US Military Presence in Africa: All Over Continent and Still Expanding

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How African countries voted on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

By Carlos Mureithi
East Africa correspondent
Published March 7, 2022

How African countries voted on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Seventeen African countries abstained from the vote.

qz.com

Africans are criticizing their governments for abstaining from the United Nations vote condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Mar. 2, 17 African countries abstained from the UN General Assembly vote, representing almost half of all countries that sat on the fence. Eritrea, on the other hand, was the only African country that voted against the resolution, joining Belarus, North Korea, Russia, and Syria.

The resolution, which says it deplores Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine,” was passed at an emergency gathering of the UN General Assembly. It was voted on by 141 of the body’s 193 member states, with 35 members of the UN General Assembly abstaining from it.

The vote means the UN has declared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a violation of the UN Charter, the foundational treaty of the global body.

General Assembly resolutions are non-binding but they have political weight. Therefore, the vote represents a symbolic victory for Ukraine.

The vote also indicates division among African countries on the Russia-Ukraine war. While some have strongly condemned Russia’s invasion, most have remained quiet. The African Union on its part has asked Russia to respect international law and Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Social media users criticized African countries for abstaining from the vote.

Some of the abstaining countries have defended their decision. On Mar. 6, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said the resolution “did not foreground the call for meaningful engagement” between Russia and Ukraine.

“South Africa expected that the UN resolution would foremost welcome the commencement of dialogue between the parties and seek to create the conditions for these talks to succeed,” he said.

“Instead, the call for peaceful resolution through political dialogue is relegated to a single sentence close to the conclusion of the final text. This does not provide the encouragement and international backing that the parties need to continue with their efforts.”

 

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How Coups Are Derailing the US War on Terror in Africa

The US, EU, and UK have poured hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid and deployed thousands of troops to the Sahel. We travel to the frontlines to find out why violent extremism is still getting worse.

 

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Langley succeeds Townsend as U.S. Africa Command commander

U.S. Africa Command is a small combatant command with a large mission that they are doing deftly, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said during the ceremony at the command's headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

By JIM GARAMONE
August 11, 2022

Langley succeeds Townsend as U.S. Africa Command commander

U.S. Africa Command is a small combatant command with a large mission that they are doing deftly, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said during the ceremony at the command's headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

www.africom.mil

The Honorable Lloyd Austin III, secretary of defense, and U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke as Army Gen. Stephen Townsend turned over command to Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley.

The command is only 15 years old and has embraced its mission of "working shoulder-to-shoulder with our partners" to make all nations safer and more prosperous, Austin said.

America's most important advantage is its unparalleled network of allies and partners that is at the heart of U.S. National Defense Strategy.

Africa is a huge and diverse continent with hundreds of languages, multiple ethnic backgrounds, different religions and a range of cultures. The nations of the continent have much promise, but also face many threats.

"The continent is on the front lines of many of this century's most pressing threats — from mass migration to food insecurity, from COVID-19 to the climate crisis, from the drumbeat of autocracy to the dangers of terrorism," Austin said. "These challenges threaten us all together. So, we must tackle them all together."

 

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Biden Hosts African Leaders for Talks on Security, Trade and Outer Space

Nearly 50 African heads of state are attending the first U.S.-Africa summit since 2014. It opened with sessions on civil conflict, democracy and space exploration.

By Edward Wong and Michael Crowley
Edward Wong and Michael Crowley have reported from Africa on American diplomacy there.
Dec. 13, 2022

Biden Hosts African Leaders for Talks on Security, Trade and Outer Space (Published 2022)

Nearly 50 African heads of state are attending the first U.S.-Africa summit since 2014. It opened with sessions on civil conflict, democracy and space exploration.

www.nytimes.com

Nearly 50 African leaders converged on Washington on Tuesday to begin three days of talks on issues central to the future of the continent and the world, including health, food security, climate change, civil wars and even the exploration of outer space.

The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit this week, the first one since 2014, comes as the world is struggling with urgent crises, some of which are having catastrophic effects on Africa. The continent is grappling with a food shortage worsened by both Russia’s war with Ukraine and supply chain problems arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.

But U.S. officials say they also want to discuss forward-looking topics such as commercial investments and technology that can have long-term benefits for the continent.

“Over the next few days, we will be announcing additional investments to make it easier for students to participate in exchange programs between our countries, to increase trade opportunities for members of the African diaspora and to support African entrepreneurs and small businesses,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said at the summit’s opening event, a forum for what the State Department called “African and diaspora young leaders.”

“Each of these investments is guided by one overarching goal: to continue building our partnership so that we can better address the shared challenges we face,” Mr. Blinken said.

The first day’s meetings were centered on critical topics including the environment, public health, democratic governance and security. The governance and security session was hosted by Mr. Blinken; Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III; and Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, led a ministerial conference on trade.

In the morning, Mr. Austin and Mr. Blinken discussed military cooperation with the leaders of Djibouti, Niger and Somalia. “We recognize that African leadership remains key to confronting our era’s defining challenges of peace, security and governance,” Mr. Austin said.

President Biden is expected to give speeches on Wednesday and Thursday, and he and Jill Biden, the first lady, are scheduled to host the heads of the delegations at dinner on Wednesday night.

The Biden administration is trying to repair relations with African nations after President Donald J. Trump largely ignored them and famously disparaged some in a White House meeting in 2018.
American officials are concerned about Chinese and Russian influence on the continent, as well as instability caused by famine, climate change, epidemics and wars. U.S. officials say they also want to help African countries create economic opportunities for their growing youth populations. And at a forum on Tuesday on outer space, Nigeria and Rwanda became the first African nations to sign onto the Artemis Accords, an agreement that aims to establish guidelines for space exploration.

Mokgweetsi Masisi, the president of Botswana, said at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday morning that many African nations were wary of the intentions of world superpowers and sought to exert some agency over those larger countries’ policies.

“The world has not been extremely kind to Africa,” he said. “It’s almost as if the carving out and colonization of Africa assumed a new form without the labels of colonization — but some measure of conquest. And we’re trying to move away from that and engage so that they work with us and not on us and through us.”

In an Africa strategy unveiled in August, the White House stressed the need to strengthen democracies across the continent and help them deliver for their citizens, with the aim of undergirding stability. Mr. Blinken emphasized the same themes in a policy speech he delivered in South Africa before visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

The Biden administration’s efforts to promote democracy have included anti-corruption programs and support for independent journalism. The U.S. government arranged for 25 journalists from Africa to attend the summit.

Leaders from 49 nations as well as the African Union were invited. U.S. officials did not invite leaders from four nations that have had recent coups and that the African Union has suspended from its member roster: Mali, Sudan, Guinea and Burkina Faso.

“We continue to work separately with those countries to encourage a return to a democratic transition, to move to a democratic track, so we’re in a better position to have a strong partnership with those countries,” Molly Phee, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said in a briefing with reporters on Dec. 7.

Mr. Blinken had separate meetings on Tuesday afternoon with Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, and Félix Tshisekedi, the president of Congo.

Mr. Abiy is a particularly complicated figure for U.S. officials. Awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for making peace with neighboring Eritrea after decades of war, he was seen as an international hero. But Biden administration officials watched with alarm last year as Mr. Abiy’s forces ruthlessly put down a growing rebellion by the country’s ethnic Tigray people.

