Niger - Military Personnel

The FAN had 12,000 troops and 5400 gendarmes under the authority of the Ministry of Defense as of 2014. The police and National Guard under the control of the Minister of the Interior had approximately 8,000 personnel. By one account, the Niger Army, the land military armed forces of Niger, had 5,200 personnel.

The pre-eminence of Djerma officers in the military began under colonial rule and continued after independence. Their determination to maintain their dominant presence explains why it has been difficult to increase the number of Tuareg officers in the military to fulfill government promises made to end the MLN Tuareg rebellion.

Niger has conscription, although it is only imposed selectively. It is not known who is liable for military service. Military service lasts for 24 months. It is not known how recruitment into the armed forces takes place. Refusing to perform military service may be punished by imprisonment. About the actual treatment of draft evaders and deserters nothing is known.

To all accounts, Niger's Army remains a bastion of secularism and a bulwark against Islamist politics. There is no discernible move toward more rigid Islamic practice within its ranks. This may reflect Izala's status as a predominantly Hausa movement. While at least 56% of Nigeriens are Hausas, the group has always been underrepresented in the traditionally Djerma military. Given the military's role in national life (Niger was governed by military rulers from 1974-1993 and again from 1996-1999, and by 2006 President Tandja was a retired Lt. Col.) its continued cultural distinction is significant.

After Niger's independence, the Tuareg in the north of the country led a number of revolts which in the 1990s escalated into armed conflict. In 1992, nomadic Tuareg groups and Toubou in the east rebelled against Niger, demanding greater economic and political participation in the state in addition to the development of their regions, which were strongly affected by growing drought and the practical disappearance of trans-Saharan trade. Numerous and disperse movements arose in the Tahoua Department of the Azawakh Valley, the Aïr Mountains, Kawar/Bilma in Agadez, and Manga in Diffa. The Aïr and Azawad Liberation Front (FLAA, in French Front de libération de l'Aïr et l'Azaouad) formed in the first two of these regions and later on split into 13 distinct factions.

An agreement between the Government and the rebel coalition known as ORA (Organisation de la Résistance Armée - Armed Resistance Organisation) was signed in April 1995. This was followed in October 1995 by a Round Table Conference at Tahoua, with similar objectives to the Timbuktu Round Table of a few months earlier. The Conference brought together the Government, the ORA, traditional chiefs and the donor community. The aim was to mobilise resources for the rehabilitation of the pastoral zones in Northern Niger and develop a strategy for further development, without which a durable reconciliation of the warring parties could not be envisaged.

Under the 1995 peace greement [Section IV. The Organisation of Defense and Security Forces], units with a special military status will be created in the regions of Aïr, Azawak and Kawar. The special status of these units (command, personnel management, recruitment, training, advancement) will be determined by texts of regulations on the proposition of an interdepartmental committee where representatives of the ORA also will be members. These units will have as their mission to guarantee the maintenance of order and of public security. Within the framework of their mission they will have to act in coordination with and complementing the classical forces of defence and security. The personnel of these units will be composed of demobilized elements from the ORA and of people coming from the affected regions.

Within the framework of the restoration of peace and trust, the Government engages to integrate within the army demobilized elements from the ORA who will receive appropriate training. These elements will sign an engagement in accordance with statuary stipulations. Moreover, within the framework of the annual recruitment, the contingent of recruits, coming from the zone affected by the conflict will be reviewed in a rising way.

Despite the signing of three agreements — in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in April 1995, in Algiers, Algeria in April 1997, and in N'Djamena, Chad in August 1998 — different armed groups remained active. The approval of a constitution and elections in 1999 brought certain stability to the country. In Nigerien political discourse, the development of DDR is part of "the fulfilment ofclauses signed in peace agreements", on which enduring peace depend.

The peace agreements intend to integrate ex-combatants into the armed forces. Therefore, 2,074 ex-combatants followed a reinsertion plan within the Unités sahariennes de sécurité. On September 2002, more than 1,200 arms were destroyed in a ceremony called the "Flame of Peace" within the framework of the 1995-98 agreements. Through small arms-collection programs, hundreds of arms more were withdrawn from Niger in the following years.

Meanwhile, after the agreements, more than 7,000 combatants enrolled in DDR programs. The UNDP developed its own projects to strengthen peace in Diffa (called PCPD, Projet de consolidation de la paix dans la région de Diffa) and Kawar (Réinsertion des ex-combattants dans la région de Bilma), targeting a total of around 890 ex-combatants. The Peace Consolidation Program in Aïr and Azawak (PCPAA, in French Consolidation de la paix dans l'Aïr et l'Azawak) would conclude what these projects began and the model they extended to the Aïr and Azawak areas. The participants in the program in Niger were 3,160 former members of 13 fronts and mouvements of self-defence.