Mereja.Forum

[Zmeselo]

Wagner debacle in Russia raises red flags for African states and how they manage their security

Oluwole Ojewale, Institute for Security Studies

https://theconversation.com/wagner-deba ... rm=unpacks

June 28, 2023


10 tons of ammunition previously laid in civilian settlements by Libyan militia and Wagner group mercenaries . Hazem Turkia/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The brief rebellion led against the Kremlin by the head of the Wagner mercenary forces in Russia last week sent shock waves https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/u ... -invasion/ across the world.

This was no less true in Africa, where some countries https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russi ... ing-africa have, over the last decade, turned to the Wagner group for security support.

Many states in Africa are contending with multidimensional insecurity. https://www.usip.org/events/security-ch ... and-beyond

This includes violent extremism, terrorism, insurgency, banditry, communal clashes, sea piracy, separatist violence, kidnapping and oil theft. Non-state actors have entered the scene as security providers.

As a coordinator of observations of organised crime in central Africa at the Institute for Security Studies based in Dakar, Senegal, I believe the recent events in Russia could have three implications for African countries that depend on non-state armed groups for security. These are: rebellion, increased human rights abuses and insubordination to state military authorities.

African countries engaged with Wagner, and with Russia, should take heed. The aborted Wagner rebellion offers distinct lessons for African countries that have invited mercenary troops onto their soil.

Private armies might sometimes prove effective in the battlefield. And militias might be useful in intelligence gathering. But the inability of state authorities to bring them under control casts serious doubt on their overall usefulness.

African states should rather take full responsibility for their security sector reform. This must include repositioning their military and law enforcement agencies to respond effectively to internal and external security challenges.

Non-state actors

African countries have come to depend on non-state actors like Wagner for security in three ways:

• co-option of militia groups by the state

• the voluntary incursion of vigilante groups into the security space as service providers

• state partnership with private military mercenaries.

As security nosedives, some governments have co-opted militia groups to strengthen the state security architecture.

There are a number of examples.

In 2015 the Nigerian government awarded https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top ... eader.html a multi-million naira contract to Oodua Peoples Congress, an ethnic militia, to secure oil pipelines.

Seven years later the Nigerian Senate lent legislative support to the N48 billion https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2 ... os-company pipeline surveillance contract awarded to Global West Vessel Specialist Limited. This is a private maritime security firm founded and owned by Government Ekpemupolo. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/ ... -agbo.html

He was the former commander of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, popularly known as Tompolo.

These contracts were akin to handing over national assets to armed gangs for protection. They were an affront to the Nigerian constitution, which empowers the law enforcement and security agencies as ultimate providers of security.

Voluntary policing to fill the vacuum left by the state is another example. A recent study https://theconversation.com/many-kenyan ... ame-196449 showed that where people feel insecure and unprotected, they find innovative ways of responding to crime. Some rely on private security and others, especially the poor, rely on community vigilantism. Kenya is an example.

My recent study https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10 ... ole=[deleted] showed that vigilantes performed strategic duties in Nigeria’s north-west. They repelled attacks from bandits, rescued kidnap victims and arrested criminals. They also sometimes participated in joint security operations with the police and army.

Borno state has used the Civilian Joint Task Force and hunters to complement military efforts in counter-terrorism operations. They are on government’s monthly payroll. https://guardian.ng/news/zulum-pays-sal ... rs-others/

Wagner’s involvement fits into the third category: state partnership with private military mercenaries.

Wagner has been operating in over a dozen countries https://www.dailysabah.com/world/africa ... yond-libya in Africa.

In Mali, the state opted to partner https://www.csis.org/analysis/tracking- ... group-mali with it for security provision. This was prompted by heightened insecurity, https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15253.doc.htm diplomatic rows https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/2 ... on-minusma with the peace-keeping mission and the ejection https://www.politico.eu/article/france- ... awal-mali/ of foreign counter-insurgency forces.

In the Central African Republic (CAR), the mercenaries reportedly https://acleddata.com/2022/08/30/wagner ... d-mali/#s4 started operating in 2018. This was after the government and Moscow agreed https://adf-magazine.com/2023/05/wagner ... sanctions/ to exchange Russian military support and weapons for mining concessions.

In late 2020, CAR’s security situation deteriorated ahead of general elections. Wagner’s role switched from support and training to combat.

In 2019 Wagner fighters were deployed https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-russi ... w%20months. to Mozambique to help contain Islamist militants operating in the northern Cabo Delgado province.

Implications

The Wagner rebellion in Russia has three possible implications for African countries.

Rebellion: States in which the Wagner group is operating could witness armed rebellion. In some, the military and police have already ceded critical security operations to the group. For instance, in the CAR, Wagner mercenaries permeate https://adf-magazine.com/2023/05/wagner ... sanctions/ all levels of the country.

Increased human rights abuses: There’s the potential for an increase in human rights abuses and impunity. In countries with Wagner footprints, relevant agencies are increasingly impeded https://crsreports.congress.gov/product ... 12389.pdf/ from monitoring and reporting on abuses in areas of Wagner’s operations.

A human rights investigative mission conducted by the UN in Mali has provided strong evidence that more than 500 villagers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... port-finds were killed by Malian troops and Wagner mercenary fighters.

In the CAR the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project https://acleddata.com/ has recorded 180 civilian targeting events https://acleddata.com/2022/08/30/wagner ... d-mali/#s4 involving Wagner mercenaries since December 2020.