Mr. Blinken testified in March 2021 that Ethiopian government forces had committed “atrocities” and “ethnic cleansing.” U.S. officials feared Africa’s second-most-populous country after Nigeria might collapse into violent anarchy.

But Mr. Abiy arrived for his highest-level encounter with the Biden administration weeks after signing a cease-fire with Tigrayan rebel leaders that has ended, for now at least, the country’s two years of civil war.

In a sit-down with the Ethiopian leader on Tuesday, Mr. Blinken told Mr. Abiy he faced a “historic moment” to move his country toward lasting peace.

The United States is also navigating thorny issues with Congo. When Mr. Blinken visited Kinshasa, the capital, in August, he expressed concerns to Mr. Tshisekedi and other officials about civil conflict in the east, which involves neighboring nations, and about a plan by the country to auction off vast parcels of rainforests and peatlands for oil and gas extraction. The two countries agreed to form a working group to assess the plan and the environmental impact.

Congo is important for Mr. Biden’s climate change policy in another way: It is the world’s leading source of cobalt, an important material for electric-car batteries. But U.S. officials are concerned about mining practices there, as well as the growing presence of Chinese companies in the industry.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Blinken presided over the signing of an agreement with officials from Congo and Zambia in which the United States pledged to form an “electric vehicle battery council” with those two nations to assess investment mechanisms and supply chains.

Christophe Lutundula, the foreign minister of Congo, said his country was working to “contribute with our natural resources and strategic minerals to the collective management of the world’s fate and future in this day and age with climate change.”

American officials have been careful not to frame this week’s summit or Mr. Biden’s Africa strategy as being about rivalry with China, which has been expanding trade on the continent for years. U.S. officials say they want to deal with African nations on their own terms. In reality, discussions in Washington about Africa often revolve around China.

On Monday, China’s ambassador in Washington, Qin Gang, said at a talk hosted by the media outlet Semafor that Beijing was focused on its own interests in Africa, regardless of Washington’s concerns.

“We are not interested in the views of any other countries on China’s role in Africa,” he said. “And we believe that Africa should be a place for international cooperation, not for major-power competition for geopolitical gains.”

 

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China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’ in Africa Raises Questions

Kate Bartlett
March 11, 2023 8:42 AM

China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’ in Africa Raises Questions

www.voanews.com

A group of U.S. lawmakers recently drafted a resolution criticizing South Africa’s government for its close relations with Beijing, including its use of Chinese technology, and called on President Joe Biden to review American’s relationship with Pretoria.

The resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as South Africa conducted naval exercises with China and Russia in February.

There are U.S. concerns about the surveillance risks of Chinese telecommunications, but some analysts say it falls on each government to responsibly use technologies, and China is not the only player in the tech industry.

The U.S. has already banned Chinese technology company Huawei at home, saying it’s a risk to national security. There is also a push on Capitol Hill to ban Chinese social media app TikTok.

In sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 30% of people use the internet, most governments welcome China’s investment in digital infrastructure – a part of the Belt and Road Initiative dubbed the “Digital Silk Road.” Because of Chinese government subsidies, they see it as a cheaper path to greater connectivity.

The U.S. resolution mentioned two South African companies with links to Chinese tech that the lawmakers felt were of concern. One of them, Vumacam, operates about 2,000 cameras in Johannesburg, with the technology intended to crack down on the rampant crime that plagues the commercial capital.

The U.S. concern is Vumacam “has partnered with Chinese company Hikvision for the cameras’ hardware,” the resolution said. The sale of Hikvision products was also recently banned in the U.S.

Contacted by VOA about its use of Hikvision, Vumacam responded: “We can confirm that we have multiple hardware vendors and not one single vendor. ... Any hardware is susceptible to penetration risk if not properly managed, regardless of its brand or country of origin. Vumacam’s focus is therefore firmly on system security, and as such, Vumacam’s network is run by its own proprietary platform, which undergoes rigorous and regular testing.”

Huawei dominates

The U.S. resolution also pointed to Telkom, South Africa’s partly state-owned telecom operator, which “launched its 5G network throughout the country in October 2022 using technologies from Huawei technologies.”

Neither Telkom, a spokesperson for South Africa’s state security agency, nor a spokesperson for the Government Communication and Information System responded to requests for comment.

The U.S. faces an uphill battle in vying for telecommunications influence in Africa. Washington has been trying to catch up to China’s vast network in Africa, announcing last year that U.S.-backed telecom company Africell had invested to deliver a 5G network in Angola.

But across the continent, Huawei dominates: Its subsidiaries own up to 70% of all 4G networks.

Last year, Ethiopia rolled out its first 5G network powered by Huawei. Zimbabwe has a Huawei Smart Cities program – as do Kenya and Uganda - and has installed Hikvision cameras in public spaces. Insurgency-wracked Nigeria recently announced it was planning to buy Chinese cameras to monitor its borders.

“China has signed resolutions to increase cooperation in areas like counterterrorism, safe city projects, border security and cybersecurity,” Bulelani Jili, a South African cybersecurity fellow at Harvard University, told VOA. “China also supplements this promise with commitments to offer finance, technical assistance and training to African governments on topics ranging from digital forensic techniques to cybersecurity.”

Spying concerns

Digital watchdogs, however, often label China as one of the worst abusers of internet freedoms domestically, and observers from the West worry that African regimes with undemocratic tendencies could adopt not just Chinese tech but the way China uses it to monitor dissent.

Already in Zambia and Uganda, the governments were found to have used Chinese technology to spy on the opposition and critics. In Zimbabwe, there are concerns it will be used to do the same ahead of elections later this year.

China also made headlines in 2018 with reports of Beijing having bugged the Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa. China stridently denied the allegations.

Responsibility of local governments

In some parts of Africa, Jili said, technology and the potential of its risks are tied to local and geopolitical factors.

“What is clear is that digital surveillance devices do not simply constitute smooth-functioning systems that provide the means of socially equitable and competent policing. Rather, they are convoluted assemblages that are entangled in broader economic, legal and political arrangements,” he said.

“And the risks of using them with inadequate laws are great, particularly in a region with established problems at the intersections of inequality, crime, governance, race, and policing. ... The adoption of new technologies on the continent is rarely accompanied by the implementation of robust regulatory frameworks,” he added.

Some China experts say the risks from Chinese tech to Africa are overblown and the focus should be on all the players in the tech arena, including European and American firms.

As well as Vumacam, U.S. firm IBM also has a contract with the city of Johannesburg for digital surveillance, said Iginio Gagliardone, an associate professor at Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University and author of the book China, Africa and the Future of the Internet.

In terms of spying on opponents, he said, there’s evidence a previous Ethiopian administration spied on dissidents in the diaspora, using software from a number of European companies. Meanwhile, Israeli spyware firm Pegasus has also been used by African governments.

Whether such technology is used to clamp down on opponents is not up to China, Gagliardone argued, but rather the African governments who utilize it.

“China with no doubt is an autocratic regime. … At the same time, China has not tried to impose or suggest that other countries follow in its footsteps,” he told VOA.

Gagliardone said it’s important to hold all large and powerful actors to account when it comes to the possible misuse of tech in Africa.

“The responsibility is really widespread. … If we just focus on China, we miss the bigger picture,” he said.

Employees work at a production line inside a factory exporting cameras used in mobile phones to Africa, in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, Oct. 18, 2013.​

 

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Inside U.S. Training Operations With Somalia’s Military

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Somalia Government Will Become Weaker Unless They Take Out Al-Shabaab

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Russian state media spins Putin pulling out of South Africa summit

Russian propaganda machine is working hard to spin Putin’s dodging of a planned BRICS summit in South Africa next month.

