Niger: Fissile Policies, Fissionable Politics

Once upon a time the Niger, located in the Sahel, was famous for its trade in salt. Caravans of camels led by the Tuareg, known as the Blue Men of the Desert, would transport slabs of salt – and gold, across the mighty Tinariwen, or the desert of many as they designated the Sahara.

The Trans-Saharan trade still continues today albeit in staccato due to closed borders, and salt is still taken across the desert to trading hubs such as Gao and Agadez where the Targui will purchase his taghelmoust or veil, 20 feet in length and composed of the type of fine cotton considered commensurate to the honor of the bearer.

These days, jeeps have replaced camels and there are fewer people involved in traditional trades, for uranium mining has supplanted that of salt and the country is roughly estimated to be the third largest supplier of uranium in the world. The economy of the Niger is intimately linked to that of its former colonial landlord - France via Areva, the world's leading nuclear powerhouse. More than 70% of the Niger's exports consist of uranium. The country has even dubbed a major road network the 'Uranium Highway', used primarily to transport uranium South. The degree of documented environmental and human rights violation have also resulted in the road labeled as 'the highway of death'.

With manufacturing hubs in over 43 countries and a commercial/sales network present in just over 100, Areva's Hoover profile is justified in listing the company as the world's leading nuclear entity, and the only company actively participating in every industrial tenet linked to nuclear energy, including: enrichment, nuclear propulsion and reactors, engineering, recycling and dismantling.

The company lists the Niger as the fifth largest uranium producer in the world, adjacent to Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan and Australia. But this trade has yet to enhance the security of Niger citizens who have little, if any, energy available save for the sun.

In fact, the Niger ranks near to last on the Human Development Index (HDI) list of 177 countries. The report, compiled by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), includes indicators such as access to education, standard of living, health, literacy and life expectancy and; whilst eminent commentators such as Fareed Zakaria have cheerfully concluded that over 30 countries in Africa saw their 'economies grow at over 4%', the growth does not appear to have 'trickled' anywhere but up.

The country is one of the youngest in the world: 50% of the population is below the age of 14; the UN estimates that 60% of the youth end up in the quarries and mines - many of them coerced into slave labor.

The proverbial 'dollar per day' applies to 60% of the population that bears the highest school fees in Africa – the government invests less than 3% of the GDP on education; just under 25% of toddlers will die of malnutrition before the age of five and life expectancy is around 43 years old. In short, life in the Niger is short and nasty, characterised by hunger and thirst where less than 54% of the population have access to water.

If two slabs of salt, roped together at the base and weighing in at 15 kg, sees the Niger citizen receiving at least a few dollars, the trade in uranium has brought them nothing but radioactive storms as documented by French NGO CRIIRAD (the Commission for Independent Research and Information about Radioactivity).

In 2003, the Niger's environmental movement AGHIR IN MAN invited CRIIRAD physicist and laboratory manager, Bruno Chareyron, to visit the country and assess the radiological situation in the hopes of sourcing the reason behind the mysterious illnesses and deaths surrounding mining towns such as Arlit; a town of 70 000 established in the early 1970s by Areva.

AGHIR President Almoustapha Alhacen, a mine worker living in Arlit, described the bewildering and lethal illnesses by saying, "we saw these people dying and we didn't know why….

"Areva imposed immense pressure on Alhacen to stop the initiative from going ahead," Chareyron stated.

"A few days before the flight was scheduled to take place, he called us and discussed the situation.

"Areva let him understand that they were fully able to stop the project, or to control the scope of it."

On arriving in Niamey, the capital of the Niger, CRIIRAD's staff members were detained and their equipment confiscated. Neither Areva nor the Niger government has claimed responsibility for the incident.

In an interview with Areva, the company stated, "Of course, we never have been linked to what happened with CRIIRAD and its scientific material; it is a matter of Niger interior policy," responded Areva.

"(Areva) has nothing to hide and its activities are led in a complete transparency. Figures, statistics and results are available every year in the environmental report made by SOMAIR and COMINAK (Areva subsidiaries present in Niger).

"The mining site and all the area within Arlit City and the surroundings, are monitored continuously so as to detect any leakage or radioactive matter. Soil, foods, air and water are regularly sampled and analysed to evaluate their radiation level."

But CRIIRAD's numerous reports states otherwise: potent carcinogenic radioactive material were detected in private homes and for sale by scrap merchants, such as in Arlit market; over 20 million tonnes of lethal radioactive tailings (pulverized uranium rock) and uranium ore were found to be stored in open air, exposed to kids and elements such as the characteristically powerful wind of the Niger.

