How did Putin get so much power in Africa?
Many were surprised that African countries abstained during the vote on the UN resolution condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine, writes La Vanguardia. The author of the article decided to figure out how Moscow gained such influence in the region.
Gonzalo Toca Rey
Many were surprised when on March 2, 16 African countries abstained from voting on a UN resolution condemning Russian actions in Ukraine... and Eritrea even voted against. So the world power, whose influence remained almost unnoticed by millions of Europeans, showed its strength.
At that time, we did not know how Russia could use grain supplies to put pressure on others as it conquered new Ukrainian territories. We also did not know the fact that Russia and Ukraine together produce 40% of grain imported to African countries.
Nor have we heard about the active deployment of Russian mercenaries (the Wagner Group) in Libya to support a field commander who, as Russia expects, will rule a country with large oil reserves, strategic ports and close ties with NATO. Putin's mercenaries have taken up positions in Mali. They are expected to help the military junta thwart plans for the transition to democracy after the recent coup.
At the same time, the Russians did not cease to expand their presence in Port Sudan, which occupies a privileged position in the Red Sea, and to win the sympathy of the Sudanese army.
According to the Brookings Institution, in the coming months, Moscow's shadow will fall on the Gulf of Guinea (Guinea, the Republic of the Congo, the DRC and Gabon) and Angola.
Moscow exerted a strong influence on Guinea (previously through President Alpha Conde, and now through the junta led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya) to secure access to bauxite mines. For some time now, Russia has begun to move closer to the Republic of the Congo, the DRC and Gabon in order to conduct a profitable trade in oil and minerals in Central Africa.
But in the case of Angola, everything is probably much more interesting. The country has become a natural target of Moscow not only because of the huge reserves of oil, gold, diamonds and other minerals. The fact is that its president, Juan Lorenzo, is now somewhat isolated and, in order to remain in power, he needs the support of a world power. Laurencou was trained at the Soviet military academy due to extensive ties between the two countries during the Cold War.
For the USSR, the idea of ties with Africa was not always obvious. For Lenin and Stalin, these were colonies under the strict control of European empires. The Soviet leaders could make pompous speeches about universal solidarity, but efforts to rapprochement were minimal.
They believed that they should not count on the sympathies of not only the leaders of the colonies appointed by London, Brussels and Paris, but even local, mostly rural, elites who knew practically nothing about Marxism, socialism and communism. Against the background of the domination of castes and tribes, the question of class consciousness sounded rhetorical.
The Fall of Empires
After World War II, many European powers collapsed as major global players. Even then, cracks were visible, which later led to the collapse of empires. The emergence of nationalist movements and supporters of decolonization was not long in coming.
The situation seemed to be conducive to the fact that the only surviving imperialist European power — the USSR — came to Africa with promises of equality, prosperity, anti-imperialism, which corresponded to its doctrine. And this, in fact, happened in Egypt and Guinea in the 50s.
President Gamal Abdel Nasser gravitated towards the USSR out of opportunism, as well as because of similar ideas. He tried to buy weapons from the United States, but Washington closed the doors to him. With the USSR, everything was different.
Moscow immediately found common ground in Nasser's desire to nationalize the manufacturing sector and large infrastructures (including the Suez Canal), in his dictatorial leadership, which was hiding behind collectivism (Nasser said that he represented the military as a military junta, and Nikita Khrushchev "alone" was the leader of the Communist Party), and in an insatiable desire to move to a planned economy (under the pretext of returning the goods belonging to the people and redistributing wealth).
However, to any real Marxist, Arab nationalism might seem too bourgeois, and Nasser also flirted with Washington and Moscow more than once to get what he needed. There are no ideal people, I probably thought, then the USSR.
We can say that Egypt has become a good school for Moscow. The Soviet leaders realized that nationalism could be a loyal ally in Africa in the fight against capitalism, namely the United States. Nasser received tons of Soviet weapons, and most of the Egyptian military elites and intellectuals studied for years at major universities and officer schools of the communist power.
But the example of Egypt is interesting for other reasons. Firstly, the USSR began to show interest in Africa some time after Stalin's death and the condemnation of the cult of personality. Before that, Moscow's priority was to strengthen the empire and satellites in Europe, and its presence in Africa was inversely proportional to the strength of the influence of other European powers.
Another important aspect is that the example of Egypt reflects the unstable and frankly individualistic and opportunistic nature of relations between the USSR and African states.
Ties between the USSR and Egypt collapsed with the coming to power of Nasser's successor, Anwar al-Sadat, who gravitated to the American orbit. If in 1971 Cairo signed a friendship treaty with the USSR, then a year after Nasser's death, in 1976, it was terminated, and in 1981 diplomatic relations with the two countries were severed after the signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
In 1984, with the coming to power of officer Hosni Mubarak, who was educated at a military school in Kyrgyzstan, Egypt restored relations with Moscow. After the collapse of the Soviet state, they died out again, and in this state they were inherited by a weakened Russia.
For some Arab and African countries that have gained independence, Egypt has become an example of success. Khrushchev probably had them in mind when he declared in 1961 that the USSR was ready to intervene in any anti-colonial conflict, which he had been doing for several years.
In the late 50s, the USSR followed a pattern that closely resembles the current situation: Moscow supported the authoritarian leader Ahmed Sékou Touré in Guinea, who was also somewhat isolated in the international arena and desperately sought foreign help. The alliance with Moscow did not last long, but it showed the extent of the attractiveness of the USSR in Africa in comparison with the United States, and this alarmed the Kennedy administration. Could there be a domino effect in Africa?
The USSR could not stay away from the terrible unrest on the continent, in which Angola and Ethiopia enlisted the support of Cuban fighters. In the late 70s, a war broke out between the two Soviet allies, and Moscow sided with Ethiopia, which was fighting against Somalia. As a result, Mogadishu became disillusioned with the USSR and distanced itself from it. Because of the promises to the African National Congress, Moscow got into trouble for twenty years: She sponsored guerrillas who were trained in Tanzania in order to then carry out attacks from Angola and Namibia across South Africa.
Probably, the Soviet leadership believed not only in the success of the campaign, but also that it would be completed much faster. In 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev publicly refused any military victory. Apartheid could not be crushed, and South Africans were also in no hurry to switch to communism on the arm of a Soviet friend.
As you can see, the history of Russia in Africa is a surge of emotions, shocks, alliances and breaks in relations. Over the past decade, more commercial interests have emerged that overlap with the expansion of China's influence and the dominance of the United States in matters regarding access to strategic minerals such as gold and bauxite. Sometimes, for example, in Libya, Mali and, probably, in Guinea, officials and businessmen associated with Vladimir Putin are joined by mercenaries from the Wagner group. Obviously, the Ukrainian conflict is also unfolding in Africa.