BY NICOLAS CAMUT
JULY 20, 2023

Russian state media spins Putin pulling out of South Africa summit

Russian propaganda machine is working hard to spin Putin’s dodging of a planned BRICS summit in South Africa next month.

www.politico.eu

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 17, 2023.​

 

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Darfur attacks raise fears of renewed ethnic cleansing

Fighting in Sudan began in April and reports of ethnic violence are raising fears about what could be a new genocide. CNN's David McKenzie reports from Johannesburg.

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African leaders press Putin to end Ukraine war and restore grain supplies

"This war must end. And it can only end on the basis of justice and reason," African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told Putin and African leaders in St Petersburg.

"The disruptions of energy and grain supplies must end immediately. The grain deal must be extended for the benefit of all the peoples of the world, Africans in particular."

By Mark Trevelyan and Kevin Liffey
July 28, 2023

African leaders tell Putin: 'We have a right to call for peace'

African leaders pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to move ahead with their plan to end the Ukraine conflict and to renew a deal crucial to Africa on the safe wartime export of Ukrainian grain, which Moscow tore up last week.

www.reuters.com

 

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Are Military Coups On The Rise In Africa?

The U.S. suspended security cooperation with military forces in Niger a week after soldiers ousted the country's president and his government.

Niger joins a list of African countries to experience military coups since 2020.

Associated Press West Africa correspondent Sam Mednick joined CBS News to discuss what's happening on the ground and if military takeovers have become a pattern in the region.

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France backs West Africa’s bid to undo Niger coup

France said on Saturday it will support efforts to overturn Niger's military coup, a day after West Africa's regional bloc said it had a plan for military intervention.

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Burkina Faso President
‘Russia Is Family To Africa’

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Why all eyes are on Zimbabwe’s lithium industry



Zimbabwe is looking to play an important role in the mining of mineral resources for electric vehicle batteries, and the country is expected to become one of the world’s largest exporters of lithium, a critical component in them. Mineral exports amount to 60% of total exports and are critical to Zimbabwe’s economic growth. The mining sector also accounts for 11% of the African nation’s gross domestic product and the government values the industry at $12 billion.

Zimbabwe has been mining lithium for 60 years and the government estimates that its Chinese-owned Bikita mine, which is located 300 km south of the capital Harare, has about 11 million metric tons of lithium resources.

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China In Africa

 

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More than mercenaries: Russia's Wagner Group in Africa

The activities of the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group go far beyond those of a normal private military contractor. Among other things, its mercenaries seem to be involved behind the scenes in current fighting in Sudan.

David Ehl
04/17/2023April 17, 2023

Russia's Wagner Group in Africa: More than mercenaries – DW – 06/24/2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the recent actions of the Wagner Group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin a "betrayal" that will be punished.

amp.dw.com

At first, their presence is often just a rumor. Later, it's an open secret. Thousands of mercenaries with Russia's Wagner Group are active in a number of African countries.

In the Central African Republic, for example, 1,890 so-called "Russian instructors" are supporting government troops in the ongoing civil war, according to the Russian ambassador. In Libya, up to 1,200 Wagner mercenaries are believed to be fighting on the side of rebel leader Khalifa Hifter. In Mali, the pro-Russian, anti-Western military junta has also brought hundreds of Wagner fighters into the country. There, they have been accused of committing serious human rights violations.

But the Wagner Group's presence in Africa extends much further, experts say.

"Wagner itself has developed over time as an organization that's gone from being a purely private military contracting entity into a multiplicity of business alliances and relations, and a network of companies. Some of them front companies across the countries in which they operate on the African continent," analyst Julian Rademeyer told DW recently at the Munich Security Conference. "It operates in this legal gray zone between illicit activities and more legal illicit activities. And it straddled those quite, quite effectively."

Sudan: Russia's 'key to Africa'

Sudan has long been a particular focus for Wagner mercenaries, and there are many of them there. Back during the rule of the dictator Omar al-Bashir, who was in power from 1993 to 2019, licences already went to the Russian firm "M-Invest," which is probably under the control of oligarchs, including Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin. This led to Wagner members being given the job of protecting the M-Invest gold mines in Sudan.

Prigozhin is a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin​

In 2017, al-Bashir and Putin met up in the Black Sear resort of Sochi to ring in a "new phase" of cooperation. There, al-Bashir promised Putin that Sudan could serve Russia as the "key to Africa," and received military help in return — which ultimately failed to prevent his ouster in April 2019.

Even while the country is struggling to return to some semblance of constitutional order, Wagner mercenaries are still in the country and have even been able to boost their influence on the Sudanese military. The military government wants to maintain control over Sudan at all costs, and is apparently receiving active help from the Russian Wagner troops. In exchange, the Kremlin is being given rights to further lucrative gold mines.

According to various media reports, observers are saying that Russia is mostly concerned with securing access to Sudan's valuable resources, which include manganese and silicon, alongside gold. Russia is also particularly interested in the uranium deposits, with which Africa's hunger for energy is also to be assuaged.

Wagner Group: A vehicle for Russian influence

Rademeyer, who works at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), sees the Wagner Group as primarily a Kremlin military tool to boost Russia's economic and military influence in Africa. Sudan is just one of many countries where it is being employed.

With his colleagues at GI-TOC, he recently published a report on Wagner in Africa. "We argue in the report that the Wagner mercenary group, the Wagner private military group, is the most influential Russian actor operating in Africa today, and that its activities and the network of front companies that bolster it are a malign influence on the continent,” he said.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) believes there is a Wagner base at the airport in Bamako, Mali​

Russia seeks greater influence in Africa, and the Wagner Group is likely to be as much a part of this as state visits by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, military cooperation and arms deals, and in some cases even free deliveries of food and fertilizer. Thanks to all this, Moscow was likely able gain 15 abstentions from African countries in the most recent United Nations resolution against its war of aggression in Ukraine. Eritrea and Mali sided even more clearly with Russia by voting against the resolution.

The Wagner Group, ostensibly named after German composer Richard Wagner, was founded in 2014 by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin. Loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he and the group have since become an indispensable private sector player for Russian interests. Only recently, Prigozhin publicly stated for the first time that he was also behind the Internet Research Agency, a troll factory that infiltrates social media, especially in the West, with disinformation in Russia's interests.

GI-TOC research has found that the Wagner Group has also engaged in campaigns to influence African populations.

The Kremlin uses Wagner as an "instrument of diplomacy in Africa," a representative of the All Eyes on Wagner research collective, which monitors Wagner activities worldwide, told DW. DW knows the identity of the representative, but he uses the pseudonym Gabriel for security reasons.

"Private military companies are banned in Russia, but to a certain extent they are allowed to operate outside Russia," Gabriel said, explaining that mercenaries on the ground belong to subsidiary companies. "There is an approval from the Kremlin every time that the Wagner brand develops its activities in Africa."

Central African Republic: Rare woods, gold, sugar and alcohol

International research has found that the Wagner brand is active in areas that extend far beyond security. In July, All Eyes on Wagner partnered with 11 European media outlets to uncover how the group has been raking in massive profits with precious tropical timber from the Central African Republic. According to the report, the government in Bangui granted a subsidiary unrestricted logging rights across 187,000 hectares (722 square miles).

