Russia, China grapple with Mali's
future By M K Bhadrakumar
There is a saying, "Once bitten, twice
shy". Russia and China claim to have been bitten
once: when the West turned the United Nation's
Security Council resolution 1973 on its head and
proceeded to invade Libya. Moscow and Beijing
became shy when the West tried to do another
Libya, over Syria. When the West mooted successive
draft resolutions on Syria, they fought shy.
Therefore, it comes as
surprise that the two countries lost their shyness
and allowed themselves to be hoodwinked again on
Mali. Curiously, Moscow and Beijing haven't yet
commented on the French intervention in Mali,
which came to light ipso facto and has
rapidly morphed through the past week into a
concerted Western enterprise in Africa. The mother
of all ironies is that the
Mali enterprise is in many
ways the direct outcome of the West's intervention
in Libya, which Moscow and Beijing condemned as
unlawful.
These are early days, and the
thinking in Moscow and Beijing could well be to
wait and watch the tidings. The Russian and
Chinese experts estimate that the French mission
is going to be protracted and unproductive.
Meanwhile, Paris made an astounding claim
that Moscow "proposed to provide means of
transport" for the French troops to be deployed in
Mali. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied the
French claim, which followed a telephone
conversation between the two foreign ministers on
Saturday.
To be sure, the Western
intervention in Mali has implications for
big-power politics and for Russia's coordination
with China on regional issues. To be sure, there
are implications for the "Arab Spring" - and in a
near term for Syria as well.
France claims
it responded to a distress call from the
established government in Mali. But then, in March
last year Mali had a military coup, which was
staged by a US-trained military officer Captain
Amadou Haya Sanogo.
Although a lowly
captain, Sanogo was a frequent visitor to the US -
no fewer than seven times in the past eight years.
Sanogo most certainly had powerful foreign
backers. Since March, Mali has had so many coups
and counter coups that one lost count and all of
them by a military that has been armed and trained
by the US.
So, France is making a hollow
claim regarding a formal invite from a legitimate
government. France hasn't even bothered to seek a
UN mandate. The Security Council resolution in
last December was specific in mandating an African
force led by Africans and expected an expedition
circa September 2013 once such a force was trained
and equipped by the UN.
However, rhetoric
is already obfuscating the hard realities. The
British Prime Minister David Cameron said:
What we face is an extremist,
Islamist, al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group. It
wants to destroy our way of life, it believes in
killing as many people as it can. Just as we had
to deal with that in Pakistan and in
Afghanistan, so the world needs to come together
to deal with this threat in North Africa.
This is a global threat and it will
require a global response. It will require a
response that is about years, even decades,
rather than months. It requires a response that
is patient and painstaking, that is tough but
also intelligent, but above all has an
absolutely iron resolve and that is what we will
deliver over these coming
years.
Total re-conquest Indeed, the western powers are circling their
wagons. The Pentagon disclosed that its C-17
military aircraft have been transferring French
troops and equipment and it is considering
deploying aerial refueling tankers.
The US
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the US is
providing intelligence. Italy is sending two
transport aircraft C-130 and one Boeing KC-767A
and deputing 15-24 "experts" to Mali. Canada sent
a heavy-lift military transport aircraft and the
UK will be providing "logistical air assistance".
The French force is 2,000-strong, and
Paris is sending another 500 troops. Defense
Minister Le Drian said, "The goal is the total
re-conquest of Mali." He echoed the statement by
President Francois Hollande that the French troops
would remain in Mali for as long as it takes to
defeat terrorism.
Yet, the al-Qaeda bogey
is exaggerated. The conflict in Mali is more like
a civil war rooted in grievances that are
longstanding and can only be tackled by a
legitimate and stable government through means of
local governance and decentralization and a
sustained program of economic development.
A leading expert on the region, Evgueni
Korenddyasov, who served as Russia's ambassador in
Mali and is currently heading the Center for
Russian-African Relations at the Russian Academy
of Sciences in Moscow, said, "The solution can
only be found through talks about bigger autonomy
and representation for the Tuaregs."
The
regional bodies - African Union and the Economic
Community of West African States - actually sought
from the UN a comprehensive package that addressed
the political crisis in Mali, and the Security
Council duly acknowledged the need of a political
reconciliation, but the accent overnight shifted
to the Western military action.
Doubts
arise about the real motivations. True, al-Qaeda
groups, which were armed by the Western powers and
who served as their foot soldiers during the
"regime change" in Libya, have fanned out to
neighboring countries. Aside from Algeria and
Mali, at least five other countries of West Africa
could get affected - Mauritania, Ghana, Niger,
Burkina Faso and Nigeria.
