OPPOSITION PUBLISHER, EDITOR JAILED FOR ALLEGING

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 NIAMEY 000847

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT: PASS TO MCA; DRL; AF/W FOR BACHMAN; AF/RSA FOR
HARPOLE;

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAID KPAO PGOV PHUM SOCI KCOR KMCA NG
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION PUBLISHER, EDITOR JAILED FOR ALLEGING
GON TILT TOWARD IRAN - BUT THE REAL STORY HERE IS CORRUPTION

REF: A. NIAMEY 682


B. NIAMEY 746

C. NIAMEY 788

D. NIAMEY 741

NIAMEY 00000847 001.2 OF 004


--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. (SBU) On August 4, Maman Abou and Oumarou Keita -
respectively the Publisher and the Editor-in-Chief of "Le
Republican," Niger's oldest, best respected, and most widely
circulated opposition weekly - were arrested and jailed by
the Detective Branch of the Nigerien National Police. The two
men were charged with dissemination of false news and
defamation of the Government of Niger (GON) after the GON
lodged a complaint relating to an editorial published in the
July 27 edition of "Le Republican." In this editorial, Keita
alleged that Prime Minister (PM) Hama Amadou was pushing for
a realignment of Nigerien foreign policy toward nations like
Iran and Venezuela and away from Niger's traditional western
aid partners. Many Nigerien observers consider the storm over
the editorial a red-herring, and claim that the GON is in
fact out to punish the paper for its recent revelations of
government corruption - an issue "Le Republican" claimed
underlay the foreign policy "realignment" in the first place.
The GON's move against the newspaper has become mixed up with
an ongoing public controversy over corruption in the
government's management of a large donor funded effort to aid
the country's failing primary schools. END SUMMARY

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PROXIMATE CAUSES
--------------


2. (SBU) In a July 27 editorial, "Le Republican" made wide
ranging claims that Hama Amadou sought a foreign policy
realignment favoring Iran and Venezuela over traditional
western partners. The proof consisted entirely in the fact
that the PM had had a dinner meeting with the Iranian
Ambassador. The conjectural element of the editorial was as
elaborate as its factual basis was stingy, with "Le
Republican" arguing that Hama's "realignment" was essentially
a search for aid and development assistance with fewer good
governance strings attached. Describing the PM's supposed
logic, Keita wrote: "one must go and compromise with the
devil, as he has no regard for transparency in the management
of public funds, or for human rights." The editorial alleged
that the PM made this move after European donors suspended
payments to a ten-year education development fund (known as
the PDDE) after an audit revealed poor management and
probable corruption in the form of over-billing, no bid
contracts, and implausible expenses. Fearing that his
government's ability to embezzle donor funds for party
building and personal enrichment would run afoul of western
donors' safeguards, Amadou allegedly intended to reorient
Niger's aid relationship toward less scrupulous partners like
Venezuela and Iran. The editorial cited alleged comments by
the PM in which he lashed out at "whites," and their tendency
to tell the GON how to use donor money, and contrasting this
approach unfavorably with that of other donors, like Iran,
China, and Venezuela, who adopted a more laissez faire
approach.


3. (U) The GON reacted quickly to the editorial. On July 31,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ran a response in the
government daily "Le Sahel," denying any shift in Nigerien
foreign policy, and stressing that the country sought good
relations with and aid from all nations, favoring none. The
response also emphasized that the President, not the Prime
Minister, was responsible for determining the course of
Nigerien foreign policy. On August 4, the GON filed a
defamation case against "Le Republican's" leadership. Maman
Abou and Oumarou Keita were arrested and placed under
investigative detention by the Detective Branch. On August 8,
the men were transferred, respectively, to the civil prisons
of Tera and Filingue. They remain incarcerated as of this
writing, with a court date tentatively scheduled for August

14. NOTE: "Le Republican" continues to appear on a weekly
basis, and no move has been made to ban its publication. END
NOTE


4. (U) Maman Abou and his staff at "Le Republican" are no
strangers to this sort of controversy. In November of 2003,

NIAMEY 00000847 002.2 OF 004


Abou was arrested and charged with defamation and theft after
publishing an article accusing the GON of awarding no-bid
contracts to its political supporters. The article was based
partly on documents that Abou allegedly obtained illegally
from the concerned ministries. While Abou was given
provisional release in early 2004, and has never been brought
to trial, charges from this 2003 case are still, technically,
pending against him. Ironically, Oumarou Keita had
participated in a Public Affairs sponsored panel discussion
on freedom of the press at the American Cultural Center two
weeks before his arrest.