The case of the Ndassima gold mine, also in the Central African Republic, is similar. Reports say that a concession was withdrawn from a Canadian mining company in favor of one from Madagascar that appears in the GI-TOC report as a Wagner subsidiary. Research by The Africa Report magazine traces how the Wagner network allegedly imported heavy mining equipment through the Cameroonian seaport of Douala. Up to three truck convoys are organized weekly from Bangui to Douala to transport the raw materials, under the protection of Wagner members with heavy weapons.

The Ndassima gold mine, shown here in 2014, is now allegedly run by a Wagner-linked group from Madagascar​

For cash-strapped African governments, it can be quite attractive to pay for Wagner's services with mining rights or market access, Gabriel said. "You don't have to withdraw money from your account. You can just say, 'Here, for 25, 50 or 100 years, you can exploit this mine without any problems.'"

Follow the money

The Wagner Group appears to be ever diversifying its businesses in the Central Africa Republic. Trying, for example, to force French sugar company SUCAF out of the market, said Joseph Bendounga, head of the MDREC opposition party there.

Another example: "They are in the process of framing the French brewery Castel for supporting and financing terrorist forces," he told DW. "In all areas that bring in money, including customs and taxes, the Russians are the masters."

The First Industrial Company, which produces beer and spirits in Bangui — and, according to the GI-TOC report, is apparently registered to a Russian businessman tied to Wagner — could benefit from this.

Pro-Russian demonstrations took place in the Central African Republic in March 2022, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine​

Russia does not deny the links to the First Industrial Company. "It's going well, because drinks made according to Russian recipes are very popular in the Central African Republic," a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Bangui told DW, adding that popularizing Russian culture and doing business with the Central African population is a priority. A private investor can do what he wants, the spokesman said: "After all, this is the law of the free market."

Activities continue despite Russia's war in Ukraine

The economic activities of the Wagner network in Africa appear to be growing in intensity, despite the fact that its mercenaries are now also openly fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine.

"In some instances, large numbers of Wagner private military contractors were pulled out to go and fight in the war in Ukraine, but others still remain,” GI-TOC analyst Rademeyer said. "The activities are continuing, certainly at a downscaled level. But there's no indication that the war in Ukraine is leading to a full pullout of Wagner private military contractors from Africa."

Protesters in Mali thanked the Wagner Group in February 2022 after France announced it would withdraw its troops​

On the contrary: Shortly before the anniversary of the start of the war on February 24, The Wall Street Journal, citing US intelligence sources, reported that the Wagner group was working with local rebels to plan a coup in Chad.

"The concern is that Wagner will keep metastasizing and growing within an African context unless there are interventions to to prevent those influences, and also unless European partners and countries work far better with their African counterparts," Rademeyer said.

This article was originally published on February 26, 2023. It was updated on April 17, 2023, to reflect the current situation in Sudan.

 

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US Special forces swiftly evacuate US embassy staff from Sudan

By MATTHEW LEE, TARA COPP and AAMER MADHANI
April 23, 2023

Special forces swiftly evacuate US embassy staff from Sudan

U.S. special operations forces have carried out a precarious evacuation of the American Embassy in Sudan, where fights has broken out between two warring factions.

apnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. special operations forces carried out a precarious evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Sudan on Sunday, sweeping in and out of the capital with helicopters on the ground for less than an hour. No shots were fired and no major casualties were reported.

With the final embassy employee out of Khartoum, the United States shuttered its diplomatic mission indefinitely. Remaining behind in the East African nation are thousands of private American citizens. U.S. officials said it would be too dangerous to carry out a broader evacuation operation.

Battles between two rival Sudanese commanders had forced the closing of the main international airport and left roads out of the country in control of armed fighters. The skirmishes has killed more than 400 people.

In a statement thanking the troops, President Joe Biden said he was receiving regular reports from his team on efforts to assist remaining Americans in Sudan “to the extent possible.”

He also called for the end to “unconscionable” violence there.

About 100 U.S. troops in three MH-47 helicopters carried out the operation. They airlifted all of roughly 70 remaining American employees from a landing zone at the embassy to an undisclosed location in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia also provided overflight and refueling support, said Molly Phee, assistant secretary of state for African affairs.

Biden said Djibouti and Saudi Arabia provided assistance, too.

“I am proud of the extraordinary commitment of our Embassy staff, who performed their duties with courage and professionalism and embodied America’s friendship and connection with the people of Sudan,” Biden said in a statement. “I am grateful for the unmatched skill of our service members who successfully brought them to safety.”

U.S. Africa Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, were in contact with the factions before and during the operation to ensure that U.S. forces would have safe passage to conduct the evacuation. John Bass, an undersecretary of state, denied claims by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Security Forces that it assisted in the U.S. evacuation.

“They cooperated to the extent that they did not fire on our service members in the course of the operation,” Bass said.

Biden had ordered American troops to evacuate embassy personnel after receiving a recommendation from his national security team, with no end in sight to the fighting.

“This tragic violence in Sudan has already cost the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. It’s unconscionable and it must stop,” Biden said. “The belligerent parties must implement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, allow unhindered humanitarian access, and respect the will of the people of Sudan.”

Sudan’s fighting broke out April 15 between two commanders who just 18 months earlier jointly orchestrated a military coup to derail the nation’s transition to democracy.

The power struggle between the armed forces chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the head of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has millions of Sudanese cowering inside their homes.

The violence has included an unprovoked attack on an American diplomatic convoy and numerous incidents in which foreign diplomats and aid workers were killed, injured or assaulted.

An estimated 16,000 private U.S. citizens are registered with the embassy as being in Sudan. The figure is rough because not all Americans register with embassy or say when they depart.

The embassy issued an alert earlier Saturday cautioning that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens.”

The U.S. evacuation planning for American employees of the embassy got underway in earnest on Monday after the embassy convoy was attacked in Khartoum. The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that U.S. troops were being moved to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti ahead of a possible evacuation.

Embassy evacuations conducted by the U.S. military are relatively rare and usually take place only under extreme conditions. When it orders an embassy to draw down staff or suspend operations, the State Department prefers to have its personnel leave on commercial transportation if that is an option.

When the embassy in Kyiv temporarily closed just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022, staffers used commercial transport to leave.

In several other recent cases, notably in Afghanistan in 2021, conditions made commercial departures impossible or extremely hazardous. U.S. troops accompanied personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, in an overland convoy to Tunisia when they evacuated in 2014.

 

[blackbull1970]

The New U.S. Africa Strategy Breaks From the Status Quo—With Some Perplexing Stumbles

The revamped partnership is driven by discernible global shifts.

Zainab Usman
April 11, 2023

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/08/11/new-u.s.-africa-strategy-breaks-from-status-quo-with-some-perplexing-stumbles-pub-87666

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken introduced the Biden administration’s much-awaited strategy for Africa. Speaking in South Africa, during his second trip to the continent in less than a year, Blinken outlined the policy against a backdrop of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and a global economic slowdown. Although somewhat comparable to recently launched initiatives for Latin America and the Indo-Pacific, the Africa strategy stands out as an uniquely elaborate effort at a moment when the administration is working to revamp U.S. relations across the globe.

