ECOWAS DOES FRANCE'S DIRTY WORK IN BENIN

Days after Benin's thwarted anti-imperialist coup of 7 December, much about the event remains shrouded in mystery. But what is clear is that President Patrice Talon's pro-Western regime remains firmly in power, propped up by occupying forces from Nigeria and at least four of Benin's other neighbours in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

In part 2 of our interview with Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin of West Africa Weekly, he breaks down the sordid role Nigeria -- and ECOWAS as a whole -- have played as regional enforcers for European (especially French) imperial interests. The increasingly embattled Western compradors that remain in West Africa have closed ranks. Learning from what happened to their counterparts in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), they have installed a "continental early warning system" with EU help to strangle popular coups in the cradle. This mechanism has now snapped into action in Benin with devastating results for its popular movements and their allies in the military.

Hundeyin also points out that Nigeria deployed state-of-the-art weaponry in this operation that has never before been seen in action -- even during a decade of warfare against Boko Haram and other Al Qaeda-affiliated extremists. For him this is a clear indication that such groups have served Western imperial interests from the beginning, unlike the ill-fated coup leaders in Benin.