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THE PDDE CONNECTION
--------------


5. (U) The arrests were accompanied by the usual
denunciations by the NGO, private press, and human rights
community, yet these groups also alleged that the GON sought
to punish "Le Republican" less for the foreign policy piece
than for its recent reporting on the PDDE scandal. The Plan
Decennal pour le Developpement de l'Education (PDDE) is a
ten-year, 26 billion CFA (approximately $51 million) program
funded by the World Bank and a consortium of European
bi-lateral donors led by France. It is the local face of the
Education for All Initiative (Fast Track). The program began
in May of 2005; by winter, the "Nigerien street" was rife
with rumors to the effect that substantial sums were being
skimmed off the top by the GON agency charged with
administering the program - the Ministry of Basic Education
and Literacy.


6. (SBU) Alone among private opposition papers, "Le
Republican" went beyond vituperative editorial comment into
the realm of true investigative reporting with its accurate
and extensive coverage of the PDDE scandal. From February
onward, the paper published reports of corruption in the
administration of the PDDE based on information received from
sources within the Ministry and its regional directorates.
The titles are indicative of the content: "No bid contracts
and overcharges at Basic Education" (February 16); "The
overcharges that Hamani Harouna' (then GON Minister of Basic
Education) 'is hiding" (16th March). The journal re-printed
copies of correspondence between the Ministry of Basic
Education and its suppliers, and between Minister Hamani
Harouna and Prime Minister Hama Amadou in which agreements on
prices and supplies were fixed by the Minister and cleared by
the PM's office. The articles also featured tables that
contrasted the market prices of school supplies with the
prices paid by the GON using PDDE funds, and alleged
overcharges of 187% to 800%.


7. (U) "Le Republican's" reports and the public's
speculations were born out when the donors' group released
the first annual audit of the PDDE on June 6. Deloitte and
Touche SA of Burkina Faso, selected by the GON, conducted an
audit covering calendar year 2005. The audit revealed a
consistent pattern of over-charges, unjustified expenses,
unauthorized obligations, no-bid contracting, bias toward
politically connected firms in the awarding of contracts, and
multiple instances of payments being made for materials that
were never received. All of this, the audit alleged, was
enabled by poor inventory and management controls. In
substance if not in tone, Deloitte and Touche echoed "Le
Republican's" reports of February and March. The audit cited
instances of unexplained mark ups, in which the Ministry
added as much as 20 million CFA (approximately $40,000) to a
supplier's contract for no apparent reason. In another
instance, fuel bills for Ministry vehicles were so inflated
that the cars would have to have been driven 1,000 km a day
for 25 days in a row to justify the expense. Time after time,
the auditors concluded sections of their report with language
such as: "we are not in a position to certify the rational
utilization of these funds; in our view, these payments have
not been made in a rational manner;" or, simply, "this
payment is not rational."


8. (U) In a public letter to the Minister of Basic Education
on June 29, the donors' group announced the suspension of
payments and demanded that the GON meet three conditions to
restore their confidence: the Ministry of Basic Education
must conduct an audit, again by Deloitte and Touche, of
moneys spent during the spring 2006 semester; the GON must
provide a written response to the findings of the 2005 audit,

NIAMEY 00000847 003.2 OF 004


making clear how it intends to rectify bias in the
contracting system, reimburse misused funds, and apply
administrative and judicial penalties to responsible persons;
finally, acting in accordance with Nigerien law, the GON must
punish any individual responsible for the misuse of PDDE
funds, and reorganize the management of the funds. These
measures will be reviewed by the partners, who reserve the
right to determine if they have been implemented with
sufficient rigor. Speaking on behalf of the donors on July
20, The French Ambassador underscored their concern, noting:
"it is up to the government to cope with the consequences,"
of the scandal.


