Talk politics.

Russian journalists killed in Central African Republic ambush

The murder of three Russian journalists in Central Africa has suddenly directed the public interest towards the Russian presence in the war-torn country. The three were working on a documentary for about a month when they set off north in a SUV. At some point they were stopped at a police checkpoint and warned about the danger of proceeding further. Still, they did drive on, and 24 km later they were ambushed and murdered.

The authorities believe the most likely culrpit was the Seleka organization, which took the capital city in 2013 and deposed the president. This started a bloodshed involving various militant groups.

A media sponsored by Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovski reports that the three had a mission of investigating the presence of the Russian paramilitary group Vagner, which is believed to be taking part in civil wars in Ukraine and Syria. Of course the Russian government would never admit it has sanctioned the presence of mercenaries in Africa or anywhere else.

The thing is, the Central African Republic is under an arms embargo imposed by the UN security council since 2013 when the Seleka group took power. In response to that insurgency, a number of Christian militant groups emerged, and the ensuing violence resulted in thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands fleeing their homes.

In 2016 Faustin-Archange Touadera was electer CAR president, but large portions of the country remained outside his jurisdiction and under the control of various armed formations, mostly those of the Seleka group and the Christian alliance known as Anti-balaka. In 2014 the UN kept a peace-keeping force in the country, but both that mission and the embargo are believed to have been largely ineffective.

Then last December, Russia arranged the shipment of arms and sent expert groups of UN trainers as part of the multinational peace-keeping effort. A few weeks later, Russia informed the UN security council (which was in charge of the arms embargo) of the presence of 175 Russian military instructors on the ground. 170 of them were declared as civilian instructors, the other 5 as members of the Russian military. It was claimed that their main tasks ranged from escorting convoys transporting building materials to hospitals, to providing security to those hospitals, to training police officers, including their equipment with Russian weapons.

Now a Russian national has been hired as national security advisor to president Touadera. The Bell, a Russian investigative journalism outlet has cited anonymous sources who claim that the private company Vagner is actually behind these instructors.

So what is Russia's interest in all this? The official version is that all they want is to secure peace in Central Africa, and that their involvement is merely part of the international effort for providing security and order. But there are also suspicions that Russia has economic interests in the resource-rich African country. Russia is currently probing the possibilities for a partnership in that area. Earlier this year a concession was signed for the exploration of an array of mineral deposits, in concurrence with infrastructural projects, much like the Chinese model that we have talked about here lately.

The Central African Republic is rich in gold, cobalt and diamonds. Russian president Putin has already met with his Central African counterpart in St.Petersburg, and has confirmed Russia's commitment to the further development of the bilateral relations.

Some Russian outlets like RIA have already started talking of CAR as of Russia's next geostrategic target, outright using terms like, "a bloodless mercenary takeover". Other African countries like Mozambique are also being mentioned in a similar vein (Mozambique is now said to be "restarting" its long-time "brotherhood" with Russia). DR Congo has also invited Russia to start a military partnership with them. We have recently talked about China's inroads into Djibouti; well, Djibouti is also negotiating with Russia about a Russian base there. These may have sounded like paranoid headlines from some conspiracy-theory tabloids a while ago, but now it is becoming reality, and fast.

The scramble for Africa is on.