On March 2, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution deploring Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and demanding that Moscow immediately withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory.
This resolution was adopted by a very large majority: 141 countries voted in favor and only 5 countries against – North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Belarus and of course Russia. But more than the “for” and the “against”, it is the abstentions that hold the attention. 34 countries abstained, including 16 African countries.
To be complete, this count must also include the countries which opted for the strategy of the empty chair by not participating in the vote, which constitutes a hidden abstention. These are 13 in number; among them, 8 African countries. By adding the assumed abstention and the hidden abstention, 24 African countries out of 54 preferred not to condemn Russia, i.e. nearly half of the continent.
Faced with this unprecedented conflict which threatens world peace, half of diplomatic Africa is abstaining. How to interpret this choice?
A first reading attributes this attitude to the strong influence that Russia currently exercises in Africa, even if the European Union remains the continent’s leading donor and trading partner. This influence is the cumulative result of the legacy of history and Moscow’s new African policy.
The vote of some African countries is reminiscent of old loyalties from the Cold War era and decolonization. The memory of Soviet support for decolonization, the pro-Soviet alignment of certain African countries (Angola, Algeria, Ethiopia, etc.) and the rise to power of former liberation movements supported by the USSR (Mozambique, Namibia , South Africa, Zimbabwe) are part of the historical heritage of Russian-African relations.
However, this historical legacy arguably counts for less than the recent reactivation of Russia’s African policy. While Russian diplomacy had forgotten Africa since the end of the USSR, the Ukrainian crisis of 2014 and the first Western sanctions made it regain its memory. From this pivotal moment, the Russian authorities pursued an aggressive resettlement strategy thanks to their two main assets: arms sales and the provision of security services.
Indeed, Africa’s economic exchanges with Russia are limited (about 20 billion dollars in 2019) compared to other powers (China: 210 billion; Europe: 225 billion). However, they are concentrated on a few strategic sectors: food, natural resources and weapons.
As the world’s largest exporter, Russia has carried out wheat diplomacy, particularly towards the countries of North Africa, which are highly dependent on food. Egypt buys three-quarters of its imports from Russia and, at odds with Paris, Algiers has turned to Russian wheat. Its other customers are mainly Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa and Sudan, one of whose leaders was in Moscow to finalize a delivery of wheat at the time of the invasion of Ukraine.
If the conflict gets bogged down, the situation could become untenable for countries in North Africa and the Middle East that depend on Russian and Ukrainian grain exports. https://t.co/8w2UAco1sP
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The large Russian state-owned companies in the extractive sector (Rosneft, Lukoil, Alrosa, Rusal, Gazprom, Nordgold, etc.) have invested in Africa but they are neither dominant nor irreplaceable.
On the other hand, Russia is an important player in the African security market. From 2016 to 2020, it provided 30% of the weapons acquired by countries in sub-Saharan Africa; since 2017, it has signed military cooperation agreements with 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to only seven from 2010 to 2017; and it may have found in Sudan a host country for a military base on the shores of the Red Sea.
This security activism is further reinforced by its mercenary diplomacy embodied by the now famous Wagner group present in Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, the Central African Republic and Mali.
Wagner’s presence allows Moscow to expand its strategic space at a lower cost. The group provides weakened African powers with a “mercenary/digital propaganda” package and is taking all-out action on the continent. His boss Evgueni Prigogine, for example, personally courted the Burkinabe putschists by welcoming their coup in January and comparing it to decolonization.
This strong presence in state security guarantees the Kremlin privileged access to circles of power, or even allows it to vassalize them when they are very weak, as in the Central African Republic.
The strong African abstention also reflects the wind of authoritarianism that has been blowing in Africa for ten years. After the decade of democratization (1990-2000), the continent underwent an authoritarian reflux, with the consequence of the distancing of democratic powers and the rapprochement of authoritarian powers.
War in Ukraine: in Bangui, demonstration of support for Russia https://t.co/HG9R9I2PM8 pic.twitter.com/UptiyjwqyG
— RFI Africa (@RFIAfrica) March 5, 2022
Silent in its infancy, this geopolitical mechanism has become more pronounced as third rigged mandates, new civil wars and putschs have taken place. These authoritarian drifts have generally been accompanied by Western diplomatic condemnations, even sanctions criticized for their selectivity. Thus, at the beginning of this year, the United States sanctioned the governments of Ethiopia (for human rights violations), Mali and Guinea (for their military coups) by excluding them from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade agreement, but they remain accommodating to Egypt’s military regime.
In recent years, several diplomatic standoffs have pitted the European Union against African authoritarian regimes (Burundi, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Benin, Central African Republic, etc.). Tellingly, the worst dictatorship on the African continent (Eritrea) voted against the resolution denouncing Russian aggression and the recent coup regimes condemned by the West (Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso) all opted for abstention. or hidden.
In the 21st century, the resurgence of authoritarianism in Africa works in favor of the autocratic club whose Russian and Chinese presidents are discreetly vying for the presidency. The interplay of regime affinities is not, however, systematic: dictatorships such as Chad and Rwanda voted for the resolution, while the two African countries where democracy seems to be the best rooted (Senegal and South Africa) are abstained.
Africa’s preference for abstention is also due to its multi-dependence in a new bipolar geopolitics. In an international context of deregulated multipolarity, the policy of diversification of partnerships pursued by many developing countries seemed to be a winning strategy.
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It was supposed to allow them to maximize the opportunities for cooperation on the international aid market and to regain political leeway by bringing competition between their partners. Indeed, while it is essentially perceived from an economic angle, the diversification of partnerships is also eminently security and political. Evidenced by the multiplication of foreign military presences and summits where a country invites the entire African continent.
Thus the foreign policy of some African countries has become a complex balancing act. Etienne Tshisekedi’s Democratic Republic of Congo is politically very close to the United States but economically depends above all on China. Marshal al-Sissi’s Egypt has close security partnerships with Western countries but buys Russian weapons and wheat and relies on Rosatom to build its first nuclear power plant.
The rapid transition from deregulated multipolarity to the repolarization of the world into two camps now exposes the proponents of the diversification of partnerships to multiple and contradictory pressures that can force them to make difficult choices. In some particularly fragile countries, the survival of the regime depends on its external alliances.
To escape this strategic dilemma, the non-alignment invented in 1955 is making a comeback in 2021 as a prudent and reassuring option. The Non-Aligned Movement, born of the Bandung conference in 1955, brought together the States which did not want to affiliate either to the Eastern bloc or to the Western bloc. It still exists (its last meeting was held in Serbia in 2021) and African states still constitute the majority of its members.
Non-alignment, of which abstention in the vote of the UN General Assembly is the expression, avoids taking sides in this conflict between great powers and makes it possible to navigate in the turbulent waters of the new cold war. The future will tell if this diplomatic strategy will make it possible not to displease or displease everyone, especially if the conflict flares up.
In an ultra-polarized international context, the vote on the resolution against the invasion of Ukraine was seen as a snapshot of the new diplomatic balance of power. However, if the party of abstentionists has so many members in Africa, we must not only see the influence of Moscow and the decline in popularity of Europeans and Americans, but also and above all a reflex of prudence and safeguard on the part of of a multi-dependent Africa that knows that “when the elephants fight, it’s the ants that die”.
Thierry Vircoulon, Coordinator of the Observatory for Central and Southern Africa of the French Institute of International Relations, member of the Research Group on Eugenics and Racism, University of Paris.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.