Wagner in Africa, Continued
It wasn’t quite an insurrection, or even, really, a coup. Let’s call it a “couplet.” How does it affect Wagner in Africa?
It wasn’t quite an insurrection, or even, really, a coup. Let’s call it a “couplet.” As in: "Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?/ Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?" from Alexander Pope.
Prigozhin’s retreat, after coming within 200 kilometers of Moscow, was clearly more smoke than fire. Little else, however, is clear. “This great clash between Putin and Prigozhin, on which the future of Russia and so much else depended, ended as an anti-climactic no-score draw, damaging both men,” is how Lawrence Freedman described the bold mock-charge followed by a strategic withdrawal to the Green City Hotel in Minsk. And we cannot fail to note that the Green City Hotel is described as, “the only high-rise in town where windows don't open.” Says the Hotel New Hampshire to the Green City Hotel: “Keep passing the open windows, Sergei.”
But what of Africa? Where a “spider’s web” of interconnected economic and military relationships that tie the Russian mercenary group to the regimes in Libya, Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic. They have also been active in Mozambique and, most recently, in the DRC. Russia's foreign minister Lavrov, in an interview with RT today, reiterated that Wagner operations in Mali and the Central African Republic, at least, will continue. The operations, as Lavrov described them, are being conducted by “Russian instructors.” What are they instructing, exactly, will remain unspoken and probably unspeakable. From VOA:
Wagner members "are working there as instructors. This work, of course, will continue," Russian FM Lavrov said in an interview with RT, adding that the weekend revolt by the mercenary force would not affect Russia's ties with what it terms its "partners and friends."
At Wagner Group's headquarters, it said Monday it was working in "normal mode."
Nothing to see here, folks! the foreign Minister seems to be saying. Still, according to The Daily Beast, African leaders — those with ties to Wagner — were, at least as of the weekend, worried:
“Yes, there are Wagner mercenaries [in CAR] and everyone is worried that the face-off between Putin and Prigozhin would bring an end to their operations in our country,” said an adviser to CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in a private conversation with The Daily Beast via telephone. “The Russians play a very important role in the security architecture of our country and if they are forced to pull out completely, things could become messy.”
The longer the mutiny lasted, the more worried CAR officials were, according to the government adviser.
Such is the nature of the spiderweb. But who is the spider and who is the fly? “Elite capture” is a win-win for Russia, involving nearly zero investment capital and maximum returns on influence. Russia gets to undermine democracy on the continent, selling weapons and military advice (all the while evading sanctions) in exchange for government contracts to exploit gold mines and forests through shell companies. The big white dudes with skull tattoos in Alindao made quite an impression. African elites seem to be getting little in return for their mines, other than a continuance in (illegitimate) power.
President Faustin-Archange Touadéra of the CAR made this devil’s bargain with Wagner in 2016, when he became their “pet President” after they saved his government from collapse. As a result, Wagner is given free rein to the country’s natural resources, while Touadéra gets to be escorted everywhere under the protective guard of Russian mercenaries. His survival, before Wagner, was tenuous. “Disappointed by the inability of UN peacekeepers to extend the state’s writ, Touadéra turned to Russia in 2017, securing weapons and military instructors to bolster CAR’s shambolic army after the UN Security Council approved an exemption to the arms embargo on the country,” Pauline Bax writes for Crisis Group. “Today, Russian advisers have the government’s ear in not just military but also political and economic matters.” Touadéra's extended survival, nowadays, seems contingent upon his giving Wagner essentially everything they want.
It comes at a terrible cost to the people, of course, Not that Touadéra appears to even care. Since 2019, the Wagner Group has been guilty of grave human rights offenses in the country. From Democracy in Africa:
Gaining leverage by swooping in to provide an isolated leader security support follows the script Russia has used in Syria, eastern Ukraine, and Libya, among other places. In CAR, this move was matched by the appointment of a Russian, Valery Zakharov, as CAR’s national security advisor. Wagner troops also serve as the presidential guard. Touadéra’s symbolic and actual dependence on Russia couldn’t be more evident. CAR politicians who have protested the outsized Russian influence, including the former foreign minister, Charles-Armel Doubane, have been sacked.
The same formula of elite capture and the rape of natural resources applies to Mali. “With access to uranium, diamond, and gold mines as likely payoffs, a 1,000-contractor-strong Wagner Group deployment was to train the Malian soldiers and protect the country’s government officials,” warns Federica Saini Fasanotti of Brookings. “Facing both Western pushback and domestic outcry, the Malian government in late December denied any Wagner Group presence.”
Finally, Human Rights Watch found that Wagner utilized banned landmines and booby traps in Libya from 2019-2020. “A credible and transparent international inquiry is needed to ensure justice for the many civilians and deminers unlawfully killed and maimed by these weapons,” said Lama Fakih, Director, Middle East and North Africa Division.
The list of recent human rights abuses by Wagner in Africa is astonishing. I’ve mentioned CAR, Mali and, in passing, Libya. Wagner’s (less-than-spectacular) performance in Mozambique (in 2019) make for an interesting read. But it is the DRC, with tremendous natural resources — diamonds, gold, oil and 70% of the world’s cobalt — that should cause the sleepers to wake. So long as Russia’s criminal operations on the African continent continue apace, Russia can survive sanctions, as the saying goes, while standing on its head.
“The fissures in Russia's military are widening as Ukraine gains momentum with its counteroffensive. In three weeks, Ukraine has recaptured about 115 square miles of land Russia had occupied − more territory than Russia seized in its entire winter offensive, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Monday.” (USA Today)
"(Richard Ravich) was a partner in the first desegregated housing project in Washington. One of its first tenants was Robert C. Weaver, who would become the nation’s first secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the first African American to hold a cabinet-level post." (NYT)
Putin condemns Wagner rebellion but says Prigozhin’s men are free to go (Politico)
Hollywood is leaving podcasting to podcasters (Max Tani)
Harvard professor who studies honesty accused of falsifying data in studies (The Guardian)