At its core, the strategy articulates a vision for a twenty-first century U.S.-African partnership motivated by discernible global shifts. One motivation is the realization of Africa’s importance to U.S. global priorities, such as the continent’s rapidly growing population, one of the world’s largest trading blocs, significant natural resources endowments, and a sizable voting bloc in the United Nations. Another rationale is U.S. positioning for the great power competition with China and Russia for influence in Africa. The document often cites Chinese “harmful activities” side-by-side with Russia’s use of “disinformation . . . to undercut Africans’ principled opposition to Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine,” in reference to the nonaligned stance by some African countries at the UN. These activities are contrasted with the promise of “high standards, values-driven and transparent” initiatives by the United States and allies.

The proposal outlines four strategic objectives, including climate adaptation and post-pandemic economic recovery efforts alongside long-standing goals of transparent governance, democracy, and security priorities. To achieve these objectives, the partnership will focus on expanded efforts and new instruments to reset the U.S.-Africa relationship by engaging and bolstering civil society and America’s African diaspora, as well as leveraging the private sector and rebalancing toward urban hubs.

A NEW APPROACH

The document does deliver with new approaches in four promising ways.

First, the framing of the strategy as a “U.S.-African partnership” is new language that marks a departure from initiatives by previous U.S. administrations. The conspicuous emphasis on “listening” and African agency is a testament to the extensive consultations that preceded Blinken’s announcement. This commitment should address the recurring accusation that U.S. foreign policy officials rarely empathize with Africans policymakers’ legitimate economic, political, and security concerns.

The strategy also commits to working more closely with African partners, especially the African Union, to address lingering challenges and “will direct unilateral capability only where lawful and where the threat is acute.” One example where this could play out is the conflict in Ethiopia, especially as it relates to sanctions, suspension of trade privileges under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), and how closely Washington works with conflict resolution mechanisms at the African Union and elsewhere.

The most exciting aspect of the strategy, by far, is its articulation of Africa’s climate challenge in a way that acknowledges the continent’s concerns and realities. The strategy recognizes that Africa is responsible for a tiny fraction of global emissions, and it aims to balance climate and development goals by promising to work closely with African countries to determine how best to meet their specific energy needs through various technologies including “renewable energy as well as gas-to-power infrastructure.” This policy will be well received by African gas producers in Nigeria, Tanzania, Mozambique, and elsewhere that have protested restrictions on the financing of their projects by the World Bank and others—restrictions that were pushed by European shareholders, even as the EU has designated gas as a “green” fuel and continues to source both natural gas and coal from African countries. One marker of success for this policy will be the extent to which the United States influences European allies in these multilateral institutions to be more empathetic to African realities.

Another discernible policy shift is the promise of economic partnerships in areas that speak to both African economic priorities and U.S. strengths. It aims to support an equitable post-pandemic recovery in the short term and to build more stable and inclusive economies through increased trade, investment, and job creation. African countries will naturally rally around an agenda that creates economic opportunity, as the continent grapples with how to create meaningful jobs for the 11 million young people joining the labor market each year. The ambition to deploy American financial power to strengthen supply chains for critical minerals such as cobalt, nickel, and lithium, and to build core capacities of health systems to manufacture and deliver vaccines and other treatments seems responsive to African priorities on mineral-based industrialization and building a new public health order.

Finally, the strategy hints at dynamic ways the United States can mobilize private capital. It cites the example of how the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System approved a $100 million investment into power projects in Africa and other emerging markets in 2017. Such innovation could be a model for tapping into new sources of financing for infrastructure projects. Africa needs at least $100 billion per annum to plug its infrastructure finance deficit and another $50 billion to invest in climate adaptation, according to estimates by the African Development Bank.

ELEMENTS OF THE STATUS QUO

But the continuities of decades of U.S. policy on Africa are conspicuous in the strategy. The document states as much: that it “recasts traditional U.S. priorities” in a way that reiterates existing approaches to promoting transparent governance and human rights, addressing democratic backsliding, and maintaining security. However, the strategy has at least three areas where it should have gone further than the status quo.

First, it could have led the way in casting aside a perplexing demarcation that many Africans themselves do not subscribe to. It is surprising that a strategy that emphasizes its newness continues with the perplexing use of “sub-Saharan” and “North” Africa, dividing the fifty-five nation-states of the African continent into two groups. Though the strategy’s framing reflects a U.S. government bureaucracy that largely divides Africa in this way, in so doing, it replicates the myriad problems with this delineation: Why lump both Mauritania and Botswana in “sub-Sahara” when the former has more sociocultural similarities with Algeria and Morocco than with any country in southern Africa? Where does Djibouti belong? The strategy could have pushed the United States toward taking a more dynamic geographical treatment of Africa by employing a continentwide lens on trade, a sub-regional lens—central, east, north, west—on intra-African migration and transport infrastructure, and a country-level focus on elections and energy projects.

This approach would demonstrate that the United States is listening to and working with African countries’ articulated vision of continental integration within the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), as well as bring the usage in line with institutions like the African Union and the African Development Bank. There are parallels with the European Union—the twenty-seven members all identify as European and are in a single trading bloc, despite their sociocultural, linguistic, and economic differentiations.

Second, the strategy could have laid out a way for the United States to push beyond its traditional emphasis in “civil society” partners: beyond well-credentialed activists and journalists to include other influential nongovernmental actors typically overlooked by U.S. foreign policy programming. For example, African small and medium-sized business associations—especially manufacturers associations, transport unions, market women associations, tech startups, and others—have thousands, if not millions, of members. A game-changing approach to bolstering civil society on the continent would employ a more expanded definition to include these membership organizations that are politically influential, as well as academics in universities and research organizations who play a role in policy debates.

Finally, the strategy’s commitment to “revamp” public diplomacy efforts is conspicuously silent on addressing the increasingly convoluted nonimmigrant U.S. visa regime. Processing times for nonimmigrant visas for students, visitors, tourists, and small businesses—the very targets of U.S. public diplomacy efforts—face massive backlogs due to changing domestic politics, the coronavirus pandemic, and bureaucratic inertia. In U.S. embassies in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya, the wait times to secure an appointment for a visitor visa—used by the very civil society organizations the United States seeks to bolster—can exceed two years. Stories of U.S.-based academic, policy, and business conferences on Africa lacking any African participants because attendees could not secure U.S. visas are now commonplace. Not a few conference organizers are seriously considering convening these sessions in countries like the UAE, where visitor visas are less difficult to obtain. Making meaningful headway on revamping U.S. public diplomacy without addressing the uncertainty about the visa process for credible visitors will be difficult, especially when one of the strategy’s own stated objectives is to foster openness.

