By Sam Mednick, OUAGADOUOU
Burkina Faso
Within hours of Burkina Faso’s second coup this year, the head of Russia’s shadowy mercenary outfit Wagner Group was among the first to congratulate the new junta leader in West Africa.
In a message posted on
Telegram, Yevgeny Prigozhin praised the mutinous soldiers for doing what “was
necessary.”
That same day, pro-Kremlin
political analyst Sergei Markov, posted that the Russian people had helped
Capt. Ibrahim Traore, the new coup leader. And he predicted that Burkina Faso’s
new leadership would turn to Russia for help instead of former colonizer
France.
As Traore now solidifies his
grip on power in Burkina Faso, questions are already swirling about his
relationship with Russia and how much it played a hand in catapulting him and
his allies to power.
The recent coup “could be a
gateway to a more assertive Russian policy towards the Sahel,” said Samuel
Ramani, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and
security think tank.
“The Burkina Faso coup that we
just witnessed could be the first example of Russia playing a part in
instigating a coup rather than just capitalizing on pre-existing unrest,”
Ramani said.
Asked about the coup in a call
with reporters earlier this month, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t
comment on prospects of establishing ties with the country’s new leaders.
And the Kremlin denies links
to the Wagner Group, though Western analysts call it a tool of Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
Wagner Group mercenaries already
have been establishing a foothold for Russia in at least half a dozen African
countries, including in Central African Republic, Sudan and Mali, which is
battling an insurgency similar to the one in Burkina Faso that has killed
thousands and displaced some 2 million people.
The group has been accused of
committing human rights abuses. Earlier this year, it was linked to at least
six alleged civilian massacres and the extrajudicial killings of 300 people in
Moura village in Mali, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
“What we observe is that
elsewhere in Africa today there are worrying deployments of the Wagner
militias, and we have been able to see on the ground that the effects of these
militias lead to abuses of the population – we saw crimes that unfolded in
Mali, in the Central African Republic, in Mozambique — also the pillaging of
natural resources, and most of all, zero effectiveness in the fight against
terrorism,” said Anne-Claire Legendre, the French foreign ministry spokeswoman.
France, which has had troops
in the region since 2013 when it helped drive Islamic extremists from power in
northern Mali, is facing growing pushback from populations who say its presence
has yielded little results amid escalating jihadi violence. In the wake of
Burkina Faso’s latest coup, the French Embassy and the French Institute in the
capital, Ouagadougou, were attacked by protesters waving Russian flags.
It’s unclear what role, if
any, Russia played in orchestrating last month’s coup or if it just capitalized
on the unrest. However, people with close ties to the military ruling party
said pressure had been mounting on the first coup leader, Lt. Col. Paul Henri
Sandaogo Damiba, for months to work more closely with Russia.
Traore and other officers had
urged Damiba to work with more partners, notably Russia, but Damiba refused, a
junta member who spoke on condition of anonymity for his safety told The
Associated Press.
Traore did not respond to
multiple attempts for comment. In an interview with Radio France Internationale
last week he played down questions about turning to Russia and said Burkina
Faso had already been partnering with Moscow.
“I don’t see what’s so special
about seeing a Russian flag being waved in Ouagadougou,” he told RFI.
Mamadou Drabo, executive
secretary for Save Burkina, a civil society group that supports the junta, said
he tried to mediate tensions for weeks before the coup because soldiers were
upset at the lack of progress in stemming the violence. One of the biggest
grievances was that Damiba wasn’t securing enough equipment, such as
helicopters, which junta members wanted to buy from Russia since France
wouldn’t give them any, he said.
Despite the Wagner Group’s
controversial track record in other countries, people are so desperate for
change they’re willing to take the chance, he said.
“If today we say that we don’t
want Wagner then how long are we going to stay in this war?” Drabo said. “We
don’t want Burkina to be turned into Somalia.”
After Damiba overthrew the
democratically elected president in January, he asked Burkinabes to give him
until September to show results in the fight against Islamic extremists.
His government created an
overarching command center to strengthen coordination and set up local dialogue
committees aimed at getting jihadists to lay down their weapons. Burkina Faso’s
military acquired three combat helicopters and drones, but the security
situation still deteriorated.
The number of people killed
between the end of January and September, when Damiba was in power, rose more
than 100% from the same time last year -- 1,545 to 3,244 people killed --
according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
Last month, a transport convoy
going to the besieged town of Djibo was ambushed by jihadis who killed at least
37 people, the majority of them soldiers. The attack is widely believed to be
what led to Damiba’s undoing and his resistance to stronger collaboration with
Russia also played a role, say civil society groups and junta members.
But many civilians and
analysts think talk of greater Russian involvement is overblown. Even if
Burkina Faso wanted Russian help, it’s unclear if it would be possible given
that Russia is struggling to find soldiers for its war in Ukraine.
“In the absence of a promised
deployment it’s not certain that (Traore) would take steps against the French
forces,” said Andrew Lebovich, a research fellow at the Clingendael Institute,
a Dutch think tank.
Many in Burkina Faso, wary of
years of foreign intervention, say that regardless of who steps in nothing will
change.
“Whether it’s Russia or France
or someone else, they all want the same thing: control and influence,” said
Ousmane Amirou Dicko, a traditional leader known as the Emir of Liptako. -
AP
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