However, there
is a whole slice of modern history available where
the West on the one hand used the forces of
radical Islam for geopolitical purposes (for
example, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria) while these
very same forces at other times provided an alibi
for Western military invasions (Afghanistan
again).
Mali straddles a vast region in
Africa that is rich in oil, gas, gold, copper,
diamond and uranium resources. France's nuclear
power plants are supplied from the uranium mines
in Niger, which neighbors Mali. No doubt, France
has important strategic and economic interests in
the region and doubts have been voiced whether its
intervention in Mali is anything more than a
neocolonial enterprise. The Archbishop of Accra
called it a "colonization attempt".
Suffice to say, the West's Mali
intervention should have triggered a reaction by
Russia and China. There could be three main
considerations on the Russian mind. First,
Russia's relations with the European powers are
already under stress and Moscow would be hesitant
to exacerbate them.
Second, Mali is,
ironically, Syria in reverse. Russia has serious
geopolitical stakes in Syria, while Mali and west
and north Africa constitute Europe's backyard.
Interestingly, Paris (which took a strident
position on Syria) felt the need to reach out to
Moscow on Mali.
From an ideological
perspective, too, Russia and the West suddenly
find themselves saying the same thing regarding
the surge of Islamism in Middle East and North
Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Hot for minerals China, in
contrast, has other profound thoughts on its mind
- principally, its conflict of interests with the
West in Africa. The angst in Beijing is apparent
from a scathing criticism in the Global Times on
Tuesday of the West's intervention in Mali. It was
written by written by He Wenping, director of
African Studies under the Institute of West Asian
and African Studies belonging to the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences. He wrote:
China has certain interests in Mali
through its investment projects. It is not
necessarily a bad thing for China as France's
decision to send its troops can stabilize the
situation... However, despite all the potential
benefits, there is one possible cause for alarm
- French forces. Involvement in Mali will
provide the case for legalization of a new
interventionism in Africa.
France's
direct economic interests in Mali cannot be
underestimated... One of the drawbacks of this
action is that it brings back memories of the
"African gendarmerie" - France's colonial
status.
The big question is whether
the coordinated foreign policy moves by Moscow and
Beijing would now also embrace the African
theatre.
Following the recent
Russian-Chinese consultations on strategic
security in Beijing on January 9, Russian Security
Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev revealed that
the two countries are planning to intensify their
cooperation on missile defense in response to the
US' growing deployments. Patrushev said:
We are concerned about the US plans
to build a global missile defense system,
including in the Asia-Pacific region. Our
Chinese partners share our concerns and we have
agreed to coordinate out actions in that
respect.
However, China has far bigger
stakes in Africa than Russia. It has surpassed the
US and Europe as Africa's biggest trading partner
(US$160 billion) and its businesses invested $15
billion in Africa last year alone. China is hot
for minerals in west, north and Central African
countries and oil from west Africa. Agricultural
products from Chad, Mali, Benin and Burkina Faso
supply China's massive textile industry. West
Africa is also a key importer of Chinese products,
with Nigeria figuring as the lead consumer (42%).
As the Global Times article signals,
Beijing understands perfectly well that the West
is embarking on a containment strategy in Africa
by simply retaking control of the former colonies
where China is making headway. The point is, the
West cannot compete with China by matching the
latter's offer of a broader relationship to the
African nations.
China's trans-continental
projects are leading the path to the creation of
regional economic blocs, which augment the African
nations' capacity to create space vis-a-vis the
western powers and negotiate better. In sum, the
specter that is haunting the West is not so much
al-Qaeda as this inability to match China's offer
of a package deal and a broader relationship with
the African states.
The Russian policy in
Africa, in comparison, lacks focus and sustained
interest. To quote Irina Filatova, a leading
Russian expert on Africa, "Russia is interested in
developing economic relations with Africa but does
not have much to offer. And what it does have to
offer, it does not quite know how to."
Indeed, former president Dmitry Medvedev
tried to reverse the trend and even appointed a
special envoy on African affairs to inject new
vibrancy and content into Russian diplomacy.
Medvedev lamented after a visit to Nigeria that
Russia was "almost too late" in engaging with
Africa.
The Western military thrust into
Mali could be a wake-up call for Moscow that
nothing is ever too late in life and politics.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for
over 29 years, with postings including India's
ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey
(1998-2001).
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