MOVING FORWARD

Now that the strategy is out, African countries, U.S. allies and development partners, and other stakeholders will be on the lookout for how this vision will be implemented. Achieving intergovernmental coherence among initiatives such as Prosper Africa and Power Africa across the U.S. government will be a crucial indicator of success. How the implementation of the strategy intersects with U.S. congressional initiatives on Africa, including existing legislation such as AGOA and the Electrify Africa Act, will help address questions that African partners may have on U.S. policy continuity. And most importantly, how much funding the Biden administration allocates to the strategy’s implementation will be the main determinant of success. The Biden administration has several opportunities to score quick wins over the next few months, such as clearing nonimmigrant visa backlogs and rallying European allies toward more equitable global climate policies for Africa at the upcoming COP27 summit in Egypt. These changes in areas that matter to African countries will be the surest way to build the foundation for a twenty-first century partnership.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken​

 

[blackbull1970]

Mogadishu Skyline Transformed In Somalia Development Boom

Interesting how this city was a shit hole just 10 years ago during the Obama Administration…

​

 

[blackbull1970]

How Russia's Wagner Group funds its role in Putin's Ukraine war by plundering Africa's resources

BY DEBORA PATTA, SARAH CARTER
UPDATED ON: MAY 16, 2023 / 9:52 AM / CBS NEWS

How Russia's Wagner Group funds its role in Putin's Ukraine war by plundering Africa's resources

Yevgeny Prigozhin's Wagner army has been key to Putin's war on Ukraine. CBS News' has discovered how it's paid for by "profiteering" in Africa.

www.cbsnews.com

Garoua-Boulaï, Cameroon — Much of the bloodiest fighting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been around the eastern city of Bakhmut, where thousands of ill-equipped Russian forces have died on the front lines since the end of last year. Many of those fighters have not been enlisted Russian soldiers, but mercenaries recruited and paid by the Wagner Group, a private army run by President Vladimir Putin's long-time associate Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Prigozhin's seemingly endless supply of hired guns in Ukraine requires deep pockets, and a CBS News investigation has found that he's funding his operations in large part by putting his private army to work in Africa.

Wagner in Africa

The Russian businessman has used his forces to prop up some very unsavory regimes in exchange for free reign to plunder the valuable resources of mineral rich countries including Mali, Sudan and Libya. But it's in the small nation of the Central African Republic (CAR) that his business model has been honed to perfection.

The story Wagner tells in a Prigozhin bank-rolled movie aired in the country — innocuously titled "Tourist" — is that his mercenaries are the saviors of CAR. The movie glorifies the mission of these soldiers of fortune as heroes repelling rebel attacks and thwarting a plan to storm the capital and overthrow the president. There was even a Hollywood-style premier in the capital, Bangui, and promotional t-shirts bearing the slogan "Je Suis Wagner."

But it's all Russian propaganda, at its most lavish and its most distorted.

The paramilitary group does indeed provide the country's President Faustin-Archange Touadéra with mercenary muscle to prevent a coup from toppling his shaky grip on CAR. There's even a statue in Bangui honoring the Russians for bravely protecting women and children.

What Wagner doesn't tell you, however, is that it is effectively helping to run CAR through violence, disinformation and a galaxy of shell companies that obscure the exploitation of the country's mineral riches.

Click Above Link For Full Story

Masked Wagner Group mercenaries, along with domestic security agents, stand guard during an event as Central African Republic (CAR) President Faustin-Archange Touadéra speaks on stage, in September 2022.​

 

[blackbull1970]

Anti-migration operation on French African island of Mayotte stirs tensions, exposes inequalities

By GREGOIRE MEROT
May 18, 2023

Anti-migration operation on French African island of Mayotte stirs tensions, exposes inequalities

France is facing a migration quagmire on the island territory of Mayotte off Africa’s east coast. The government sent in 2,000 troops and police to carry out mass expulsions, destroy slums and eradicate violent gangs.

apnews.com

CHIRONGUI, Mayotte (AP) — Facing a migration quagmire on the French island territory of Mayotte, off Africa’s east coast, France’s government has mobilized 2,000 troops and police to carry out mass expulsions, destroy slums and eradicate violent gangs.

But the operation has raised concerns of abuse, and aggravated tensions between local residents and immigrants from the neighboring country of Comoros. It is also laying bare entrenched poverty among both communities, tensions over the island’s status — and deep inequalities between Mayotte and the rest of France.

While Mayotte is a part of France, Comoros — about 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the northwest across a strait in the Indian Ocean — was also once a French colony but has been independent since 1975. Mayotte is by far the poorest corner of France, but its average annual income of around $3,500 is still more than double that in Comoros. This has created a powerful pull.

“How can they imagine for a second that (the operation) will make things better?” asked Momo, a father of five from Comoros who has lived in Mayotte for 30 years and is opposing efforts to destroy his family home. “The fight against us is not the one Mayotte needs.”

He is among those who say a lack of attention from the French state is at the core of Mayotte’s problems. Like most immigrants who spoke to The Associated Press, Momo fears having his full name published for fear of reprisals or expulsion.

Meanwhile, anti-migrant collectives on Mayotte, a volcanic island north of Madagascar known for its picturesque lagoon and vanilla and ylang-ylang herb plantations, are starting to take things into their own hands.

Some are blocking hospitals treating foreigners, disrupting shipments of medicines and goods to Comoros and threatening to destroy slums if the authorities don’t get there first.

Youth gangs are fighting back — some, unusually for France, with guns. Military forces and police are struggling to keep Mayotte under control.

Both communities are majority Black and trace their origins to a chain of islands whose status is the source of historical dispute.

In 1841, France bought Mayotte from its self-proclaimed sultan in exchange for protection. French colonization then extended to the other main islands of the Comoros chain. As independence movements emerged after World War II, tensions arose among the populations of the different islands.

In a 1974 referendum, three islands supported independence and became the new nation of Comoros, but Mayotte voted against and remained French. Comoros still claims Mayotte as part of the same chain.

While development in Mayotte remains far behind that of the French mainland, Comoros is wracked by corruption, run by a former coup leader and struggles to provide even basic public services. Mayotte is seen by Comorians as a land of refuge where people can at least get medical care and children can go to school.

Since 1991, the population of Mayotte has almost quadrupled to around 260,000, according to the French statistics agency Insee — and many other immigrants are believed to remain uncounted. Insee says that of the 10,600 children born on Mayotte in 2021, 46.5% had two parents who weren’t French.

But once they turn 18, these young people have few job or education options. It takes years to get a residence permit, and even those who have it can’t travel to mainland France. Many turn to the underground economy. Crime has flourished.

That’s the backdrop for “Operation Wuambushu,” launched on April 24 for two months. It’s expected to be extended because of setbacks suffered by the French government and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, the architect of the operation and the driving force in France’s overall efforts to stem migration.

Just as police arrived from the French mainland, a court blocked expulsions, and Comoros refused to take the migrants back. French President Emmanuel Macron hosted Comoros President Azali Assoumani last week to try to break the deadlock.

This week, a court approved the destruction of one neighborhood, and on Wednesday, around 20 Comorians were deported by sea, the first since the operation started. French government representatives watching the departure welcomed it as “a first step”; anti-migrant activists on the docks protested that the ship held too few people.

“What will we do now?” asked Zenabou, whose family home was razed in this week’s police action in the town of Majikavo. She fled Comoros 26 years ago and settled in Mayotte, where she has seven children born on French territory. “We have lost everything, they destroyed our lives. How can our children grow up positively when living through this?”

Many residents welcome the security surge. Earlier this month, more than 1,000 people demonstrated in Chirongui in southern Mayotte in support of the operation, and to express their attachment to France.

On Sunday, people in the village of nearby Tsimkoura compiled a list of “foreigner settlements” and sent it to the mayor, demanding that he expel the residents by the end of the week.

“Otherwise, we will take care of it,” said Kourati Youssouffa, a public servant with the local administration of Mayotte.

In the isolated village of Hagnoundrou, a printed message circulating this past week warned of an imminent “hunt for migrants.” It warned, “Don’t forget your children, they are part of your luggage.”

There is little room for moderation or neutrality. Many Mahorais, or Mayotte residents, feel the arrivals from Comoros deprive them of potential development and of their right to live in peace.

Comorians like Momo, meanwhile, are well-anchored on Mayotte, but now live in fear of military patrols coming to mark their home with red paint to indicate that bulldozers are coming — or violence by anti-Comorian collectives.

