Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has pledged to expand support for the harsh Sahel, Africa’s tropical savannah region south of the Sahara Desert that includes 12 countries, saying the United States is a more reliable partner than Russia. , which is expanding its presence in the region.
Speaking to AFP during a visit by a senior American diplomat to Niger, Blinken called for a move away from the approach followed by the United States and France after the end of a military mission of nine years in Mali last November.
“We are building something relatively new,” Blinken said in an interview recorded Thursday night in Niamey, Niger’s capital. “We absolutely need a holistic and integrated approach where security is necessary but not alone. The fact that Niger, which is by far one of the poorest countries in the world, does this so effectively, I think, only highlights the importance of such an integrated approach.
Blinken announced $150 million in humanitarian aid to Niger and highlighted Washington’s support for a program to rehabilitate former extremists and announced an initiative to improve irrigation and agriculture in the country battling desertification.
But Blinken also acknowledged a desire to establish security ties with Niger, where the US military is now stationed. Desert Air Base 201, built by the United States, is used to launch drones deep in the Sahel. There are also over 1,000 military personnel in the country who are on assignment to combat Islamic extremism.
The African Union has expressed concern over the increased foreign military presence on the continent, where China has also set up its first overseas base in Djibouti.
“These partnerships that we have, we do not impose them on anyone. Countries choose to be partners or not,” Blinken said when interviewed on Base 201. “The work we can do to fight terrorist groups — extremist groups — will ultimately benefit other” countries. , as well as in Niger.
Blinken’s visit comes as Mali, which borders Niger, suddenly fell into the orbit of Russian influence after the end of the French operation “Barkhane”, launched in 2014, to prevent jihadists from ransacking the capital of Bamako.
Mali is ruled by military putschists who condemned France and turned to Russian military mercenaries, the infamous Wagner PMC, for help.
Last month, Mali was one of six countries that joined Russia at the United Nations General Assembly in voting against Moscow’s call to withdraw from Ukraine.
“Wherever Wagner goes, something bad usually follows,” Blinken said. “We’ve seen that where they go, security doesn’t improve. On the contrary, we have seen that the situation has deteriorated and that the exploitation of resources, the corruption and the violence that it brings become a curse for the populations of the countries that choose to work with it.
The Wagner PMC, headed by Kremlin-linked businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been accused of abuses in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali and, most recently, a Moscow-initiated war in Ukraine.
Ghana has claimed a Wagnerian presence in military Burkina Faso, but the local junta and Moscow have denied the allegation, and Blinken did not directly respond to a question about it.
A senior diplomat who flew to Africa with Blinken said it was no coincidence that Wagner’s PMCs were so successful in French-speaking countries, saying Russia was ‘stirring up postcolonial grievances’ .
The savannah region of the Sahel, which stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Red Sea in the east, covers the territory of 12 countries and is home to 300 million people. In this region are Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad – countries that are part of the Sahel Five association. Additionally, the Sahel includes the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Sudan, Algeria, and Egypt.
