PRIVATE MERCENARY organisation The Wagner Group is responsible for a multitude of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic (CAR), according to a new report.
The group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, recently clashed with Russian president Vladimir Putin over military tactics after leading Russian offensives in several parts of Ukraine.
However the report, called Architects of Terror, The Wagner Group’s Blueprint for State Capture in the Central African Republic by Washington based anti-corruption organisation The Sentry highlights the role that the organisation has been playing in Africa.
Ultraviolent
It says that Prigozhin’s group has been meticulously devising a plan, involving ultraviolent methods, to seize control of the CAR’s valuable mineral resources such as gold and diamonds.
According to its findings The Wagner Group collaborates closely with CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, exerting substantial influence over the country’s political and military leadership, as well as wielding significant control over its economy.
The Wagner Group, entered CAR in 2018 as Russian diplomatic contacts were being restored after 40 years. The group helped bring Russian aid to CAR, which has been beset by crises and wars for several decades. However, taking advantage of President Touadéra’s need for security, it’s presence in the country has been followed by serious violations of human rights despite Touadéra’s claims that the group’s presence the country is justified because of the need to hunt down armed rebel groups to protect the regime.
Control
The Sentry report says that in its quest for control over the Central African Republic’s (CAR) natural resources and minerals, Wagner has established a pervasive presence across national borders. It operates through a web of obscure companies and operations extending from Cameroon and Madagascar to Sudan to Moscow.
The report said: “Wagner-affiliated mining companies—primarily Lobaye Invest, Midas Ressources, and Diamville—have been granted mining licenses and export authorizations, and Wagner has been using its transnational networks in CAR, Sudan, Cameroon, Madagascar, and Russia to help set up industrial-scale gold production, thereby escaping national and international scrutiny.”
In the last five years, CAR soldiers and militiamen have allegedly received Wagner training, which reportedly includes instruction in “ultraviolent” methods of torture and killing. This training involves techniques such as finger and leg mutilation, nail removal, strangulation, and using fuel to burn individuals alive, methods aimed at striking fear into those who might get in the way of its aims.
The report’s Executive Summary said: “The Sentry’s investigation found that, under the cover of a counteroffensive against anti-Touadéra armed groups, Wagner, Touadéra, and his inner circle have perpetrated widespread, systematic, and well-planned campaigns of mass killing, torture, and rape throughout the country.”
It went on: “Executed by Central African armed forces and Wagner fighters backed by militiamen, these campaigns of terror have served as psychological warfare to force anti-Touadéra militiamen and their allies to accept defeat and the broader population to accept the authority of Wagner and of Russia’s ally, Touadéra. In order to “annihilate” their enemies, Wagner, Touadéra, and his inner circle raised a parallel army that could be controlled and privatized for their own interests.”
Sanctions
Architects of Terror urges the US, UK and other nations to widen the scope of sanctions against the group and declare Wagner a terrorist organisation.
It said: “The United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Japan, and other jurisdictions should widen the scope of sanctions imposed against the Wagner Group’s network, including by investigating the individuals and entities named in this report. They should investigate and impose network sanctions against the individuals and entities linked to Touadéra’s inner circle that are enabling Wagner’s presence in CAR, and they should coordinate such sanctions actions to increase impact.
“The US should designate the Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization, as reporting by The Sentry and others clearly indicates that the group meets the three legal criteria for designation—a foreign organization engaging in terrorist activity that threatens national security.
“The UK should also consider taking steps to proscribe Wagner as a terrorist group under the Terrorism Act 2000.”
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Since independence from Caucasian rule from 1960’s, the people of Africa have displayed remarkable ability to wage war and needless pain and suffering against their African neighbour.
The newly independent African nations; leaders, and soldiers, as exampled from Nigeria’s Biafran War in 1966, require little foreign assistance to display their savage and brutal practices against their fellow African-peers.
I sincerely doubt there is little the Wagner Group could teach Africans about being savage against their African peers.
The issue is natura resources. The majority of countries that have suffered from civil wars, and terror of the local population have been where local anf valuable resources have been identified. Malicia are recruited and left to cause death and destruction – once the popilation is devastated or flee mining moves in to extract minerals which end up being exported to the west (and now China and Russia). There is a direct link between the west and these ‘civil wars’. Journalists are too lazy and too ignorant to uncover the link between UK and other western companies and these terrible acts of genocide and so it continues. The Africans may be the instigators of the acts but I can assure you that the direction comes from elsewhere and the money that is made flows out of Africa as well.