Tag Archives: Africa

Brief Reference: Wagner Group in Africa

28 Tuesday Mar 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, transnational crime

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

State capture is a particularly nefarious form of systemic corruption, which has defined certain African countries in recent years. It entails private individuals gaining such a profound influence over senior officials that state institutions prioritise the welfare of those private interests over the public good.

There is a triangular pattern to such arrangements. The external partners and the colluding political actors profit handsomely – while the public foots the bill.

Siegle, Joseph. “How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa.” Africa at the London School of Economics, March 21, 2022.

In the inverted and upside-down Moscovian underworld inhabited by criminals, mercenaries, and warlords, life’s rich with looted diamonds and gold and other of Africa’s natural resources commandeered by force — well, gentleman’s agreements up top — and worked by slaves. “Working” with impunity, Wagner operations have been associated with disinformation campaigns, disappearances, extrajudicial killings, rapes, and accounts of torture.

Topside, as it were, Russia has been able to leverage Wagner power in weakened states into concessions, commercial contracts, and access to airbases and ports.

Apart from selling arms and natural resources, Russia may not know how to make money in ways above board and transparent, but it knows how to steal all that it wants. In mafia fashion, even the reference “Wagner Group” has submerged into enshadowed networks.

he Wagner Group is one of the most well-known and prolific PMCs in the world. Nevertheless, exact details about the group are difficult to confirm, with its organizational structure remaining deliberately obscure. The Wagner Group does not officially exist, with the name instead applied to an overlapping network of businesses and private military forces that are believed to enjoy the implicit but unrecognized support of the Russian state (Foreign Policy, 6 July 2021).1

In recent years, the Wagner Group has actively engaged in conflicts across multiple countries in Africa and the Middle East, including Syria, Libya, Mozambique, and CAR. Reports also suggest that they have engaged in activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Sudan (Africanews, 22 March 2022), with operations in up to 30 countries across the world (Center for Strategic & International Studies, September 2020).

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). “Wagner Group Operations in Africa: Civilian Targeting Trends in the Central African Republic and Mali.” August 30, 2022.

BackChannels scrapes up the outside story, lol, as it sees the world through Windows–but what a world is now online for gathering in the research of extraordinary journalists and institutions and having at hand a broad and thorough impression of challenges to civility, democracy, law, and peace worldwide. Here with this short patch of reference related to Russia’s hybrid aggression in the cause of immense theft–no ethical, human, or moral cost is too high for plundering states and suborning the dictators who had thought they were in charge–comes a display of transnational crime breathtaking in its depravity and scope.

If only Africans knew what was being done to them with Moscow’s endorsement for Moscow’s pleasure.

Reference: Wagner Group in Africa

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). “Wagner Group Operations in Africa: Civilian Targeting Trends in the Central African Republic and Mali.” August 30, 2022.

Clarke, Colin P. “How Russia’s Wagner Group is Fueling Terrorism in Africa.” Foreign Policy, January 25, 2023.

Clarke, Colin P. “Russian Mercenaries are Destabilizing Africa.” The New York Times, January 31, 2023.

Ehl, David. “More than mercenaries: Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa.” DW, February 28, 2023.

Fasanotti, Saini. “Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa: Influence, commercial concessions, rights violations, and counterinsurgency failure.” Brookings, February 8, 2022.

Katz, Brian, Seth G. Jones, Catrina Doxsee, Nicholas Harrington. “Moscow’s Mercenary Wars.” Center for Strategic & International Studies.” September 2020.

Mackinnon, Amy. “Russia’s Wagner Group Doesn’t Actually Exist.” Foreign Policy, July 6, 2021.

Siegle, Joseph. “How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa.” Africa at the London School of Economics, March 21, 2022.

Skrdlik, Josef. “Report: Wagner Mercenaries Profit from Central Africa’s Blood Diamonds.” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), December 7, 2022.

U.S. Department of the Treasury. “Treasury Sanctions Russian Proxy Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organization.” Press Release. January 26, 2023.

Walsh, Declan. “Putin’s Shadow Soldiers: How Wagner Group Is Expanding in Africa.” The New York Times, May 31, 2022.

Addendum to Reference from May 22, 2023

Burke, Jason. “Russian mercenaries behind slaughter of 500 in Mali village, UN report finds.” The Guardian, May 20, 2023.

–33–

Nigeria: A Letter Offering Correction to The New York Times Regarding Dionne Searcey’s ‘Nigerian Herders Face Threat From Farmers Competing for Land’, September 22, 2018

01 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Africa, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Nigeria, Politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

The article features a Gombe State case study that romanticizes the Fulani at peace within their own ethnic and religious community.  My question for you: why not take Taraba, Benue, or even Plateau State in the north central region of Nigeria or the more than 16 states that have experienced horrific violence and see the story through the eyes of the bereaved and dispossessed?