The report also stated that Areva subsidiaries, COMINAK and SOMAIRE were not complying with international radioprotection standards, and water made available to the workers contained doses of radioactivity above international standards.

Other factors included industrial use of non-renewable water sources and the discharge of radioactive gas from the COMINAK underground mine, said to be one of the largest in the world with a 250km long gallery.

"Until the end 70s, the French regulation was the rule," Areva tells me, "since then, the Niger has implemented a regulation system."

"We paid a visit to the National Centre of Protection against ionizing radiation (CNRP)," said Bruno, "they are the official institution that monitors radiation in the Niger, however we found that the CNRP could not carry out analysis due to the fact that their equipment (GAMMA spectrometer) was broken.

According to Areva, workers and the surrounding population have free access to medical facilities. "The income level is very low and the heath care system limited in Niger." (UN estimates confirm a cap of 3 doctors per 100 000).

The unhealthy, questionable and secretive pallor of uranium captures the tone of negotiations related to ore exploration and extraction.

According to Idrissa Ali, National Coordinator of NGO Publish What You Pay, "The subject of uranium and the agreements that are linked with uranium are highly strategic in nature, placed at the level of relations between states."

"These agreements took the form of a neo-colonial framework that led to the signing of mining agreements establishing (and) functioning of the SOMAIR (1968) and the COMINAK (1975), which are nothing other than a bias contract making available the uranium in Niger to France," he tells me.

"Under these conditions, the choice is of the buyers of the product, setting its price in the international market is the prerogative of the former colonial power."

On the subject of the Niger government's ability to influence and effect the process, Ali states, "The latter is only empowered to transform the uranate to produce atomic energy from its nuclear power plants or to use it for military purposes. Today, energy independence from France relies heavily on uranium in Niger."

Concerning profits derived from uranium extraction, he says, "From sources close to SOMAIR and COMINAK, since the beginning of the exploitation and sale of uranium, the revenue generated from the sale has exceeded 2300 billion CFA francs."

"The Niger government has garnered just under 300 billion CFA francs."

"For a long time,' says Idrissa, 'AREVA has been the only and sole partner of Niger in the field of uranium mining. But in recent years, Nigerian authorities have decided to diversify its partners in this sector through the granting of permits and licenses to companies in other countries (China, Canada, Russia, etc)."

Areva lists the selling price of uranium (2007) as '60 €/kg, increasing by around 50% in 2008.'

The company broke down the profits of the Niger government, as follows:

"Main direct profits include the Mining fee, 5.5% of the selling value of uranium produced; the Income Tax, 40.5% of the annual profit of the companies and the annual dividend of the companies; ONAREM (whose name changed recently to SOPAMIN) owns 31% of COMINAK and 32% of SOMAÏR, which fixes the dividend percentages."

"Indirect profits include the income tax on employee's salaries and the business tax from contractors and different supports provided by the group through its sustainable development program in different areas such as education, water supply and health care."

The company describes the relationship between Areva and the Niger as an "exceptional and unmatched partnership, since independence. The Group reached the symbolic threshold of more than 100,000 tonnes of uranium (2006)."

When asked of statistics related to employment and corporate investment, Areva responded, "AREVA and subsidiaries payroll include 1850 people, making us the second employer in the country after the government.

"That direct employment generates more than 4000 indirect jobs through subcontractors and general supply services. Our sustainable investments in water and health represent a contribution of more than 3 million annually."

Few outside of the industry are aware of the Niger's uranium production; Idrissa attributes this to the value of uranium as a strategic product, "by both France and the Niger authorities, through defense agreements signed on April 24, 1961 between the two countries."

"But," he continued, "from the year 2000, things began to change with the emergence of associations active in the extractive industries; uranium has ceased to be taboo.

"The question of its operations, its sale and the benefits to the country today is a subject that everyone can speak freely, without risk of being harassed."

In response to the relative freedom surrounding the nuclear issue of uranium, Chareyron states, "Areva has never acknowledged us directly, this allows for them to sidestep the reality of our finds."

Meanwhile, countries such as the Niger continue to live life in the theatre of the diminished; citizens desperately attempting to break the surface are weighted down and submerged by the lack of transparency. In Africa, resource-rich governments are often characterised by 'local agent' status, existing obediently and greedily, as the counterpart to multinationals bent on the plunder of finite resources.

The anatomy of this design, best described as economic apartheid, speaks volumes about an Africa that is still colonised, sold for a pound or should we say a franc?