VZCZCXRO2507
RR RUEHBC RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDE RUEHGI RUEHJS RUEHKUK RUEHLH RUEHMA
RUEHPA RUEHPW RUEHROV
DE RUEHNM #0703/01 1420918
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 220918Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY NIAMEY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3499
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUCNISL/ISLAMIC COLLECTIVE
XMT AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI

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 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶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