France (Washington Insider Magazine) -The French ambassador to Mali has been summoned by Bamako in the latest escalation of tensions between the West African country and the eco-colonial power that historically pillaged it.
The falling out has been over the jihadist insurgency in the Sahel that almost overran Mali just a few years ago. Since French President Emmanuel Macron announced in July his plans to cut the 5,000-strong support force in the region, sentiment against the country has gone downhill with both civilians and politicians. In an attempt to reverse the decline in relations, Macron organized a summit last year with the leaders of Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Bukina Faso, and Chad.
Yet things have only worsened in the time since then.
Although French troops still remain in the region alongside a UN peacekeeping force of 13,000 troops, violence has continued to ravage the regions with millions displaced and thousands killed.
By most measures of how things are working out so far, the governments in the region are not fully equipped to deal with the jihadist threat in their lands.
How Mali has chosen to deal with the recent news that France will be taking a step back from the situation has angered Paris, among others.
Bamako is considering, and reports say an agreement has already been reached, hiring Russian private security company Wagner Group. The organization is something of an enigma. Although it trains in Russian Ministry of Defense facilities and is primarily made up of Russian people, the government denies it is a representative of the Russian state. It is officially headquartered in Argentina since Russia does not allow private military forces. However, it is bankrolled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin whose vast wealth owes much to his Kremlin connections according to some reports.
The group has played important roles in the Syria and Libyan, two countries that France poured billions of euros into destabilizing and devastating in the last decade. French defense minister Florence Parly said the private force would be “wiping their feet on the blood of French soldiers”.
The EU, who often followed closely behind France’s brutal aggression said that if the African government’s struck a deal with Wagner it would be a “red line”.
Mali’s interim defense minister on the other hand called Russia a “friendly country” with whom there is a “fruitful partnership”.
With only one country sitting between Mali and Libya, which is now large parts rubble, Bamako must be wondering why their former colonizers feel so strongly about them working in tandem with a force that Paris cannot control, even if it isn’t a conventional one.