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 -------------- 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. -------------- 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