The dilution of the monopoly of legitimate violence will fail everywhere

The rise of the Wagner group in the Russian defense system, to serve as a relay in external operations or to help in projection, has long been the subject of debate. Many analysts maintain that over a long period of time, a State cannot agree to let warlords organize themselves and operate in the same theatres as a structured military command. Russia, out of political opportunism and strategic cynicism, opted for the dilution of the monopoly of legitimate violence embodied by its State by grafting Wagner to all its actions on the front lines. Wagner has become an octopus, a very dirty octopus, with thugs of all kinds, some of whom have been hired straight out of prison by Prigojine for pay that is sometimes higher than that of official Russian soldiers.

As the security and defence services contractor grew in stature and looked down on regal institutions, it got overconfident and thought it was strong enough to want to overthrow a regime, forgetting that, in addition to having weapons, there is a whole range of political support that must accompany an insurrectionary coup. Professor Julien Vercueil explains this well in a Le Monde article, arguing that « warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin was unable to gather the necessary political support in time. Prigozhin alone could not overthrow the government. He needed the support of a sufficiently broad and powerful coalition to turn the « power structures-oligarchy-political representation » triptych on its head.

The African States, which have voluntarily decided to spare themselves certain sovereign prerogatives in order to entrust them in part to defense service contractors, will see with the latest development from the Muscovite Mother, that they will all go to the abyss by destructuring their defense corps and by basing their security on an external ally, especially since the latter has neither the means nor the depths of a state apparatus wishing to protect itself. Our Malian neighbors want to chase Minusma after chasing the French Army, we don’t want to be ominous birds, but it’s the door open to all damage, if there could still be more ruins on ruins!

The cynicism of African juntas catches up with them

In October 2021, in these columns, I discussed the stance taken by the military authorities in Bamako in their determination to stay in power for a long time and not to respect any of the commitments made for a transition of power to civilians, following the overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. As always, there were opponents among the « would-be putschists » who applauded the overthrow of democratically elected powers and accused us of promoting France.

The lines that were written about the rapprochement between Wagner and the Malian state have been reinforced by the crazy 48 hours of the Putin-Prigozhin showdown on the territory of the Russian Federation, reinforcing all our fears about the logic of African states abandoning their defence to third parties. Cynicism to stay in business, governmental incompetence or strategic irresponsibility, it’s up to each of us to decide, but it’s clear that this pattern is not working. We said the following in our column: « As it is always fashionable, in the eyes of a certain African public opinion, to play the old record of invoking the principles of national sovereignty in order to refuse to comply with the wishes of the former French colonial power, Choguel Maïga will say, on 29 September 2021, in a trivial manner, that Mali remains free to call on whomever it wishes. Even to the point of using mercenaries? Therein lies the inconsistency of the Malian authorities. When he came to power, Colonel Goïta and his men claimed to have acted to restore the Malian Army’s operational capacity and, above all, its authority and legitimacy to defend the national territory and the People of Mali. So, the officers who said that they had suffered because the Malian Army had been abandoned by the IBK regime, and that it was necessary to restore the Army to its attributes and prerogatives, have ended up humiliating the Army itself, by trusting Russian mercenaries to « support the training of soldiers and protect the authorities in power ». Clearly, the junta is more interested in ensuring its own security. And then, what is the glory of a soldier having his own security guaranteed by civilians? What’s more, the Wagner company is not a regular army that goes to the front to fight a conventional war; it’s more a company of bodyguards, providing close security for VIPs.

In other words, the reason for calling on Wagner is simply that the members of the junta and the government will be able to count on a close guard with a reputation for efficiency. What cynicism! Where does the Malian people, in whose name the junta has always claimed to act, fit into all this? The question of reconquering the territories no longer under the control of the Malian state has been relegated to the Malian calendar. The priority for the junta is to establish itself in power for as long as possible. Choguel Maïga has made this clear, stressing that the February 2022 deadline for holding elections cannot be met. Better still, the Malian colonels have deserted their positions in the arid zones of Mali to take it easy in Bamako ».

Hyenas Snigger at the Good Offices of Lions

Destructuring an army, giving important regal prerogatives to a private military group of a third power, backing all this up with a populist discourse of rejection of foreign imperialism – the juntas of the sub-region are perfect examples of everything a state must not do if it is not to lose the monopoly of legitimate violence that gives it the capacity to set the rules, organise life in society, enforce the laws and, above all, punish deviations. The greatest fear comes from listening to Prigozhin’s declaration when he started his rebellion. « We were told that Africa needed us, so we went there, and then we were abandoned », he complained. In other words, the boss of Wagner no longer has the support of the Russian establishment for his interventions in Africa, particularly in Mali, the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso.

What’s more, Wagner has broken with the Putin regime to such an extent that Prigozhin is said to have gone to take ‘refuge’ in Belarus? The ‘flight’ of Wagner’s leader should be the death knell for his mercenary organisation. So, the Malian state, which no longer has either the Russian state or Wagner’s auxiliaries, is committing hara-kiri after first driving out the Army and other European Union troops, and then going so far as to decide, a few days ago, to demand the departure of the Minusma. The boulevards will be wide open to the jihadist troops who were already at the gates of Bamako in 2013 and who were stopped dead in their tracks by the forces urgently deployed by President François Hollande.

Dakar has everything to learn from this new « Kornilov affair ». 

Senegal has a lot to learn from the situation in Russia and the very close relations between some of its neighbours and the defence contractor Wagner. In terms of the management of the State and its security prerogatives, it is clear that any serious country must reinforce the strength of its commands, ensure that they are as vertical as possible and help to distance officers from any political interference that might whet appetites. A country cannot have a regular army with militias and defence groups.

Intense work needs to be done to dismantle all groups not under the banner of the state. All the situations that have arisen in our country over the last three years have been aimed at breaking up armed groups, self-defence militias or warring factions. The State of Senegal is rightly obliged to put them out of action and silence any terrorist or insurrectionary ambitions. The numerous suspicions of incursions by agents close to Wagner or related or similar groups in the recent upheavals in Senegal give sufficient reason for the protection of the integrity of the national sanctuary by the Defence and Security Forces to be the main thrust of State action.

We said in a column in January 2022 that the « bombs will not fall on Bamako », to underline the importance of the efforts made by the Senegalese state to help pacify Mali and above all to preserve peace within our national borders, but we will have to double our efforts to avoid any implosion or conflagration. A defence group that was acting on behalf of its state has gone into rebellion, and is operating at the gateway to our borders. It’s as if we’re back to square one, as far as our security concerns are concerned, because of the threat potentially coming from our borders with Mali.

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The Kornilov affair corresponds to a mutiny dated 1917, similar to that of Prigojine, against the Russian central power. It aimed « to restore discipline among the troops and stop the Bolshevik gangrene » and to dissolve the Soviet. It was led by a ranking officer, Larv Kornilov, who had the full confidence of Prime Minister Kerensky’s power. To date, it is difficult to see clearly in this story to know if it was an insurrectionary coup by an officer, a plot between a political power and a military commander. The same vagueness with the operation of Prigojine, who decided to withdraw a day after having shouted his ambition to overthrow the central power, connects the two cases. As the researcher Julien Vercueil says: « When Russia has become democratic again, the archives freely accessible, when scientific work can be carried out on the events of June 23 and 24, 2023, historians will be able to unravel the threads of the mad Prigojine during these twenty-four hours which astonished the world. For the time being, any country will have had invaluable lessons in terms of internal security management, collusion between politics and the military, as well as a clear view of the unreliability of private defense companies in the conduct of sovereign prerogatives. which are incumbent on a State.

By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH