NIGER AND THE MAPUTO PROTOCOL: A CLERIC'S

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NIAMEY 000703 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT. FOR AF/W, BACHMAN; PRM FOR KENNELLY AND MUIRURI E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV SOCI KWMN PHUM NG SUBJECT: NIGER AND THE MAPUTO PROTOCOL: A CLERIC'S PERSPECTIVE REF: A. 06 NIAMEY 574 ¶B. 05 NIAMEY 1434 -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) After trying and failing to get the Additional Protocol to the African Human and People's Rights Charter Relating to Women's Rights in Africa (the Maputo Protocol) adopted by the National Assembly last year (reftel A),the Government of Niger (GON) is trying again. Women's NGOs, GON officials, and even President Mahmadou Tandja are attempting to persuade clergy and traditional leaders to acquiesce in the protocol's adoption. However, it appears that little headway is being made. In an extended conversation with a prominent Nigerien Imam on May 13, Poloff got a first-hand account of the clergy's passionate views on the Protocol. In the face of continuing opposition - most of it by mainstream clergy rather than the country's marginal Islamic fundamentalists - the National Assembly has delayed its scheduled debate and vote on adoption. Opposition to the Protocol, and the tendency of its opponents to link it to previous failed efforts to establish a secular family code, suggest that issues of marriage age, divorce, inheritance, and reproductive health are unlikely to be regulated by modern legislation anytime soon. END SUMMARY -------------- A SNAPSHOT OF THE OPPOSITION -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Imam Moustapha Antoma of Maradi is a busy man. He is the Imam of the city's Grand Mosque; principal religious advisor to the Chief of Katsina (Niger) Province; a member of the National Islamic Council; President of the Maradi Chapter of Niger's oldest Islamic association, the Association Islamique du Niger (AIN); President of Maradi's interfaith committee; traditional chief of his neighborhood; and, an elected member of the Maradi city council. A Sufi Muslim of the Tidjaniyya school (thus a follower of the late Senegalese Sufi leader Sheikh Mohammed Niass),Antoma belongs to the moderate, syncretistic strain of Islam characteristic of Niger. His close association with the Province Chief, his membership in the GON created "establishment" AIN, and his appointment as Grand Mosque Imam in Niger's third largest city all underscore his influence and his role as a leader of mainstream Nigerien Islam. ¶3. (SBU) While Antoma otherwise expressed little sympathy for the Izala school of Islam (a Wahhabist-style fundamentalist movement prominent in northern Nigeria) he saw little distance between their positions on the Maputo Protocol. Imam Antoma argued that the current push for the Maputo Protocol had its origins in earlier efforts by the GON to adopt some form of modern, secular family code. He noted that every Nigerien Government since that of General Seyni Kountche (1974-1987) had advanced such a project in one form or another. All of those efforts ran afoul of clerics, and all failed. (NOTE: Antoma erred slightly. Two limited measures, relating respectively to repudiation and inheritance, were adopted by military governments in 1976 and 1989. END NOTE) In the 1990s, Niger's first democratic government attempted to "sensitize" traditional chiefs and Islamic clergy to the need for a comprehensive family code to replace traditional Islamic practices applied by clergy, chiefs, and Islamic civil judges (Akalis). Support from UN agencies like UNFPA and UNIFEM and European donors enabled large-scale national efforts that brought some religious leaders on-board to convince others. Western support for Nigerien advocacy generated a predictable backlash against "foreign interference," and Niger in 2007 appears no closer to a family code than it was in 1985, when the Niger Women's Association first began pressing the GON for a comprehensive family law (reftel B). ¶4. (SBU) Antoma described the few Imams who support such measures as "bought." He noted that conservative Imams had prayed for the death of two preachers who advocated for the family code in the 1990s; both later died in car accidents. Antoma claimed that "there would be trouble" if the GON adopted the Maputo Protocol. He claimed that traditional clergy found the measure abhorrent for a wide variety of reasons but listed his principal hot-button issues as abortion, inheritance, and a fixed marriage age of 18, none of which had Koranic grounding. Antoma noted that the GON's strategy of "sensitizing" clergy on the contents of the NIAMEY 00000703 002 OF 002 Protocol was a failure - the objections of the more prominent and well-educated Imams were not grounded in ignorance of the document's contents or in an inability to understand the words' meaning, but in a keen understanding of their meaning and their implications for Nigerien society. Antoma noted that he had received and listened to many delegations composed of Niamey based NGOs, some Imams, and working-level GON officials. All had failed. He commented that Maradi was due for another "sensibilization" tour the day after our meeting - and that that too would fail. The missions "never got a good response here," he added. ¶5. (SBU) Imam Antoma closed our discussion of the Protocol with an interesting anecdote. President Tandja had summoned Niger's most prominent Imams to Agadez for a Mouloud (Prophet Mohammed's birthday) celebration. In one session, he sought their views on the Maputo Protocol, and attempted to lobby them on behalf of it. Antoma noted that he and several of his colleagues got up and walked out, though this was not shown or mentioned on Niger's national TV. Poloff has witnessed similar reactions by clergy in other venues (reftel B). -------------- SLIM CHANCE FOR PROTOCOL PASSAGE -------------- ¶6. (SBU) While donor per diem can ensure the attendance of Islamic clergy at sensitization sessions, the content of those sessions has had little impact on their views - nor is it likely to. While advocates of progressive gender and family legislation ascribe clerical opposition to a lack of understanding, or to the effects of sensational rumors about the legislation, this view is oversimplified and naive. Niger's most prominent clerics oppose the Protocol from a position of understanding, while conservative Imams like Antoma are neither fundamentalists in the Izala sense nor particularly anti-western. (Antoma actually lobbied Poloff for more US military cooperation in Niger). Their views are the views of mainstream Nigerien clergy and, frankly, resonate with most Nigeriens. The views of conservative clergy appear to both mirror and reinforce those of the people, while support for the Protocol appears limited to Francophone elites in Niamey. In a democracy, that's not a recipe for success. Even if, through deft floor management and intense lobbying, the GON adopts the Protocol the second time around, it remains doubtful that its policies will be implemented in any meaningful way. ¶7. (U) Tripoli, minimized considered. ALLEN