EngRegional
Will Blinken sanction DRC for using blacklisted Wagner mercenaries?
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On
January 26, the US Treasury Department designated the Wagner Group as a
significant transnational criminal organization, and imposed sanctions on a transnational
network that supports it.
The
US Department of State concurrently announced a number of sanctions meant to target
a range of Wagner’s key infrastructure – including an aviation firm used by
Wagner, a Wagner propaganda organization, and Wagner front companies
The
US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Wagner for its illicit activities
in the Central African Republic – one of the DRC’s neighbour. The group was
re-designated for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in,
the targeting of women, children, or any civilians through the commission of
acts of violence, or abduction, forced displacement, or attacks on schools,
hospitals, religious sites, or locations where civilians are seeking refuge, or
through conduct that would constitute a serious abuse or violation of human
rights or a violation of international humanitarian law in relation to the CAR.
However,
beyond the US sanctions, Wagner has been expanding its footing in Africa and
mainly in mineral rich countries like the DRC.
According
to the report, since around December 2022, white military personnel from eastern
Europe had fully booked a hotel located near the international airport of Goma,
in eastern DRC.
When,
in January, photos began to be circulated on Twitter showing the corpse of a
white man in a camouflage uniform lying in the dirt, the M23 leadership
confirmed that the white man was killed in the village of Karenga on December
30. The Congolese in Goma linked the died man to the Wagner Group.
The
question that remains unanswered is; where does this leave the DRC-US relationship?
The
Wagner group has been under US sanctions since 2017. The Commerce Department in
December 2022 unveiled new export restrictions targeting Wagner in a bid to
limit its access to technology and supplies.
The
European Union imposed sanctions on Wagner in 2021 and named individuals linked
to the group for their involvement “in serious human rights abuses, including
torture and extrajudicial, summanry or arbitrary executions and killings”.
According
to the EU; Wagner had been involved in destabilising activities in some of the
countries they operate in, including Libya, Syria, Ukraine (Donbas) and the
Central African Republic. The group is also spreading its malign influence
elsewhere, notably in the Sahel region.
But
with all these condemnations on Wagner, DRC President Felix Tshisekedi still
hired the group to operate in his country.
It
is of no use to sanction Wagner without
sanctioning its employers and those that finance it, since the group still
makes money even with sanctions and continues to wreak havoc across the world.
The
group seeks to gain shadow access to DRC natural minerals, as their selling
provides shadow income. Wagner’s subsidiaries get the right to use mineral and
natural resources in these countries, buy weapons, technologies and military
services.
The
U.S. government has sanctioned companies belonging to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head
of Wagner, for what it calls malign political and economic influence around the
globe, including sponsoring phony election monitoring missions in DRC.
The
DRC is now paying Wagner, and giving the group access to its minerals and
resources, while endangering the lives of Congolese citizens.
Will
the US sanction DRC for facilitating Wagner to expand its footing in Africa or
they will play a double standards card and look aside?