Gombe State, Nigeria-ed

Screen capture of the outline of Gombe State, Nigeria, October 1, 2018.

BackChannels’ editor has been responding to a contact in Nigeria with interest in what this blog has referred to as the “Fulani Land Pirates” — and this has been the year for watching “activity” (brigandage or warfare or both) that has amounted to the ethnic cleansing of Christian villages from the land with either apparent or somewhat implied complicity on the government’s part.

Last month, The New York Times (TYNT) published an overview of the Fulani drifting — in part a response to desertification — and the related conflict, but the journalist chose to paint a romantic view of the Fulani who have indeed lived with the bravado, color, and community known to nomadic herdsmen.  On behalf of Nigeria’s isolated or remote Christian community, the contact took exception to that depiction.

The edited letter was submitted to TNYT last week (October 24), but having not appeared, BackChannels offered to publish it.

Editor,

I am writing to express my disappointment with “Nigerian Herders Face Threat From Farmers Competing for Land” (September 22, 2018) by Dionne Searcey.

I don’t believe there has been a deliberate attempt to mislead the general public and do injustice to the thousands of people that have been raped, hacked or killed by assaults associated with herdsman, but the numbers in the article have merely hinted at the scale of the violence.  Many attacks have involved marauding “troops” with numbers above one-hundred, and as a consequence today there are thousands of people living in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in states like Benue, Taraba and Plateau.

Herder umbrella groups like Miyetti Allah that have issued threat of violence and followed through with hundreds of people killed were not mentioned in the article.

Moreover, the failure of security under the present government to arrest these killers was also not mentioned.

Portraying the southern part of Nigeria as a Christian majority viewing herders as beheaders, rapists, or Boko Haram may suggest bias in support of the herders. The truth is the southern portion of Nigeria has accommodated all despite differences in culture and religion.

In fact, most herders have lived peacefully with their hosts until turning without warning to run the same off the land.

In the past few years, the continuous influx of herders into Nigeria coupled with ethnic and religious issues and a complete absence of the rule of law have set loose countless raiders against Christian farmers.

Southern Nigeria has been organized into three large geopolitical zones comprised of 17 states, most of which have suffered murders, kidnappings, destroyed property, and the loss of farmland. At times, related arson has been dramatically political.  The burning of a farm owned by Chief Olu Falaye on 21 January 2018 and the burning of former naval chief Afolayan’s 90 hectares of productive land – oranges, cassava, and palm – deliberately beg the public’s conscience and patience in relation to the desire for earnest state defense.

I also disagree with the article’s position that the President has not done much for Fulani herdsmen.

President Buhari has represented Fulni  interests more than those of any other group. In October 13, 2010 he led a protest to the Oyo state government complaining about the treatment of Fulani herders despite that he was acting on a wrong heading.  He also has tried to grab land to give to the Fulani herders but has been impeded only by constitutional arrangements in which lands are not vested with the Federal government but with state governments.

The article features a Gombe state case study that romanticizes the Fulani at peace within its own ethnic and religious community.  My question for you: why not take Taraba, Benue or even Plateau State in the north central region of Nigeria or the more than 16 states that have experienced horrific violence and see the story through the eyes of the bereaved and dispossessed?

Why whitewash this conflict that at the hands of Kalashnikov-armed Fulani herdsman has seen numerous Christian villages burned and ethnically cleansed in the manner of medieval rape and rapine?

One may concede that cattle rustling is a major problem that affects herders, and that rustlers – as bandits often do – cut across ethnic boundaries (as widely reported in Zamfara State where the majority are Hausa-Fulani Muslims), and the police should up their game on bringing to justice those criminals.

For peace for the near future of Nigeria, ranching would be the best solution to pursue through legal political processes.  The frontier for nomadic herding without boundaries may need to be closed.

Plateua State, Nigeria-ed

Screen capture, Plateau State, Nigeria, October 1, 2018.

Related Online

Odunsi, Wale. “Buhari blows hot over renewed Plateau killings.” Daily Post, October 1, 2018.

–33–

Zoom Zoom Zuma! Hail the Presence of Another African “Aristocommicrat”

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Africa, China, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, South Africa, Zimbabwe

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Zuma is an economic leftist, who has described himself as a socialist.[32] He has received support from trade unions and from the South African Communist Party as well as the Women’s League and the Youth League of the ANC.[32] According to The Guardian and The New York Times, Zuma supports redistribution of wealth and has allied himself with socialists and communists that seek to redistribute wealth.[32][33] However, The Guardian (UK) has also reported that Zuma has tried “to reassure foreign investors their interests will be protected.”

Jacob Zuma – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – as viewed 12/9/2013.

&

It is a nation racked by poverty, where 13 million people survive on less than £1 a day, and two million have no access to a toilet.

Yet as his people struggle in squalor, South African president Jacob Zuma has sparked outrage by spending £17.5 million to upgrade his rural family home.

