Dead journalists and private militaries: Russia in Africa
What is Wagner doing in the heart of Africa? That’s what three eminent Russian journalists were trying to find out before they got killed in July, said France24.com (Paris). Wagner is the name of a private military company founded by a former Russian intelligence officer and Wagner opera fanatic called Dmitry Utkin. His mercenaries, known as “the musicians”, have been active in Syria and Ukraine: now they are conducting operations in the strife-torn Central African Republic (CAR). Why?
Because Moscow likes diamonds, said Leonid Bershidsky in Bloomberg (New York). CAR is one of the world’s poorest countries and a byword for violence. But it’s also a prime source of gem-quality diamonds, which, given the state of lawlessness, no ordinary business can get its hands on. Earlier this year, however, Moscow came to an agreement with CAR’S president, Faustin-archange Touadéra, to “explore” the country’s natural resources and to supply a minor amount of military assistance. And the outfit it has chosen to extract the diamonds at a site near the capital, Bangui, is no ordinary business, said the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong). It’s a subsidiary of M Invest, a company founded by St Petersburg catering magnate Yevgeny Prigozhin – aka “Putin’s chef” – who has been indicted in the US for setting up an internet troll factory to influence the 2016 election. Prigozhin, it turns out, is also said to be the money behind Wagner. As in Syria and Ukraine, Moscow is allegedly using Wagner to conceal its involvement in active conflicts and to discount Russian casualties.
Moscow insists that the journalists ambushed at a roadblock were killed by bandits, and local authorities blame Muslim rebels, said Bernd Dörries in Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich). But some suspect the hand of Wagner, noting that it’s only five months since the Russian journalist Maxim Borodin, who had also been investigating the group’s doings, died after falling from his apartment balcony in Yekaterinburg. Journalists in Russia are used to burying their own, said Veronika Dorman in Libération (Paris), but because these men were so renowned for their fearlessness – Orkhan Dzhemal was a “legendary” war reporter; Alexander Rastorguev made a brilliant documentary on the 2011-12 protests in Russia – these deaths caused particular anguish. Alas, said Leonid Bershidsky, they’re unlikely to be the last. In trying to restore its Soviet-era influence in the developing world, Russia may seek similar business “concessions” in nations such as Sudan, Chad and Rwanda. In such regimes, just as a successful business often requires a “forceful presence”, so investigating it “can easily get one killed”.