth of uranium in 2010, but Niger received only €459 million, or 13% of that amount. In 2012, Areva received tax exemptions worth €320 million. They paid no export taxes. Both the uranium purchase price and the mechanism for setting this price are kept secret from the public.
The global uranium business is in few hands.
The nuclear industry functions like a global oligopoly. Oligopoly is a capitalist form of economy in which the entire world market is dominated by a few capitalists. In a figurative sense, we also speak of the influence of oligopolies on politics (political oligopolies).
Smash the Nuclear capital globally !
Expropriate the Nuclear-companies !
No Nuclear-Industry !
 
Niger, the poorest state in the world, is the third largest uranium producer in the world with a market share of 9%.
Niger, which has the highest-grade uranium ores in Africa, produced 2,020 tonnes of uranium in 2022, equivalent to about 5% of global mining production, according to the World Nuclear Association.
And the nuclear powers' ambitions in Niger continue to reverberate today, as Niger's remote and inhospitable northern desert landscape is home to the world's fifth-largest mineable uranium reserves, about 7% of the global total.
According to the EU's nuclear agency Euratom, more than a quarter of the uranium imported into the EU came from the African country in 2022.
Russia still contributed 20 per cent of uranium imports in 2021, which filled Moscow's war chest by half a billion euros.
Niger provides around ten per cent of the precious fuel for France's nuclear power plants and even a good 25 % for the entire EU.
France gets 75 % of its electricity from nuclear energy, but has never stated to what extent it relies on uranium from Niger for its 58 nuclear reactors.
It is said that "one in three light bulbs in France are fuelled by Niger uranium".
 
Environmental impact

Nuclear power - environmentally "friendly" ???
No ! Deadly !
How environmentally friendly is Chernobyl ???
The uranium companies pretend to save the planet through a clean environment. For example, by pushing the majority of the population living in Niger to the bottom of the poorest countries in the world and burdening them with health damage caused by uranium ore mining ?

The French left about 20 million tons of overburden on about 120 hectares of land and on dumps up to 35 metres high. This raised concerns among the local population about their health. Orano agreed to flatten the waste and bury it under a two-metre-thick layer of waterproof clay and sandstone, but the mining company's words have not been followed by deeds to this day...
There is also talk of a "sword of Damocles" hanging over the water supply of the approximately 177,000 people living in the region. According to measurements taken in 2009, the radioactive contamination has already risen far above international limits.
 
Change of power in the Sahel belt
Russia
From Guinea in the far west of the continent to Sudan, a strip of countries led by military governments stretches across the African continent.
Russia's influence is very strong in many of these states.
The new rulers around Colonel Amadou Abdramane maintain close ties to the coup plotters in Mali, who in turn cooperate very closely with the Wagner militia of Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Shortly before his ouster, the ousted President Bazoum had turned down an invitation to the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, a decision that was not only noted with annoyance in Moscow. Not only the American imperialists, but also the Russian imperialists know very well how to stage a military coup in order to make capital out of it.
 
Russia, the biggest uranium producer in the world, has its eye on the mineral resources of Niger. It can and will put pressure on the West.
We have to put the Ukraine war in a global-strategic context with the military coup in Niger.
Africa is gradually being drawn into the military conflicts between the two camps of world imperialism and thus into the coming Third Imperialist World War.
China:
When two quarrel - the third is happy - the Chinese social imperialists.
The division of labour between Russian and Chinese imperialism in Niger [and in other African countries ] is that one imperialism militarily (Russia) and the other imperialism economically (China) is trying to displace the Western imperialist world camp. The old colonial power France is leaving and the new colonial power China is coming with Russian ( with not disinterested ) support.
The Chinese are not inactive in Niger. With their "help", a 2,000-kilometre pipeline is being built. It is supposed to enable the Chinese to ship their oil to China via Benin.

The so-called "uranium road" also runs parallel to the pipeline. Its final destination, as with the Chinese oil pipeline, is the port of Cotonou (Benin). The pipeline, the longest of its kind in Africa
China, Niger's second largest foreign investor after former colonial power France, has poured billions of dollars into the landlocked West African country over the past two decades, mainly for the exploitation of oil and uranium.
China currently operates 26 nuclear reactors, with 24 more under construction. The country's government is "concerned" about the long-term impact of pollution from coal-fired power plants, which account for about 72% of China's electricity generation. The "more environmentally friendly" uranium is eyewash. Mankind will still be able to enjoy the "environmental friendliness" of radioactive rays millions of years from now....
China's goal is to become one of the world's leading civilian nuclear producers.
China's foreign direct investment (FDI) in Niger totalled $2.68 billion at the end of 2020.

PetroChina holds a 60% stake in the refinery in Niger .
In 2007, state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) (601985.SS) entered into a joint venture with the Niger government to develop the Azelik uranium mine in the centre of the country.
CNNC has a 37.2% stake in the project, with another 24.8% owned by Chinese investment company ZXJOY Invest.
In Niger alone, China has invested billions in the oil sector and undertaken a number of large infrastructure projects.
Azelik is operated by a joint partnership called Somina, in which the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has a 37% stake, the Niger government 33% and a second Chinese investor.
The Chinese-run uranium mine is indeed one of the most opaque business ventures in Niger.
Locals threw stones at the mining machinery to protest against their land being leased to CNNC's international subsidiary for uranium exploration without their consent or compensation.
People throughout northern Niger refer to the area around the Azelik uranium concession as "Guantanamo" and a "Chinese colony".
The Chinese are worse because they don't say what they are doing. They don't respect the environment or workers' rights. China does not respect any of the laws of the country.
It is a dark zone, a place where Nigerien laws are flouted with impunity, and living proof of the government's helplessness in the face of powerful foreign interests.
The Chinese coloniaylists are constantly in conflict with the workers and the surrounding population.
Locals have blamed the Chinese mine for the falling water table in the area, as well as various non-fatal diseases of their sheep and goats.
 
The groundwater level has dropped from 30 to 75 metres in the last ten years alone, which can be directly attributed to the mine.
There is fear of contamination among the population.
Waste from uranium mining and milling is radioactive and uranium ore is leached with sulphuric acid.

Under such catastrophic conditions of ruthless rage of the imperialists and their subservient domestic bourgeoisie, does the Comintern (SH) need to argue any further for socialist revolution in Niger ? We Stalinist-Hoxhaists want Niger to disappear from the last place of the poorest countries in the world. This is not only possible, but also absolutely necessary. In world socialism, there is no such list of poverty as in world capitalism; the world socialist economic system under the control of the world socialist republic takes care of that.
Establish the dictatorship of the proletariat - this is the only language that the impudent foreign and domestic exploiters and oppressors of the people of Niger understand.
Let us build a strong section of the African Comintern (SH) in Niger!
Let us build up a strong socialist Niger on a socialist African continent in a socialist world !
 
Wolfgang Eggers
5 August 2023