Commodity Online
Do you know how Indo-US nuclear deal is killing people half a world away in Niger?

If you want know just check out the Niger civil war and you will find the main reason for the war is Uranium ore, the main dollar earning resource for the country. Even before India signed the N-deal with the US, it started hunting for uranium ore. Because it will need it in huge quantity in the coming years for its nuclear plants. And, the hunt ends in Niger, because most of the uranium in the world comes from this country.

Republic of Niger is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. Niger is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, with over 80% of its territory covered by the Sahara desert. The economy is concentrated around subsistence agriculture and export of uranium ore.

So, what will happen to such a poor country when it gets a treasure? There will be war over it. Because the country is so under developed every one wants to have a piece of it. So, the new found love for Uranium in the world is the reason for Niger’s bloody war.

Growing economies like China and India are scouring the globe for Uranium ore known as yellowcake. A French mining company is building the world’s largest uranium mine in northern Niger, and a Chinese state company is building another mine nearby.

Uranium could infuse Niger with enough cash to catapult it out of the kind of poverty that causes one in five Niger children to die before turning 5.

So a big battle is unfolding on the stark mountains and scalloped dunes of northern Niger between a band of Tuareg nomads, who claim the riches beneath their homeland are being taken by a government that gives them little in return, and an army that calls the fighters drug traffickers and bandits.

It is a new front of an old war to control the vast Uranium wealth locked beneath African soil. Niger’s northern desert caps one of the world’s largest deposits of uranium, and demand for it has surged as global warming has increased interest in nuclear power.

Mineral wealth has fueled conflict across Africa for decades, a series of bloody, smash-and-grab rebellions that shattered nations. The misery wrought has left many Africans to conclude that mineral wealth is a curse.

Tuareg lands produce the uranium that accounts for 70 percent of the country’s export earnings. But almost none of those earnings returned to those who lost access to grazing land and suffered the environmental consequences of mining.

To fight the rebellion, the government has effectively isolated the north, devastating its economy. International human rights investigators have also documented serious misdeeds on both sides. The rebels use antivehicle land mines that have killed soldiers and civilians, while the army has been accused of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions and looting of livestock. In all, hundreds of people have been killed, and thousands have been pushed from their land.

Despite the violence, mining and exploration continues largely unabated, but the rebels contend that corrupt officials siphon off much of that wealth. The country’s prime minister was forced to step aside after being accused of embezzling $237,000, and last summer he was indicted.

The government argues that Niger is a democracy, if an imperfect one, with peaceful means of redressing grievances.

The Tuareg have been fighting here for centuries. The warriors cover their faces with long, blue scarves that stain their skin.

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