[We should expect an intensification of Russian economic
involvement and arms exports to African nations struggling with
conflict, many dealing with wars that have their roots in Western
colonial partition and displacement. ]
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RUSSIA IN AFRICA  
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Malick Doucouré
February 24, 2023
CounterPunch
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_ We should expect an intensification of Russian economic involvement
and arms exports to African nations struggling with conflict, many
dealing with wars that have their roots in Western colonial partition
and displacement. _

Clément Di Roma/VOA, Public Domain

 

In January 2022, armed Russian militants operating under the banner of
the notorious Wagner Group of mercenaries – a Private Military
Company (PMC) operating internationally with Kremlin support – began
a security operation targeting the villages of Aïgbado and Yanga,
600km to the east of Bangui, the capital city of the Central African
Republic. The result was the brutal massacre of almost 70 Black
African men, women, and children, conducted in both villages at the
hands of the Russian mercenaries and their comrades among the Central
African government troops. Countless more were injured and displaced
– with images across various social media reports and news sites
indicating the graphic torture and murder of unarmed civilians, hands
bound behind their backs[1]
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they are subjected to violence well past the legal threshold for war
crimes. The United Nations (UN) Mission in the country, MINUSCA,
confirmed through a statement released by Stéphane Dujarric, also the
spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres, that they had
received reports of violence involving government troops and unnamed
external “security personnel”, with many casualties and
displacements running in the hundreds[2]
[[link removed]].

A UN Probe was subsequently announced earlier this year amid
increasing media attention and reports, local accusations and
international speculation concerning the Wagner Group’s involvement;
it has been long confirmed by the Central African Republic’s (CAR)
government that Russian mercenaries are indeed present in the country,
having been hired as ‘advisors’. Further online reports have since
suggested the UN probe was hampered by the intentional placing of
landmines to prevent access for UN Peacekeepers and investigators –
but information confirming this fact is hard to find. What can be
verified regarding the UN investigation of this Wagner-perpetrated
massacre is this:

At the last Security Council meeting on the Central African conflict,
the United States asked Moscow to investigate abuses attributed to
Russian nationals. The UN panel of experts has not functioned since 31
August. The renewal of the members of this group, a dozen, by the UN
secretariat, was blocked last summer by Russia, which believes that
its composition is infiltrated by the West and does not reflect a real
geographical diversity.[3]
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This raises an important question – is there an ulterior motive for
Russia’s blocking of the UN investigation into these alleged
mercenary-committed war crimes? If so, what does this mean for
Russia’s strategic presence in other parts of the African continent?
What truly happened in the villages of Aïgbado and Yanga? Why is
Russia in Africa in the first place? To answer these questions, we
must first examine the facts and understand the political violence
that has engulfed the Central African Republic, digging into the roots
of a brutal civil war that has led to both United Nations (UN)
Peacekeepers and Russian mercenaries landing boots on the ground.

The current conflict has its roots in the country’s flag
independence, neocolonial dictatorship, and various other political
events of the 20th century that would permanently mark the political
landscape; notably concerning this article, the conflict took a
significant turn and major development when in March 2013, Séléka
rebels – a name that translates to ‘coalition’ in Sango, the
principal local language and lingua franca of the Central African
Republic – seized power from President François Bozizé, whom
himself had taken control in a 2003 coup d’état while serving as a
general of the national armed forces. Bozizé had waited until the
country’s democratically elected president, Ange-Félix Patassé,
left the country for a regional conference to seize power with over
1,000 loyal soldiers. This incident led to the establishment of
multiple armed rebel groups fighting ostensibly for justice, the
restoration of democracy, and the liberation of the country from what
they feared would be another neocolonial dictatorship reminiscent of
the brutal, French-backed rule of self-proclaimed ‘Emperor’
Jean-Bédel Bokassa.

