According to several observers, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, perceived as the strong link in the Russian military presence in Central Africa, is playing a double game. Thus, after having sealed a “conscrutive partnership” in April 2024 and relaunched relations between Bangui and Paris, the Central African head of state is once again in Moscow with his Russian ally, Vladmir Poutine.
Maintaining power
Karl Blagué, national coordinator of the G16, the civil society action group for the defense of the Constitution, believes that President Touadéra is in a game of geopolitical calculations between Russia and Western capitals to stay in power.
Bob Barry’s explanations
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According to Mr. Blagué, “Mr. Touadéra is a great calculator and he is playing a very dangerous game. On the one hand, he needs Russia to keep his presidential chair despite the numerous abuses and numerous crimes committed by Wagner’s mercenaries and, in exchange , he gave away a lot of mining sites, gold, diamonds and even timber to Russian shell companies for free.”
And as Moscow does not pay any new money to the Bangui authorities, President Touadéra goes through France to grant budgetary aid. It is in this context that the president made a trip to Paris at the beginning of October 2024.
The warming of relations between the Élysée and the Renaissance Palace allowed the granting of 10 million euros, or more than six billion CFA francs, accompanied by a request addressed to the European Union to help the Central African Republic to organize inclusive elections.
Support criticized by the opposition
This support from President Emmanuel Macron to Faustin-Archange Touadéra should allow France to have access to Bakouma uranium for which Areva, the French nuclear giant, has lost the operating license. At least that’s what Central African opponent Jean-Pierre Mara thinks:
-“There is the approach according to which these are indiscretions which are being told. He had to be coaxed so that he would still allow France to perhaps set foot again in Bakouma, which is the unexploited uranium site in the Republic Central African Republic”, said the ex-MP.
The Central African opponent also denounces the pressure exerted by the European Union so that the opposition political parties go to the elections while they reject the ANE, (National Elections Agency) and its dismemberments in their current form. The body responsible for elections would use machines ordered from Russia.
“So, today, the European Union is putting pressure on the Central African opposition to participate in the local elections, while we said to ourselves: as long as there are Russians who guarantee everything, who control everything, there will be no there would be no transparent elections”, according to Jean-Pierre Mara.
A bloody Russian military presence
Since the end of the French Sangaris operation in the Central African Republic in 2016 and the deployment of Wagner’s Russian auxiliaries, the Central African Republic has become a real experimental laboratory for Russian military activities in Africa south of the Sahara, despite the presence of the mission of the UN for the stabilization of the CAR with its 17,885 men deployed in the country.
Officially, President Touadéra’s trip to Russia is part of discussions to develop bilateral cooperation in the political, commercial, economic and humanitarian fields.
But many Central Africans believe that with the lifting of the arms embargo by the Security Council, Moscow could also take advantage of it to sell significant quantities of weapons to Bangui.
At the end of November, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Central African counterpart had already discussed on the telephone a “strengthening” of security cooperation between their two countries.
