The Nibelungs Come to Africa and Wagner Steals the Gold

 

 To attract younger crowds and to create buzz for themselves, stage directors are outdoing each other by outrageously updating operas.  Wagner’s operas are notable victims of these directors’ high jacking. Forget all the Eurotrash staging.  These days the perfect setting for Wagner’s seventeen hour-long, four-part opera Der Ring das Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is Africa, and Mali is the new Valhalla. This suggestion may seem preposterous and I owe you some clarifications, particularly if you are not Africa cognoscenti, let alone Wagner opera lovers! 

 

At the beginning of the Ring, led by their diminutive boss Alberich who dreams of conquering the world and renounces his love for loot, the Nibelung thugs steal the gold of the Rhine maidens.  The origin of the Nibelungs can be found in Middle Age Norse and Germanic heroic legends.  In today’s Mali, they are embodied by the Wagner group, a Russian mercenary organization which, on the guise of providing protection, is suspected of plundering the country’s mineral resources.  Recently, the top American general in Africa hinted that Mali is paying Wagner a monthly fee of US$10 m from the country ‘s gold income.  Alberich must be twisting and turning with envy in his grave.  He never got this lucky!

 

Wagner’s group is following the modus operandi of the better-known Blackwater company, the American private military entity (now euphemistically renamed Academi), of infamous reputation during the second Iraqi war (2007). Like Blackwater, as a paramilitary contractor, Wagner is multi-tasking, versatile, lithe and unsurprisingly its battle-hardened men behave often badly.  It goes with the territory, one may argue. Since they are contracted to operate in lawless environments, hired guns are defied to behave like law-abiding guardian angels!  So far, Wagner has deployed its men in some twenty politically unstable (jihad or/and separatism) African countries.  Although Wagner may serve Putin’s political objectives, it is believed to fully belongs to Russian oligarch cum thug Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed Putin’s Chief because of his close ties to the Russian president.  Eric Prince, Blackwater’s former boss looks like an altar boy compared to Prigozhin.  

 

Prigozhin started as a juvenile thief and fraudster in Saint Petersburg.  After jail time, he launched a hotdog business which led to his successful food catering and casino business.  He also diversified into cyber-criminality and is suspected of having interfered with the United States 2016 presidential elections.  He is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list with a $250,000 reward for information.  He is also on the European Union sanctions list for the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, Putin’s nemesis.  Notwithstanding his thuggery, he has a generous side: he paid Russian “spy” Maria Butina’s lawyers’ fees and the upkeep of Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif.

                                                                 Mercenaries as they used to be

 

Since antiquity, Africa has been a playground of choice for soldiers of fortune. Pharaoh Ramesses II recruited 11,000 mercenaries during his battles and Cartage contracted mercenaries during the Punic wars.  The various European colonial armies used mercenary contingents and thousands of hired guns flocked to South Africa at the turn of the 19^th century.  However, the golden years of mercenaries started in earnest during the Congo crisis in the early 1960s.  Since then, rare are the conflicts which do not involve mercenaries.  Strangely, if some groups have been welcome, others have notoriously outstayed their welcome, causing tensions and creating mayhem.

 

The jury is still out for the Russian Nibelungs.  Unlike the mythical Légion étrangère, the background of Wagner’s soldiers is not very diverse.  They are mostly recruited from Slavic and Orthodox-faith regions and they speak Russian.  In Africa, Wagner security services are in great demand, sought after by either private companies, mainly oil, gas and minerals operating in conflict zones or beleaguered governments, juntas or warlords.  In addition to Mali, Wagner has operated or operates now in Libya, Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mozambique.  In Mozambique, there is a quid pro quo: In exchange for military assistance, Russian companies gain access to gas concessions.  In CAR, Russian companies are already mining diamonds, gold and other minerals.  In Mali, the junta contracted Wagner for security and individual protection and also to “coup-proof” their regime but not to fight the Islamist insurgency in the middle part of the country (Sahel).  For a decade, the jihadists have been harassing the poorly equipped and unpaid national army and killing the neglected rural population.  So far, the French counter-terrorism force along with its allies, has been unable to eradicate the jihadists.

 

Why does the Mali situation get me so worked up?  If Mali has become the third biggest gold exporter of Africa and can afford to pay Wagner $10m per month, it is in part thanks to the efforts of my department at the United Nations and its successive technical cooperation projects.  Since the early 1980s my geologist colleagues have been successfully prospecting for gold in the south-west region of Mali.  At the time, our legal experts assisted the government in drafting a modern legal framework to attract mining investments and receive a fair share of income.  Our work led to the opening of the Syama gold mine by an international mining company.  Our trail blazing attracted several other exploration developments and four mines are currently in operation.  Syama has greatly expanded its activities and, when operational, its new underground mine is expected to become the world’s first fully automated mine using a novel technology.  Fortunately for the junta and Wagner’s profits, the jihadists have not yet raided the gold mining region.

 

It makes me very angry that the money pocketed by Wagner and Co is not going to social and economic projects in the insecure Sahel region where it is greatly needed.  Like in CAR, Wagner may prefer to prospect mining opportunities for oligarchs that fighting the Islamists.  Even if they do, I doubt that they can do better than the Europeans and their West African and Americans allies.  Security before or after development? It is a chicken and egg situation.  Many people in Mali and, in other African countries resent Westerners giving lessons on democracy.  Consequently, they welcome the Russians and condone their predatory ways.  This does not augur well for the security of the region.  Mali may soon become another failed state kept on life support by Russia with Putin nagging and humiliating the principled West.

The Ring opera ends with Götterdämmerung, the downfall of the gods and the burning of the Valhalla.  It denotes the collapse of a regime marked by catastrophic violence and mayhem.  Is it a doomsday scenario fit for Mali?