The fears of these rebel groups were not unfounded, as Bozizé had
risen through the ranks of the military under Bokassa’s regime,
gaining Bokassa’s trust and becoming a Brigadier-General upon
striking a French officer who had disrespected the Emperor. The
violence and political unrest that followed the rise of his military
and later political career, holding multiple ministerial positions
until he attempted a failed coup attempt in 1982, perhaps foreshadowed
the violence and political unrest that would characterise his regime
following his march on the capital in 2003. The political environment,
context and struggles that led to the 2003 coup, as well as the
subsequent 2003-2007 bush war fought against his regime by various
rebel groups, is a lengthy topic that requires a feature-length
article of its own. What is relevant here is that many of these rebel
groups struggling against Bozizé’s rule would, in August 2012,
merge to forge the Séléka coalition. They were particularly
motivated and strengthened in popular support by his failure to honour
the peace deal that had been agreed upon to end the Bush war.

Séléka’s background is clearly political: a united front allied
against the rule of a former general who had violently seized power
from one of the nation’s only democratically-elected presidents and
subsequently ruled illiberally and with disregard for peace
agreements. Despite this, much of the rank and file manpower of the
rebel coalition were men of Muslim background – this led to the
creation of a counter-militia named Anti-Balaka, comprised of those
from a Christian background[4]
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sought to defend themselves against atrocities conducted by
(ex)Séléka militias. And thus, the conflict in the Central African
Republic became one of an overtly sectarian character, with the UN
MINUSCA peacekeeping mission beginning in September 2014 and aiming to
extinguish the fanning flames of religious violence as Séléka’s
rule became increasingly unpopular. The country split between the two
groups, with Séléka leaders eventually declaring an independent
Republic of Logone in 2015[5]
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Séléka had already been disbanded as a broad coalition in 2013 and
so was split into several groups – The Political Rally for the
Renewal of the Central African Republic (RPRC), the Popular Front for
the Rebirth of Central African Republic (FPRC), Union for Peace in the
Central African Republic (UPC), and the Central African Patriotic
Movement (MPC). Adding to this political mess is the Movement of
Central African Liberators for Justice (MLCJ) and the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA), made infamous by the Kony 2012 international
appeal. The splitting of the Séléka coalition into various factions,
many of whom committed atrocities in the countryside[6]
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the establishment of rebel groups along religious and/or ethnic lines,
the failure of the Central African interim government to assert its
authority beyond Bangui, the involvement of external actors such as
the LRA, and the ubiquitous intrigues and influence of the
ever-present Bozizé – who remains desperate for a return to power
– all illustrates a volatile, unstable political cocktail that left
the mineral-rich country ripe for external intervention.

Neither the UN peacekeeping taskforce nor the African Union mission
could establish peace – and so the Central African government, under
independent candidate and former Prime Minister-turned-President
Faustin-Archange Touadéra, turned towards Russia for help. Belonging
to the country’s Christian majority and having campaigned on four
points – peace and security, the productive sector, fiscal
consolidation and basic social services[7]
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Touadéra moved to end the lawlessness that had seen personal rural
fiefdoms carved out by various militia heads in resource-rich areas.
Wagner troops could act with impunity and reckless disregard for
civilian life that the UN and AU peacekeeping troops could not without
risking a massive international scandal. In addition to helping the
government regain control of large swathes of the country, no matter
the unarmed civilian cost, Russia intensified – through Wagner –
its economic stake in the country, developing mining contracts and
financial ties with local private security companies such as Sewa
Securities and Lobaye Invest[8]
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Weapons sales to the CAR (as well as other African nations within
Russia’s strategic interest) are growing; “Angola, Nigeria, Sudan,
Mali, Burkina Faso and Equatorial Guinea” join the CAR as other
African destinations for Russian arms exports[9]
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It is clear that for Russia, the CAR and the wider continent present
not only a security market for its Wagner mercenaries and potentially
other PMCs in the future to service with minimal regard to Black
African life but also a lucrative arms market and a source of
boundless opportunities for mining contracts and other economic
activities.

