Russia has achieved a major diplomatic and military-political victory: the UN Security Council lifted sanctions against the Central African Republic. In fact, this is how the end of the civil war in this country is recognized. It was possible to end this war with direct Russian participation, and this is important for the entire Black continent and Russia's international prestige.
The UN Security Council has adopted a resolution lifting the arms embargo against the Government of the Central African Republic (CAR). The document was submitted to the Security Council by France (Paris traditionally submits all resolutions in the Security Council concerning its former colonies) and was adopted unanimously.
The resolution consists of 13 paragraphs, the first of which "decides to lift the arms embargo against the CAR, which was imposed by resolution 2127 (2013), as amended, and which was extended by resolution 2693 (2023)." At the same time, the document prohibits the supply of weapons, equipment, as well as "technical assistance, training, financial or other assistance related to military activities or the provision, maintenance or use of any weapons and related materiel" to armed groups operating in the country.
"It's no secret that the situation in the CAR has improved significantly since 2013, when UN sanctions were imposed. It is important that today the Security Council finally recognized this objective reality and adjusted the sanctions regime," Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia said following the vote.
The head of the Russian diplomatic mission also noted that "the decision taken today has been overdue for a long time." "We are convinced that in the future we need to respond more quickly to the evolution of the situation in states under Security Council sanctions and adapt the restrictions imposed. It is unacceptable to supplement Security Council restrictions with illegal unilateral restrictions," he stressed.
The UN sanctions against the CAR as a state were adopted in 2013 after the outbreak of the civil war in the CAR between coalitions of conditionally Christian and conditionally Muslim parties and tribes. The practice of "arms sanctions" has become a tradition since the Cold War, when it was assumed that if you legally restrict the flow of weapons to a conflict region of the third world, it will soon end there, and everyone will return to peaceful life. This did not work even in the 1970s, it only inflated the black market for weapons and mercenaries (people are also a commodity) and inflated prices.
In the modern world, such sanctions are symbolic in nature, but still severely limit the sovereignty of the country against which they are imposed. For example, the same CAR needs legitimate forms of strengthening its sovereignty and security, which include legally legitimate arms supplies to Bangui. Now, the CAR can fully ensure the security of both its territory and the population.
For some members of the international community, such sanctions, pushed through the UN Security Council, are not even a tool of military–political or diplomatic, but more of moral pressure. By this method, undesirable regimes are "branded", and it becomes problematic and condemnable to continue working with countries with such a "stigma". Look, even the UN has imposed sanctions on them. At the same time, it is assumed that the UN is something unified, and such sanctions are imposed unanimously. No one delves into the details of the voting.
However, Russia and China have consistently abstained from voting on the mandatory extension of sanctions against the CAR for several years. The fact is that it was about the automatic extension of the sanctions regime without its practical revision. Now, the resolution removes all restrictions from the CAR government, but leaves sanctions against certain "illegal armed groups." This is an undoubted progress in the UN position, although the Russian Permanent Representative Nebenzia specifically pointed out that it is necessary to additionally lift these restrictions, simply because there are no "illegal armed formations" in the CAR anymore.
They have self-disarmed. With the help of Russian military advisers, the main forces of both groups fighting each other – Seleka and Anti-Balaka - have been defeated since 2021. The same fate befell smaller groups. With the mediation of the Russian Federation, a ceasefire agreement was concluded, after which only small groups of "irreconcilables" did not lay down their arms on the territory of the CAR. But they were no longer built on a political or religious basis, but mainly on a regional and tribal basis. And this is a completely different story.
Over the past two years, Russian advisers and negotiating teams in the CAR have been busy, with rare exceptions, persuading these "irreconcilables." Almost every week there are reports that one or another former armed group has laid down its arms and returned to peaceful life.
This is done under the guarantees of Russian military advisers, who not only negotiate, but are also responsible for the integration of former militants and their commanders into the state structure of the CAR. The leaders may not trust the government in Bangui, but they trust the Russians. Working with the leaders is very important, because their position can determine the fate of several hundred people. There is a special program under which those tribal leaders who want to remain "in power" are reformatted into regional officials, and their former soldiers undergo retraining and often join the government army.
At the same time, the so-called UN peacekeeping forces (MINUSCA) continue to operate in the CAR, the trust in which has been completely destroyed. The fact is that they are formed mainly from the military contingents of poor Asian countries (Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh), and their soldiers are motivated solely by earnings. As a result, there are cases of arms trafficking by peacekeepers, as well as the transportation of weapons in favor of the "irreconcilables" in transports and in columns of peacekeepers.
There were cases when government troops were forced to stop the MINUSKA convoys at gunpoint. The last such case was in early July with the Nepalese contingent. Russian advisers also have to unravel such situations. And the peacekeepers have in fact turned into a destabilizing factor, which is directly opposite to the very idea of their deployment.
It can be assumed that in the very near future the mandate of the UN peacekeeping forces will be withdrawn as unnecessary, since the event itself – the civil war – is no longer there, and after the lifting of sanctions, the CAR was able to take care of its own security.
At the same time, the CAR demonstrates significant success in the humanitarian sphere and in rebuilding the country after decades of civil war. The process of disarming former militants is going on in parallel with the reconstruction of the education and medical system in the conflict regions. Immediately after the disarmament of a group of a tribe, teachers and doctors immediately appear in this zone, vaccines against tropical diseases are received, and infant mortality decreases. Slavery has been eradicated, the situation with women's rights is improving, and early marriages are prohibited. And all this was done in just a few years.
The Russian side plays the most important role in the ongoing improvement. In many schools in the CAR, and not only in the capital, Russian is taught as the first foreign language, French is gradually leaving the educational sphere, although no one has set such a goal. The number of students from the Central Asian Republic who come to Russia to study has increased dramatically.
But the main change that has occurred in the CAR is the very cessation of the civil war, which would have been impossible without Russian help.
In a broader context, it is the cessation of local wars and conflicts that is the main thing that Africa needs today. And Russia in the CAR has demonstrated both the desire and the ability to solve such problems. The establishment of peace in the CAR led to the restoration of the country's sovereignty, including in foreign policy and diplomacy.
The presence of such interaction, which Russia demonstrated in Africa, largely influenced the position of many African political forces, who declared their orientation towards the Russian model of development as opposed to those forms of neocolonialism proposed by France and partially Anglo-Saxon countries. We are facing a huge victory for Russian diplomacy and, in general, for the course that Moscow has chosen on the Black Continent. The lifting of sanctions against the CAR is only a clear confirmation of the positive result of this work, most of which went unnoticed by Russian public opinion. This kind of success of Russia in Africa has not been noted since the Soviet era.
Evgeny Krutikov