If the police “don’t manage to carry out their mission, it’s the collectives who will do the work,” said Momo, who has submitted documents to try to obtain property rights as a longtime resident of a neighborhood of shanties in Majikavo.

Some of his neighbors are giving up hope, and are demolishing their houses themselves to recover the materials and build elsewhere.

The French government has deported an average of 25,000 Comorians per year since 2018. It gave Comoros 150 million euros between 2019 and 2022 to try to fight illegal migration, according to France’s overseas affairs minister.

But despite the risky sea journey, thousands of those deported return from Comoros. The policy has broken up families and left thousands of children and teens unaccompanied, pushing many to join gangs.

Operation Wuambushu’s supporters include Mayotte lawmaker Mansour Kamardine, who says that “it’s a matter of days” before the situation explodes, and is pleading for tougher police and diplomatic action.

But human rights defenders worry about the fallout.

Among critics are the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, which warned that a surge in arrests and expulsions would increase the risk of children being separated from their parents. In a statement, it called on the French government to ensure housing for families expelled and mental health support for children whose homes are razed.

French refugees’ rights groups CIMADE warned that the surge would “aggravate the precariousness of the population and exacerbate the social tensions it’s claiming to fight.”

For now, security forces are acting as a buffer between gangs and anti-migrant militias, while the population, split in two, girds for new tensions as the operation unfolds.

 

[blackbull1970]

Ethiopia turns on the turbines at giant Nile hydropower plant

By Dawit Endeshaw
February 21, 2022

Ethiopia turns on the turbines at giant Nile hydropower plant

Ethiopia began producing electricity on Sunday from its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a multi-billion-dollar hydropower plant on the River Nile that neighbours Sudan and Egypt have worried will cause water shortages downstream.

www.reuters.com

​

ADDIS ABABA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Ethiopia began producing electricity on Sunday from its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a multi-billion-dollar hydropower plant on the River Nile that neighbours Sudan and Egypt have worried will cause water shortages downstream.

After flicking a digital switch to turn on the turbines in the first phase of the project, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sought to assure those nations that his country did not wish to harm their interests.

"Ethiopia's main interest is to bring light to 60% of the population who is suffering in darkness, to save the labour of our mothers who are carrying wood on their backs in order to get energy," Abiy said.

Abiy's government says the project is key to its economic development, but Egypt and Sudan depend on the waters of the Nile and have worried it will affect them.

Egypt's Foreign Ministry accused Ethiopia of further violation of a preliminary deal signed between the three nations in 2015, prohibiting any of the parties from taking unilateral actions in the use of the river's water.

The first violations of the initial agreement related to the filling of the dam, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

There was no immediate comment from Sudan.

Ethiopia, the second most populous country on the continent, has the second biggest electricity deficit in Africa according to the World Bank, with about two thirds of the population of around 110 million lacking a connection to the grid.

The project will ultimately cost $5 billion when it is completed and become the biggest hydropower plant in Africa by generating 5,150 MW of electricity, some of which will be exported to neighbouring nations, the government says.

The government has so far invested more than 100 billion Ethiopian birr ($1.98 billion) in the project, state-affiliated FANA broadcaster reported. It is located at a place called Guba in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region.

​

 

[blackbull1970]

African Officials Panic Following Prigozhin’s Mutiny

Philip Obaji Jr.
Published Jun. 25, 2023

African Officials Panic Following Prigozhin’s Mutiny

“The last thing the government wants to see at the moment is the exit of Russia from the country,” an official from the Central African Republic told The Daily Beast.

www.thedailybeast.com

BERLIN—As news spread across the Central African Republic (CAR) on Saturday that thousands of mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group had started to march to Moscow in a mutiny led by their boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, cabinet members in the restive African nation became very uncomfortable and started to phone each other with concern, according to a senior government official who spoke to The Daily Beast.

The CAR government has a very close relationship with the Wagner Group, which has built a spider's web of military and economic relationships over the past five years in a number of African countries, including Libya, Sudan and Mali.

In CAR alone, Russia has—over the last five years—sent weapons and hundreds of military advisers and Wagner mercenaries as an extension of the government’s security forces. The Wagner fighters have been intimidating locals and targeting citizens opposed to the private military company’s presence, while also exploiting the country’s mineral resources.

But Prigozhin’s decision to seemingly turn on his former ally, Russian president Vladimir Putin, set off panic among those who benefit from Wagner’s activities in Africa.

“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. As reports emerged that Prigozhin and his troops had captured Rostov-on-Don—a southern Russian city that has served as a critical logistics hub supporting Putin's ongoing war in Ukraine—and were continuing to march towards Moscow, CAR government officials became scared that Russia could descend into a civil war, which could affect the support the African nation gets from the Kremlin through Wagner.

Demonstrators carry a banner in Bangui, on March 22, 2023 during a march in support of Russia and China's presence in the Central African Republic.​

"Everyone feared that if war broke out in Russia, the Russians [in CAR] would not only be forced to return home, but our political, military and business relationship with Russia would be halted," he said. "The last thing the government [in CAR] wants to see at the moment is the exit of Russia from the country."

When news broke late Saturday that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had reached a deal with Prigozhin to call off the coup and take refuge in Belarus, government officials in CAR were anxious to know what would become of Wagner's operations in the country, a senior military official told The Daily Beast in another private telephone conversation.

“Cabinet members were calling both [CAR] military officers and Russian military instructors [present in CAR] to find out if they had received any information about Russia's role in the country going forward,” said the official who works at the CAR army headquarters in the capital, Bangui. “But nobody, not even the Russian instructors here [in CAR], has got any information relating to that.”

Wagner's influence in governance in CAR is huge. At some point, a former Russian military intelligence officer, Valery Zakharov, served as the national security adviser to the president, and a shell company known as Diamville not only forces CAR's poor miners and collectors to turn over their gems or sell them only to the Wagner-owned company, but also plays a key role in mining regulations in the country.

The coup attempt in Russia may have been aborted, albeit temporarily, but the brazen nature of the assault against the Russian state could have major repercussions for Wagner's operations in Africa. And, as the uncertainty continues, those who benefit from the group's presence in the continent remain anxious.

"Have you heard anything about where Yevgeny Prigozhin is?" the CAR government adviser, sounding apprehensive, called The Daily Beast Sunday morning to inquire. "We just don't know what's going on."

 

[blackbull1970]

Oil Promises
Ghana - How Oil Changed A Country

When oil was discovered in Ghana in 2007, the country began to dream big. It dreamed that the ‘black gold’ would bring economic upswing and long-awaited prosperity to its nation.

Oil Promises - Ghana’s Dreams of Black Gold – DW – 11/10/2020

When oil was discovered in Ghana in 2007, the country began to dream big. It dreamed that the ‘black gold’ would bring economic upswing and long-awaited prosperity to its nation.

amp.dw.com

​

 

[blackbull1970]

Macron says era of French interference in Africa is ‘over’

French president begins four-nation tour of Africa to renew frayed ties, while anti-French sentiment runs high in some former African colonies.

Reuters
March 2023

Era of French interference in Africa is ‘over’, Macron says

French president begins four-nation tour of Africa to renew frayed ties.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[blackbull1970]

Inside America’s Secret War In Somalia

For the first time ever, the U.S. military allowed reporters and TV cameras to accompany U.S. special operations as they quietly battle one of the strongest, most brutal terror networks in the world. Courtney Kube reports from Somalia for Meet the Press Reports.

