The United States has reacted to the protests in some part of the Republic of Niger where people were seen waving Russian flag in solidarity with the military junta who used force to overthrow a democratically elected Government.
In a Press briefing on Tuesday, the State Department Spokesman, Mathew Miller while responding to questions said the protests which expressed of actual support could rather be people who might have been paid to show up.
According to him, “I have heard questions about these protests, sometimes in this briefing room, and sometimes you see people assume that because you see people on the streets it is an expression of actual support rather than who might have been paid to show up at protests.
“It does seem odd to me that if your country is suffering an attempted military takeover, the idea that the first thing anyone would do is run to a store and buy a Russian flag. That strikes me as somewhat an unlikely scenario”, the Spokesman said.
Speaking of Wagner potentially taking advantage of attempted coup in Niger, Miller said though the leader of Wagner, Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s comment made last week when he was publicly celebrating the events in Niger and the fact that the group take advantage of this type of situation whenever it occurs in Africa.
He reiterated that United States did not see any role by Wagner in the instigation of this attempted takeover, and have not seen any Wagner military presence as of yet in Niger. “I don’t have any specific Wagner activities to that I can make public at this point.
“But we saw Yevgeniy Prigozhin publicly celebrating what’s happened. And as I said, it did seem a very odd event that we had bunch of Russian flags show up at so-called protests on – in support of the junta leaders”, the Spokesman said.
The State Department Spokesman said the United States will continue to press for negotiated solution. “And we believe that the people of Niger, who elected President Mohamed Bazoum, support a return to the constitutional order. So that is the policy we will continue to try to achieve.
“But I recognize that this is a difficult situation and the outcome here is uncertain, but we are not ready to throw up our hands and go home and stop trying to achieve a return to democracy and constitutional order.
“We are going to try to, we are going to continue to press for the outcome, because it’s one we support and one we believe ultimately the people of Niger support”, Milller added.
He noted that the United States paused approximately a million dollars in international military education and training funding against Nigerien Government which stand to support counter-terrorism capabilities.
Reiterating that the United States is supporting a diplomatic path at this time, adding that he wouldn’t want to speculate about other outcomes or other policy choices that the United States might make at some other point.
“But right now, our focus is on a diplomatic path. That was the purpose of Acting Deputy Secretary Nuland’s visit yesterday, was to present a diplomatic path to them, one that they rejected. But right now, we’re going to continue to focus on diplomacy”, he said.