Net-zero: Africa, the new battleground

By Richard North - September 19, 2023

In a recent piece when I despaired about the violent state of Africa, I ruminated that short of re-colonising whole swathes of Africa, and physically suppressing the violence, there seems little that can be done.

I went on to remark that such an option for the West was unthinkable – even if we had the resources to do it, concluding that we must leave such things to Russia’s Wagner group (if that was still a thing, I ventured) and the Chinese.

Well, it turns out that even after the death of its boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner group is very much still “a thing”, according to the Washington Post which tells us it is a force to be reckoned with in the Central African Republic (CAR).

Despite its reputation elsewhere, the group’s presence – since it first arrived in the Republic five years ago, has been very much appreciated in some quarters, having been credited with restoring security in vast swaths of the country and, with the assistance of Rwandan troops, protecting the capital, Bangui, which in 2020 had been threatened by armed insurgency.

Unlike the UN peacekeeping force that had been established in April 2014 – eventually totalling 14,000 troops, incorporating African Union and French forces that had previously deployed to CAR – the Wagner/Rwandan force were able to take a much more aggressive stance, and have helped the government retake much of the western part of the country from largely Muslim rebel forces.

The growing involvement of the Wagner Group in the former French colony led France to withdraw its troops in 2022, against a backdrop of deteriorating relations between Paris and Bangui.

However, not noted by the Washington Post, Wagner forces – now under the direct control of Moscow – have not been having it all their own way. There are reports of “significant losses” during intensified fighting, leading to talk that they are being withdrawn and replaced by Rwandan troops.

This coincides with suggestions that the attachment between CAR president Faustin-Archange Touadéra and Moscow might be weakening, following a visit to the capital by French president Macron. Then, Touadéra spoke in favour of a consolidation of relations with France although he did state that his partnership with Russia was expected to continue.

The Washington Post gives some interesting background to this relationship. Touadéra, we are told, says Russia had not been the Central African Republic’s first choice for support. But when he took power in 2016, he estimated that 90 percent of the country was controlled by insurgents.

At that point, the government needed weapons to defend itself but faced a UN arms embargo imposed in 2013, after a rebel force had toppled the government. Since CAR gained independence from France in 1960, rival armed factions, at times motivated by religious differences, had vied for control.

“We didn’t have the means to equip our forces”, says Touadéra. It was the Russians, rather than France or the United States, who “graciously” agreed to help, he said.

In the way of things, the weapons were followed in 2018 by “Russian instructors” sent to train the army how to use the weapons. Soon, it became clear that those instructors were Wagner mercenaries, and their numbers swelled in 2020, when rebels threatened to topple the government in Bangui. Government officials credited Wagner fighters for saving the city.

The situation in the CAR, however, is the tip of an iceberg, one smaller part of a wide regional competition between France and Russia. This takes in Sudan, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Gabon and other west and central African countries in a movement that stands against the French influence.

While Russia has been supporting the CAR government, France is said to be supporting the opposition rebels, and indirectly supporting many of the movements which oppose the military coups in the region, including in Sudan where the Wagner Group also has a presence.

One particularly high-profile area of contention is Niger where the military coup in late July had crowds out in the streets waving Russian flags, attacking the French embassy and chanting “Down with France”.

The hostility is particularly inconvenient as Niger is the world’s seventh-largest uranium producer, and France, which relies on nuclear energy for around 70 percent of its power, is a key importer. And, if anything, since the coup, relations have deteriorated, with Niger’s junta recently accusing France of deploying troops in several West African countries as part of preparations for a possible military intervention – including backing the deposed president, using the 1,500 French troops still stationed in Niger.

The French base recently saw tens of thousands of protesters outside its gates. Demonstrators slit the throat of a goat dressed in French colours and carried coffins draped in French flags as a line of Nigerien soldiers looked on. Others carried signs demanding that France depart.

Taking a cue perhaps from the West, the military junta-ruled countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have now signed a security pact pledging to come to each other’s aid in the event of rebellion or external aggression.

France has already withdrawn its forces from Mali, alongside UN peacekeepers, and Burkina Faso. Mali, like the CAS, has been working with the Wagner Group. And as resentment towards the French increases, Russia and China are gearing up to exploit the situation further.

Crucially, while the open conflicts are more visible (even if they are under-reported), there is another major conflict in play, over climate change and the implementation of net-zero. For some years, there has been common accord in the West that the battle for net-zero will be fought out in Africa.

Although the emissions for this populous continent are relatively low – at less than 4 percent of the global total – the concern is that, as African states increase electricity production to satisfy growing demand, and states progressively industrialise, emissions will multiply, undermining the West’s attempts to reach their fabled zero emissions commitment.

Thus, we have an emerging consensus, led by the United Nations and by think tanks such as Blair’s Institute for Global Change which advocate compensating African nations to keep their fossil-fuel deposits underground in the name of saving the planet.

“High Income Countries”, says Blair’s think tank, “should instead seek to partner with African countries by offering financial and other incentives to keep their national deposits in the ground”.

As Russian companies are already developing oil and gas-fields in Egypt, Mozambique, Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Angola, the exploitation and use of fossil fuels is thereby becoming a major fault line between competing powers, with echoes of the Cold War and the proxy wars which dominated the region.

On the one side, Russia – and China – offers prosperity and a modicum of stability, while the West offers eco-imperialism, poverty and windmills. Western nations are absolutely incapable of grown-up foreign policy, obsessed as they are with climate change. Consequently, Africa will increasingly turn to the BRICs or, if not a formal relationship, will drift away from the West’s sphere of interest – as France is finding to its cost.

As rich countries “slow walk green finance” – with not enough money on offer and too many strings – the alternative Putin offers Africa seems increasingly attractive.

In a sense, if Russia and China succeed in the economic (and military) domination of Africa, they will be saving the West from itself. Impoverished and unstable African states generate exactly the “push” factors which drive mass migration, which Western foreign policy has failed to address.

But there is a downside. If the Russians – and Chinese – do manage to increase their influence on the continent, it is not beyond either or both to weaponise the “push” factors and drive even more migration to Europe, which already is threatening to collapse the EU, with the UK not far behind.

The worst of this is that, while we are looking at dynamic situation, where the battle intensifies by the day, the British media – obsessed by celebrity tat and other distractions – is no longer even pretending to cover hard news, which potentially will have a massive impact on our way of life.