Africa Russian mercenaries leave trail of destruction in the Central African Republic Mineral-rich country is ‘perfect laboratory’ for Wagner group as Kremlin extends influence in Africa © Ashley Gilbertson/eyevine Share on twitter (opens new window) Share on facebook (opens new window) Share on linkedin (opens new window) Neil Munshi in Bangui and Max Seddon in Moscow October 22 2021 290 Print this page Receive free Africa updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Africa news every morning. When the tattooed Russian fighters arrived in Alindao, a town in the southern Central African Republic (CAR), the rebels fled — and the people rejoiced. “They were white. They were very big,” said Fatima, 32. “They looked so strange, they had tattoos everywhere — snakes, skulls, human heads . . .[but] they were going to help.” But soon stories began circulating from nearby villages — of looting and torture, killings and rape. Then one day last month they took Fatima’s brother from their home. The next, they took her to a nearby military camp, where she says three of them raped her until she lost consciousness. “They were very scary — we were all so scared,” she said. “We thought they came here to restore peace to our country. Now I wish they’d never come.” The mercenaries who attacked Alindao belong to a Kremlin-linked network of companies known as the Wagner Group that has helped president Faustin-Archange Touadéra beat back rebels and saved his government, according to security, humanitarian, diplomatic and opposition sources in the CAR. The US accuses Evgeny Prigozhin, a caterer known as Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “chef,” of bankrolling Wagner — accusations he has long denied. Sources say the group has up to 3,000 armed fighters in the country. Russia says it has some 1,100 unarmed military trainers in the CAR, part of a deal Moscow inked with Bangui in 2018. The deployment has given Russia a foothold in the region, seizing on widespread resentment at former colonial power France and using it as a template for its expansion into other troubled neighbouring countries such as Mali. But it has also prompted allegations of human rights abuses at the UN security council. The unofficial links to Wagner have given Moscow plausible deniability, analysts say. With a long history of instability, coups and armed insurrection, the CAR is for Wagner, as one diplomat in Bangui put it, “a perfect laboratory”. Here, said the diplomat, they could “show what they can do in order to sell it to other countries” eager to put down their own insurrections. Wagner’s involvement also allows Moscow to regain some of the cold war-era influence it has lost in Africa in recent decades, while antagonising the west at low political and monetary cost, according to experts who study the group. Along the way, the mercenaries have taken over gold and diamond mining areas, targeted Muslim and Fulani ethnic minorities, and had multiple altercations with members of the 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission, Minusca. “They have completely changed the equation on the ground,” said a security source in Bangui. “The operating environment is just ideal for them, there is no real state and you have quite a toothless government that was really looking for a way out and found it in these mercenaries.” In written answers to questions the Financial Times sent to Prigozhin’s catering company about Wagner’s operations in the CAR, Alexander Ivanov, head of the Officers’ Union for International Security, said that there were not “large numbers of Russian mercenaries” in the CAR and the Russian instructors — which the Kremlin says it sent — were not involved in any fighting or commercial activity. Activist Gervais Lakasso near the national stadium in the capital city of Bangui Much as he is angry at Russian abuses, activist Gervais Lakasso says he is glad French influence has decreased © Clément Di Roma/FT Turning away from France Wagner has already found willing customers for its services across Africa, including Mozambique, Madagascar, Sudan — and Libya, where the UN accused them of allegedly committing possible war crimes. Its next client may be Mali, an ex-French colony where the ruling military junta has suggested hiring 1,000 Wagner paramilitaries after Paris announced it would halve its 5,000-troop presence fighting the jihadist insurgency roiling the Sahel. The Malian junta fears that a French withdrawal or downsizing could make insecurity worse, and is seeking “other partners”. There are echoes here of the CAR’s experience. Bangui turned to Russia when France pulled troops out after a three-year mission that failed to quell a bloody civil war. France’s reputation in the CAR — and in other former colonies including Mali — is so low that even those who condemn the Russian presence see some small silver lining. “I’m very happy that the French influence has shrunk and is getting smaller,” said Gervais Lakasso, an artist and activist in Bangui. “[It is] one of the biggest things that makes Touadéra popular.” A Russian armoured personnel carrier driving in a street in Bangui A Russian armoured personnel carrier is seen during the delivery of armoured vehicles in 2020 © Camille Laffont/AFP via Getty Images ‘They can’t control them’
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