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[blackbull1970]

Russian state media spins Putin pulling out of South Africa summit

Russian propaganda machine is working hard to spin Putin’s dodging of a planned BRICS summit in South Africa next month.

BY NICOLAS CAMUT
JULY 20, 2023

Russian state media spins Putin pulling out of South Africa summit

Russian propaganda machine is working hard to spin Putin’s dodging of a planned BRICS summit in South Africa next month.

www.politico.eu

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in St. Petersburg, Russia, June 17, 2023.​

 

[blackbull1970]

Darfur attacks raise fears of renewed ethnic cleansing

Fighting in Sudan began in April and reports of ethnic violence are raising fears about what could be a new genocide. CNN's David McKenzie reports from Johannesburg.

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[blackbull1970]

African leaders press Putin to end Ukraine war and restore grain supplies

"This war must end. And it can only end on the basis of justice and reason," African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told Putin and African leaders in St Petersburg.

"The disruptions of energy and grain supplies must end immediately. The grain deal must be extended for the benefit of all the peoples of the world, Africans in particular."

By Mark Trevelyan and Kevin Liffey
July 28, 2023

African leaders tell Putin: 'We have a right to call for peace'

African leaders pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to move ahead with their plan to end the Ukraine conflict and to renew a deal crucial to Africa on the safe wartime export of Ukrainian grain, which Moscow tore up last week.

www.reuters.com

 

[blackbull1970]

Are Military Coups On The Rise In Africa?

The U.S. suspended security cooperation with military forces in Niger a week after soldiers ousted the country's president and his government.

Niger joins a list of African countries to experience military coups since 2020.

Associated Press West Africa correspondent Sam Mednick joined CBS News to discuss what's happening on the ground and if military takeovers have become a pattern in the region.

​

 

[blackbull1970]

France backs West Africa’s bid to undo Niger coup

France said on Saturday it will support efforts to overturn Niger's military coup, a day after West Africa's regional bloc said it had a plan for military intervention.

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[blackbull1970]

Burkina Faso President
‘Russia Is Family To Africa’

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[blackbull1970]

Gabon officers declare military coup, President Ali Bongo detained

Bongo's family have ruled for 56 years

By Gerauds Wilfried Obangome
August 30, 2023

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gabonese-military-officers-announce-they-have-seized-power-2023-08-30/

Gabon Soldiers Holding US Made M-4 Carbine Rifles​

 

[blackbull1970]

His Excellency, Mamadi Doumbouya, President
21 September 2023

MAMADI DOUMBOUYA, President of Guinea, said that his continent was hit by an epidemic of military putsches, particularly in the French-speaking countries south of the Sahara. “Everyone condemns them, sanctions them and is disturbed by the sudden immergence of this phenomena that we thought was over,” he said. “To remedy the problem, we must look at the root causes,” he asserted, adding that “the putschist is not only the one who takes up arms to overthrow a regime”. The real putschists are those who cheat to manipulate the texts of the Constitution in order to stay in power eternally. Highlighting his efforts to prevent his country from descending into complete chaos, he said “the institutional rectification to which my brothers in arms and I took our responsibilities on 5 September 2021 was only a consequence of that chaotic situation which ended up tearing apart the social fabric of my country”.

The transitions underway in Africa are due to several factors, including broken promises, lethargy of the people and leaders tampering with the Constitution with the aim of remaining in power, he said. Today, African people are more awake than ever and more determined than ever to take their destiny into their own hands. Voicing concern over the unequal distribution of wealth which creates endless inequalities, famine and poverty, he said: “When the wealth of a country is in the hands of an elite while newborns die in hospitals due to lack of incubators, it is not surprising that […] we are seeing transitions to respond to the profound aspirations of the people,” he said.

Noting that Africa is suffering from a governance model that has been imposed on it by the West, he said: “We are all aware that this democratic model that you have so insidiously and skilfully imposed on us after the La Baule summit in France (…) does not work.” The various economic and social indices demonstrate this plain and clear, he asserted, adding that “this is not a value judgment on democracy itself”. This model — “detrimental” to the economy and the local processing of Guinea’s natural resources — has contributed to maintaining a system of exploitation and plunder of its resources. He also denounced national leaders who have often been granted democratic labels based on their capacity to sell off the resources and property of their people.

“The transition that I lead has chosen to focus methodically on clear objectives in a precise order: the social, the economic and the political,” he pointed out. The Sahel is going through one of the most serious crises in its very long history. In this context, he stressed that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) must stop getting involved in politics and favour dialogue. “The African people are tired, exhausted of the categorizations with which everyone wants to box us in,” he said, declaring: “We are neither pro- nor anti-American, neither pro- nor anti-Chinese, neither pro- nor anti-French, neither pro- nor anti-Russian, neither pro- nor anti-Turkish […] we are simply pro-African.” “It is time to stop lecturing us, to stop treating us with condescension, like children,” he said, underscoring that the international community must look at Africa with new eyes.

Full Speech

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[blackbull1970]

US urged to withhold military aid to Egypt in wake of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D) charges

Senator Menendez was indicted on a set of explosive charges of corruptly aiding the government in Cairo

Ruth Michaelson
Mon 25 Sep 2023 03.00 EDT

US urged to withhold military aid to Egypt in wake of Bob Menendez charges

Senator Menendez was indicted on a set of explosive charges of corruptly aiding the government in Cairo

www.theguardian.com

The FBI is probing whether Egyptian intelligence played a role in Bob Menendez’s alleged bribery scheme

The counterintelligence investigation is looking at whether Egypt's intelligence services tried to gain access to the senator through his wife, sources told NBC News.

By Jonathan Dienst, Ken Dilanian, Courtney Copenhagen and Zoë Richards
Sep. 26, 2023, 11:20 PM EDT

FBI probing whether Egyptian intelligence played a role in Menendez case

The counterintelligence investigation is looking at whether Egypt's intelligence services tried to gain access to the senator through his wife, sources told NBC News.

www.nbcnews.com

Gold bars and stacks of cash: how Bob Menendez ended up charged with bribery

The New Jersey senator says he won’t resign but a federal indictment lays out a lurid scheme of alleged corruption

Adam Gabbatt
Sun 1 Oct 2023 10.49 EDT

Gold bars and stacks of cash: how Bob Menendez ended up charged with bribery | Bob Menendez | The Guardian

The New Jersey senator says he won’t resign but a federal indictment lays out a lurid scheme of alleged corruption

amp.theguardian.com

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez trial date set as prosecution signals one of the defendants might be making a deal

The judge set a May 6 trial date.

BY CHRISTINE SLOAN
UPDATED ON: OCTOBER 2, 2023

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez trial date set as prosecution signals one of the defendants might be making a deal

Sen. Menendez pleaded not guilty to bribery charges last Wednesday and was released on $100,000 bond.

www.cbsnews.com

United States Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) with wife Nadine ​

 

[blackbull1970]

Burkina Faso junta says it foiled coup attempt

It alleged that officers and others had planned to destabilise the country and throw it into chaos.

By Wycliffe Muia & Beverly Ochieng
BBC News
28 September 2023

Burkina Faso junta says it foiled coup attempt - BBC News

It is just less than a year since Capt Ibrahim Traoré seized power during the second coup of 2022.

www.bbc.com

Capt Ibrahim Traoré seized power just under a year ago in Burkina Faso's second coup of 2022​