9. (U) In light of its earlier reportage, "Le Republican" was
well positioned to make hay with the results of the audit,
which received extensive coverage in its June 15 edition. A
headline stating: "Embezzlement at MEBA, the audit confirms:
overcharges, payment without delivery, unauthorized spending
by the Ministry, and the degradation of the procedures for
public procurement," covered "Le Republican's" front page
that day. The paper continued to report the audit's
conclusions and draw attention to the PDDE scandal in
subsequent issues, under headlines like: "embezzlement of
public funds at the Ministry of Basic Education."


10. (SBU) The pace of events quickened after the release of
the audit. In a press conference following the audit's
release, Basic Education Minister Hamani Harouna appeared to
blame his predecessor at Basic Education, GON Health Minister
Ari Ibrahim, for some of the Ministry's management problems.
Ibrahim, a member of another ruling coalition political
party, responded in kind, and the GON was widely perceived to
have cut its losses by turning both men out of office on June
27th (reftel A). In mid-July, the gravity of the crisis
facing Nigerien schools, and the prevalence of corruption in
the education sector were underscored by abysmal standardized
test results (reftels B, C). This convergence of
circumstances: popular concern over the quality of public
school instruction; corruption in the administration of the
PDDE; corruption in the administration of school exams; and,
the abysmal test results, set the political climate for July,
and dominated debate. This pressure appears to have inspired
various responses by the GON, some positive, others negative.
As noted in reftels B and C, the GON cracked down on
corruption in the administration of school exams, but left
bribe payers untouched. While the GON replaced both Hamani
Harouna and Ari Ibrahim with more technically competent and
politically neutral successors, it has yet to embark on the
wide-ranging reforms and prosecutions called for by the
donors' group. Finally, on August 4, the GON moved against
Abou and Keita.

--------------
CONCLUSION AND COMMENT
--------------


11. (SBU) Unlike the Superior Council on Communications'
(CSC) June 28 banning of the private opposition weekly
"L'Opinion," (reftel D) the arrest and imprisonment of Maman
Abou and Oumarou Keita appears to be linked to much larger
political developments in Niger. A foreign policy shift
toward Iran and Venezuela, however, is not one of them. When
viewed against the rigorous journalistic standards manifest
in its reporting on the PDDE affair, "Le Republican's" July
27 foreign policy editorial seems a shoddy piece of work. A
mountain of conjecture rests on a grain of fact - that the PM
had dinner with the Iranian Ambassador at around the same
time that Hugo Chavez was touring some neighboring capitals.


12. (SBU) In point of fact, Nigerien foreign policy has
always been an outgrowth of the country's dependence on
foreign aid. More than forty percent of the national budget
derives from foreign assistance; for capitol projects, that
figure is closer to ninety percent. Therefore, Niger is open
to any country that could help it meet its development needs,
make payroll, or simply provide a good price for its few
marketable exports. This precariousness contributes to the
GON's sensitivity toward allegations of aid mismanagement.
(The GON has often shared its frustration at the prospect of
aid money flowing through NGOs and IOs with stricter
management controls rather than through its ministries with
bi-lateral donors, including us). But it also enforces a
certain moderation. The world's least developed country,
Niger simply cannot afford to antagonize donors, either by

NIAMEY 00000847 004.2 OF 004


abusing their funds or by pursuing an ideological foreign
policy oriented toward pariah states and marginal aid donors
like Iran and Venezuela. The country's poverty enforces
pragmatism; its dependency enforces good habits. We therefore
expect that the GON will eventually move to satisfy the PDDE
donors' conditions, probably during the fall legislative
session.


13. (SBU) However wrong Abou and Keita were about the roots
of Nigerien foreign policy, ultimately "Le Republican" is not
being punished for what it did poorly, but for what it did
impeccably - revealing and criticizing the corruption at the
heart of the Ministry of Basic Education. The paper itself
made this argument in a special free issue that appeared on
the day after the arrests. In a lead article entitled: "the
tree that hides the forest," Abou and Keita asked: "in 2006
alone, we have proven the embezzlement involving several
billion francs, and' (this was) 'confirmed by an impartial
audit. So, who must go to prison?" That is a question to
which the GON has so far provided all the wrong answers. END
COMMENT
ALLEN