WILLIAM GUMEDE | The rise of Russian mercenaries in Africa threatens to deepen instability

African autocratic governments and leaders are increasingly hiring Russian soldiers and mercenaries to prop them up against domestic opposition.

Some African leaders and governments are also hiring Russian soldiers and mercenaries to take on African jihadists.

Autocratic African governments and leaders often pay Russian soldiers and mercenaries for their services by giving them concessions to mine local minerals. The rise of Russian mercenaries on the African continent heralds a new era of potential instability for the continent, akin to the Cold War period, when foreign mercenaries and soldiers propped up African autocratic governments and leaders — fuelling domestic conflict, setting back development and destabilising countries.

Russia has signed military agreements with 20 African governments in which it will provide weapons, training or military support. Russia provides weapons, military training and boots on the ground to many African countries. Russian soldiers are mostly provided through the Wagner Group, a paramilitary unit.

It is likely that Russian military presence on the continent to ostensibly “support” governments and leaders will further destabilise, rather than stabilise, conflicts in Africa. Recently the US government warned Chad’s President Mahamat Déby that Russian mercenaries were plotting to assassinate him, alleging that Russia’s Wagner Group was supporting Chadian rebels hiding out in neighbouring Central African Republic.

Chad foreign minister Cherif Mahamat Zene has alleged that rebels who killed former President Idriss Déby in 2021 were trained by instructors of the Wagner Group. Mahamat Déby took over in a military coup in 2021, after the death of his father, Idriss. The Wagner Group was founded in 2014 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian soldiers have increasingly replaced French troops in francophone Africa. There has been a rise in anti-French sentiment across the continent and a number of public protests in francophone African countries against French armed forces involved in peacekeeping on the continent. Russian troops, under the flag of the Wagner Group, has often replaced departing French peacekeeping forces.

It is likely that Russian military presence on the continent to ostensibly ‘support’ governments and leaders, will further destabilise, rather than stabilise conflict situations in Africa.

Many francophone leaders, youth and civil society have called for the withdrawal of French troops in former colonies. France has been supporting regional organisation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is fighting Islamic militants who have destabilised the region. However, locals across the region have accused France of keeping the peace to protect its economic, business and political interests, rather than protecting local communities — something the French have consistently denied.

The presence of French troops has often served as a reason for jihadists to recruit members and unleash violence. France’s strategy is not to negotiate with jihadists in Africa, while in some African countries, such as Mali, local players are open to compromises with these groups to maintain peace. However, Russia soldiers and mercenaries used to fight African jihadists are likely to also serve as a reason for jihadists to increase their violent activities.

Last year, Mali controversially invited the Wagner group to replace French troops, saying French troops had not been effective in tackling Islamic fundamentalist violence. France’s peacekeepers have operated in Mali since 2013. However, the insecurity continued with Islamic fundamentalist violence fomented by Al-Qaeda or the Islamic state group, spreading from Mali to Burkina Faso and Niger. Russian military groups are likely to also be targets of African Islamic terrorist groups. Arab and Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have threatened that the presence of Russians may force them to renege on the 2015 peace agreement.

At the end of last year, France was forced to withdraw all its remaining soldiers from the Central African Republic after tensions escalated between France and the CAR government. The Russian government provided the Wagner Group and weapons to the CAR government to bolster its fight against local rebel groups.

The UN in 2017 approved a Russian military training mission to the Central African Republic. Based on the UN mandate, the Russian government deployed the Wagner Group to help CAR in military training. In 2018, Wagner supported CAR president Faustin-Archange Touadéra in taking on armed rebels, training the country’s military and providing armed security for the president. In CAR, Wagner is registered as Sewa Security Services.

In June 2021, UN officials who monitor UN sanctions violations in CAR, Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, reported human rights breaches, such as killings, rape and torture in the CAR. Russian military groups were mentioned in the UN reports accusing them of human rights violations in the CAR. The UN monitors in their report also alleged Russian involvement in illegal gold and diamond mining in the country. The Russian government rejected the UN report as untrue.

The Russian government, after the UN Security Council report alleging human rights abuses — using the country’s status as a permanent security council member — blocked the renewal of the mandate of UN monitors in CAR, the DRC and South Sudan. The Russian government said the UN monitors were biased against the country, lacked African representation and their reports were based on hearsay.

The Wagner Group is active in Libya, where it has supported rebel leader Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the Eastern Forces group, one of the country’s major militia groups, which attacked the Libyan government in Tripoli in April 2019. The Libyan conflict formally ended in a ceasefire in October 2020. Libya collapsed into turmoil in 2011 after the US-led, UN-backed intervention to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, who ruled for more than four decades. The country has splintered into east and west since 2014.

A government of unity was established in March 2021, bringing together the rival Government of National Accord based in Tripoli and the Second Al-Thani cabinet based in Tobruk. However, the House of Representatives, which rules eastern Libya, in September 2021 passed a vote of no-confidence in the unity government and in March 2022 established their own Government of National Stability, based in Sirte. Both governments are operating simultaneously — and fighting broke out in August last year between supporters of the two rival governments.

The Wagner Group has, since September 2019, provided support to the Mozambican government fighting jihadists in the north of the country — initially suffering heavy losses in unfamiliar territory. In August 2019, president Putin signed a defence agreement to provide weapons, training and support to Mozambique.

The Wagner Group has since September 2019 provided support to the Mozambican government fighting jihadists in the north of the country – initially suffering heavy losses in unfamiliar territory.

The DRC government has consistently denied reports that Wagner is supporting its army against rebel forces opposing the government, specifically on the Tongo and Nyamilima fronts in the Rutshuru region of the DRC, which has seen intense fighting between the government forces, the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) and rebels recently. Rebel groups in the past few months have overrun parts of the eastern DRC.

Willy Ngoma, one of the leaders of rebel group March 23 Movement (M23), a pro-Rwanda group, that opposes the DRC government, told the BBC in January this year: “The Wagner Group is here. We have the evidence.” However, DRC army leader Major-General Sylvain Ekenge has officially denied claims that Wagner is in the DRC, supporting the government. “The Wagner Group does not operate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” according to Ekenge.

In 2022, a report by the US-based non-profit Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed that the Wagner Group militarily supported the regime of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, in return for extracting gold in Sudan. Normally the Sudanese government required foreign companies to hand it 30% of profits in companies mining in the country. However, the OCCRP report said that in the case of Wagner, the Al-Bashir government waived the compulsory 30% profit-sharing requirement.

Khadija Sharife, the author of the OCCRP report on Wagner’s activities in Sudan report said after the fall of Al-Bashir in 2019 after popular uprisings against his corrupt, incompetent and authoritarian regime, the military, who supported him throughout, continued to back the Wagner deal to support the Sudanese military in exchange for access to mining resources.

Autocratic, undemocratic and corrupt governments and leaders in Africa, who serve only their own, ethnic and political party interests — rather than governing in the widest interests of their societies — cause failed states, government failure and ethnic divisions, which destabilise the continent and allow foreign military groups to plunder resources. The AU, regional organisations such as Ecowas and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) must step in to ban all foreign mercenaries on African soil to end the destabilisation of countries on the continent.

* William Gumede is associate professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and author of South Africa in Brics (Tafelberg)