Insubordination to military authorities: The Wagner rebellion unfolded in Russia partly https://lieber.westpoint.edu/contracts- ... lications/ to resist an attempt by the Russian defence ministry to bring the group under state control.

This bodes ill for most African states in which Wagner operates. In most, the country’s army is subordinate to the mercenary group. The rebellion by Wagner against the Kremlin shows the group can support discordant elements in weaker African states to subvert democracy.

In addition, non-state armed groups could draw their cue from the Wagner group and become unaccountable to the military.

What’s next?

African countries that have invited the mercenary troops in should review their security architecture. This must begin with a decoupling of their security policies and operations from mercenaries and non-state security service providers.

[Zmeselo]

US Politics and the Paris Finance Summit

By: Jeffrey D. Sachs

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-art ... nce-summit

June 26, 2023

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and French President Emmanuel Macron invited world leaders to Paris on June 22-23 to reach a new “global pact” to finance the fight against poverty and human-induced climate change. All kudos for the ambition, yet few dollars were put on the table. To an important extent, the continuing global failure to finance the fight against poverty and climate change reflects the failings of US politics, since the US, at least for the moment, remains at the center of the global financial system.

To understand US politics, we should start with the history of the British empire. As Britain became an imperial power, and then the world’s leading power of the 19th century, British philosophy changed to justify Britain’s emerging empire. British philosophers championed a powerful state (Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan), the protection of private wealth over redistribution (John Locke’s right to “life, liberty, and property”), markets over government (Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”), and the futility of aiding the poor (Malthus’ law of population).

When humanitarian crises arose in the British empire, such as the Irish famine in the 1840s and the famines in India later in the century, Britain rejected providing food aid and left millions of its subjects to starve, even though food supplies were available to save them. The inaction was in line with a laissez-faire philosophy that viewed poverty as inevitable and help for the poor as morally unnecessary and practically futile.

Simply put, Britain’s elites had no interest in helping the poor subjects of the empire (or indeed Britain’s poor at home). They wanted low taxes and a powerful navy to defend their overseas investments and profits.

The United States learned its statecraft at the knee of Britain, the mother country of the American colonies. America’s founding fathers molded the new country’s political institutions and foreign policies according to British principles, albeit inventing the role of president instead of monarch. The US overtook Britain in global power in the course of World War II.

The lead author of the US Constitution, James Madison, was an ardent enthusiast of Locke. He was born into slave-owning wealth and was interested in protecting wealth from the masses. Madison feared direct democracy, in which the people participate in politics directly, and championed representative government, in which the people elect representatives who supposedly represent their interests. Madison feared local government because it was too close to the people and too likely to favor wealth redistribution. Madison therefore championed a federal government in a far-off capital.

Madison’s strategy worked. The US federal government is largely insulated from public opinion. The public majority opposes wars, supports affordable healthcare for all, and champions higher taxes on the rich. The Congress routinely delivers wars, over-priced private healthcare, and tax cuts for the rich.

The US calls itself a democracy but is in fact a plutocracy. (The Economist Intelligence Unit categorizes the US a “flawed democracy”). The rich and corporate lobbies finance the political campaigns, and in return, the government delivers low taxes for the rich, freedom to pollute, and war. Private health companies dominate healthcare. Wall Street runs the financial system. Big Oil runs the energy system.hat aims to preserve US hegemony through wars. And it has a Congress designed to protect the rich from the demands of the masses, whether to fight poverty or to fight climate change.

The US leaders who attended the Paris Summit, John Kerry (U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate) and Janet Yellen (U.S. Treasury Secretary) are individuals of outstanding ethics and deep and long-standing commitments to fighting poverty and climate change. Yet they cannot deliver actual US policy. Congress and the US plutocracy stand in the way.

The leaders at the Paris Summit recognized the urgent need for a massive expansion of official development financing from the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), meaning the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and others. Yet to expand their lending by the amounts needed, the MDBs will require more paid-in capital from the US, Europe, and other major economies. Yet the US Congress opposes investing more capital in the MDBs, and the US opposition is (so far) blocking global action.

The Congress opposes more capital for three reasons. First, it would cost the US a little bit of money, and rich campaign funders aren’t interested. Second, it would accelerate the global transition from fossil fuels, and America’s Big Oil lobby wants to delay, not accelerate, the transition. Third, it would hand more policy influence to global institutions in which China participates, yet the military-industrial complex wants to fight China, not collaborate with it.

Thus, while developing countries need hundreds of billions of dollars in additional MDB lending https://www.sdgindex.org/reports/sustai ... port-2023/ each year, backed by additional MDB capital, the US and Europe are instead pressing the MDBs to lend slightly more with their existing capital. The MDBs might possibly squeeze out another $20 billion in loans each year with their current capital, a tiny fraction of what’s needed.

The exasperation of the developing world was on full display in Paris. Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and several African presidents made clear that there are too many summits and too few dollars. China’s Premier Li Qiang spoke quietly and courteously, pledging that China will do its part alongside the developing countries.

Solutions will finally come when the rest of the world moves forward despite US foot-dragging. Instead of allowing the US to block more capital for the MDBs, the rest of the world should move forward with or without the US. Even the US plutocrats will realize that it’s better to pay the modest price of fighting poverty and climate change than to face a world that rejects their greed and belligerency.

*Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor at Columbia University and author of The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/book ... y-d-sachs/ Penguin Books.