Lavish works – which include the construction of 31 new houses, an underground bunker accessed by lifts and a helipad – will cost almost as much as the £19 million British taxpayers send to South Africa in annual aid.

UK gives £19million aid to South Africa – its president spends £17.5million on his palace | Mail Online – 11/24/2012

&

When Jacob Zuma was facing corruption charges while still deputy president of the country, he scaled the length and breadth of the country to tell all and sundry that he wanted his day in court. The implication, was that he was a victim of a political conspiracy. When his bluff was called, and moves were made to satisfy his urge to grace the country’s courts with his morally upright presence, he did everything in the book to ensure that he didn’t appear in court. It was at that time that we first heard of the existence of the so-called spy tapes which would prove that the corruption case against him was politically motivated and manipulated.

After some nifty footwork by his legal team, the National Prosecuting Authority dropped the charges against Zuma. The public was assured that excerpts from these supposed spy tapes were then in the possession of the NPA. This cleared the path for Zuma to sing his way to the office of the president without having to answer to the charges of corruption. Now, Zuma is not only fighting attempts to have the tapes released to the DA, he is now on record as having said that he has never listened to the tapes, and therefore was not aware what the tapes contained. Fell me down with a feather already! If Zuma, the supposed victim of a political conspiracy who used these tapes as his weapon against the NPA, has not heard the contents of the tapes on what basis did he engage his lawyers to work on the so-called excerpts from the tapes?

A new trademark for the rainbow nation – hypocrisy | eNCA – 9/11/2013.

______

As regards criticism, much less examination by an independent court, our beloved and charming malignant narcissists enjoy (by dealing it unto themselves) a free pass.

They will do the investigations, the scrutinizing, the nitpicking, the moralizing, and the talking — oh my, how Qaddafi use to talk — but grant them immunity.

Or else!

* * *

These former communist cum autocratic aristocrats — coin: aristocommicrats — flow down from the big mamma of sweet talking while thieving states: Mother Russia in her Soviet phase: to work goes the worker; to the gulag the dissenting intelligentsia; and to the palatial dacha on the Black Sea go the ruling party elite . . . not unlike China’s elites, come to think of it, purchasing mansions in Melbourne.  On that:

A new global breed of private investors has emerged as competitors to institutional investors for prime real estate priced at US$500 million and above.

The trend is being felt in Australia, where ultra-high net worth individuals (defined as those with a personal wealth of over $30 million) or family groups are successfully outbidding institutional investors for property.

Property provides rich pickings for Asia’s elite | Business Spectator – 12/4/2013.

* * *

A cousin of Robert Mugabe accumulated assets worth an estimated 180 million ($360 million), according to a divorce case in Zimbabwe that has thrown a spotlight on the vast wealth acquired by the regime’s inner circle.

Details of Phillip Chiyangwa’s assets were placed before the Harare high court by his wife, Elizabeth, who is seeking 85 per cent of her husband’s assets and maintenance of 53,000 a month for 10 years.

‘God’s Gift’ on the block in divorce – World – NZ Herald News – 12/6/2013.

Mugabe’s regime has been systematically nationalizing enterprises and redistributing them to his supporters. The more nationalization and redistribution Mugabe’s regime does, the more Zimbabwe’s economy disintegrates.

Blog: Mugabe Regime Demands More Socialism – 9/10/2011.

______

Ah, family!

May we imagine that Jacob Zuma is today no Nelson Mandela?

“They Only Care About Power, Not People”

All of this became painfully obvious in August last year when militarized police forces violently cracked down on a wildcat miners’ strike in the platinum town of Marikana. In the ensuing bloodbath, the most serious bout of state violence since the Sharpville massacre of 1960 and the end of apartheid in 1994, 34 workers were killed after being peppered with machine gun fire at close range. Needless to say, the Marikana massacre brought back painful memories of police brutality under white minoritarian rule. This time, however, the policemen and politicians responsible for the massacre were mostly black and represented the same party that had once led the struggle against racial oppression: the ruling ANC of President Jacob Zuma and the iconic freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. The Marikana massacre was the most powerful expression yet that little had changed below the surface. The violence of the state simply reasserted itself anew under the ANC.

Jacob Zuma | Notes toward an International Libertarian Eco-Socialism – 12/8/2013.

* * *

South Africa’s press have defied warnings from the country’s president and printed pictures of his lavish home revamped with some $18 million of taxpayers money.

The media had been warned not to use the images of Jacob Zuma’s private rural home — complete with swimming pool, helipad and even a soccer field — claiming it would contravene the country’s security laws, South African press reported.

South Africa press defies warnings: Shows photos of President Jacob Zuma’s $18M mansion – NY Daily News – 11/24/2013.

Anyone want to see the house?

This might work: https://www.google.com/search?q=Jacob+Zuma’s+mansion&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS523US523&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=x-WlUqvLJIS7kQeLk4DQBg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=1084

# # #