2023-08-09 03:34:10
The US Secretary of State told the BBC that he did not believe that Wagner was behind the coup that removed President-elect Mohamed Bazoum from office. “I think what happened, and what continues to happen in Niger, was not orchestrated by Russia or Wagner,” said Antony Blinken. “But to the extent that they benefit from it, that’s not a good thing,” he warns.
In Africa, Wagner offers a catalog of services to plans in difficulty. In Mali, in the Central African Republic, he protects the power in place, offers military training, even legal advice to rewrite the mining code or the Constitution.
Russia’s Wagner mercenary group is “taking advantage” of instability in Niger, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has told the BBC.
“Every single place that this Wagner group has gone, death, destruction and exploitation have followed,” said Mr Blinken. https://t.co/T8yj91rpp7
— BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) August 8, 2023
In return, the group engages in predation and pays itself with local resources, including gold mines and other minerals. For the head of American diplomacy, “Wherever Wagner went: death, destruction and exploitation followed”.
Russian flags in pro-coup demonstrations
“The whole of the central Sahel region could come under Russian influence via the Wagner group, whose brutal terrorism has been clearly exposed in Ukraine,” wrote President-elect Mohamed Bazoum in a column published last Thursday in the Washington Post.
From the capital Niamey, Antony Blinken’s deputy said yesterday that “the people who took this decision (of the coup) understand very well the risks to their sovereignty posed by an invitation from Wagner”. Since the July 26 coup, many Russian flags have been flying in pro-junta demonstrations.
This Tuesday, the spokesman for the US State Department, Matthew Miller, told the press that he “still had hope” but was “also very realistic. “We make it clear, including directly to the junta leaders themselves, what the consequences are of the absence of a return to constitutional order,” he warned.
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