Now, if this partnership between illiberal African democracies and
Russian PMCs were taking place under wholly democratic regimes, led by
legitimate representatives of the people whose financial loyalties
aren’t under fire and whose electoral victories were completely
legitimate – opposition leaders in the CAR have alleged many
irregularities and instances of fraud during Touadéra’s
election[10]
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then this relationship would have to be respected from a Western
perspective. A democracy is free to choose its partners as it best
sees fit. But, looking at Burkina Faso and Mali’s military juntas,
two nations under the authoritarian rulership of the national
bourgeois armed forces, it becomes clear that the continent’s rising
trend of approachment towards Russia does not have the popular
grounded support claimed by the rulers of illiberal democracies and
military juntas.

Reports of Wagner’s involvement in atrocities and massacres against
unarmed civilians in Mali[11]
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striking similarities to the Central African massacres committed in
Aïgbado and Yanga. Both Mali and the Central African Republic have
been gripped and destabilised by a religious insurgency; both Nations
rightly shunned France, their former colonial power, in favour of a
shift towards Russia, whose PMCs have been well-documented in their
involvement and instigation of violent war crimes for the heat of
reclaiming contested territory. As we look towards Burkina Faso, a
nation under military rule that has also shunned France and its
ineffective peacekeepers and troops this year, we see warning signs of
another illiberal regime happy to bend international law to reclaim
territory[12]
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Whether we will see reports of Russian PMC involvement in war crimes
seems to be a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

If Wagner in the CAR has taught us anything, it’s that we should
expect an intensification of Russian economic involvement and arms
exports to African nations struggling with conflict, many dealing with
wars that have their roots in Western colonial partition and
displacement. As we witness the co-option, by bourgeois illiberal
democracies and military juntas, of discourses of anticolonialism and
resistance to neocolonial influences, we must align our interests and
concerns with the working masses of the Central African Republic, with
the working masses of Mali, with the working masses of Burkina Faso
and wherever national bourgeois leadership seeks to partner with
Russia over a former colonial or Western power, in its domination and
exploitation of the toiling, working, mining, crafting, fishing,
farming, fighting, labouring masses.

NOTES

Central African Republic: Bria massacre, the toll rises day by day and
reaches nearly 70 dead – Corbeau News Centrafrique ou si b il LPP
and news in the Central African Republic Corbeau News Centrafrique ou
si b il LPP and news in the Central African Republic
(corbeaunews-centrafrique.org)
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UN probing alleged killings by CAR forces, Russia mercenaries | United
Nations News | Al Jazeera
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Central African Republic | UN investigates role of Russian mercenaries
Wagner in massacre | The Press (lapresse.ca)
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CAR: Muslim-Christian tension on the rise, since coup
(theafricareport.com)
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Seleka (globalsecurity.org)
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Central African Republic: War Crimes by Ex-Seleka Rebels | Human
Rights Watch (hrw.org)
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Who is Faustin-Archange Touadéra? – BBC News Africa
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CAR: ‘I have nothing to hide about the Russians,’ says President
Faustin-Archange Touadéra (theafricareport.com)
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Russia in Africa: What’s behind Moscow’s push into the continent?
– BBC News [[link removed]] ↑
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Opposition angry as Touadera wins re-election in CAR presidential race
(rfi.fr)
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Massacres, Executions, and Falsified Graves: The Wagner Group’s
Mounting Humanitarian Cost in Mali (csis.org)
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Burkina Faso Accused Of War Crime Amid Humanitarian Crisis – The
Organization for World Peace (theowp.org)
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_MALICK DOUCOURÉ is a British-Senegalese social media commentator and
a student of decolonial Marxist and anti-imperialist thought
traditions. Alongside his advocacy against neocolonialism, Malick is
currently researching the Black Radical Tradition in Ghana through a
MPhil/PhD European & International Studies course at King’s College,
London._

_COUNTERPUNCH is reader supported! Please help keep us alive
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* Russia
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* Africa
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* Central African Republic
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* mercenaries
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* neocolonialism
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* democracy
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