How Africa is Stopping the ‘Hegemonic Craziness’ of the US and the West
© AP Photo / Jerome Delay
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In the last two years, Africa has witnessed some key withdrawals of Western troops, such as in Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and recently in 2024, Niger. This situation compromises the hegemonic aspirations and the use of natural resources in the Sahel region by the United States and Western countries.
“The extraction of resources was mainly linked to the presence of French troops, protected by the Americans. So now that both of them are gone, I think the new governments of the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) are in a better position to actually dictate the terms of extractions, without, or with less fear, of actually being militarily controlled or invaded,” Prof. Alexis Habiyaremye, senior DSI/NRF researcher and a South African research chair in industrial development at the University of Johannesburg, told Sputnik.
In 2002, the US Pan-Sahel Initiative started including training and equipment of US forces in Niger, Mali, Chad and Mauritania, due to the US allegedly identifying potential drivers of extremism within these countries. The former CIA Intelligence Officer and State Department Official Larry Johnson pointed out to Sputnik that the presence of US forces was “ostensibly to fight ISIS*” but he thinks that “for the United States has been more important to try to extend its influence."
“This is part of US hegemonic craziness. All we can do is figure out other places that we want to go conquer, occupy. This is really a sort of the imperial imperative,” said Johnson.
Western forces have apparently taken advantage of the Sahel region's natural resources, “uranium comes out of there, Niger has particular yellowcake (powdered uranium concentrate), and maybe some lithium, some other minerals,” said Johnson, due to the military control of the area and past governments that allowed this to happen. Africa has been an important source of income for French companies. A clear example is the French mining company Orano, which, according to its website, gets €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) in revenues from uranium sales and produces 7,524 tons of uranium, consolidating its position in the top 3 of global Uranium sellers.
This was echoed by political analyst Nkasiobe Oluikpe and Prof. Haniyaremye who believe that Western troops might have provided support to the terrorist groups in an organized way to continue their military operations in the Sahel region.
“It's not that France or the US couldn't provide security in the Sahel, that's the issue. The conflict in Sahel is believed to be orchestrated by the West to justify its military presence and control of governments in Africa. What is at issue is national pride and the governments of these countries restoring sovereignty over their territories controlled by Jihadis and other hostile non-state actors,” Oluikpe told Sputnik.
“Western powers have used terrorism as a tool to keep those countries in a state of insecurity, at the same time pretending that they want it to help them fight against terrorism. So it's now an open secret that the so-called terrorism in that region is helped and abetted by Western powers with some of the Gulf countries that are allied to Western powers,” Haniyaremye pointed out.
The Aftermath of Western Troop Withdrawals
From 2021 to 2024, Western troops experienced many withdrawals over inconformity with their presence in Africa. “It started with the anti-French sentiment in Francophone countries in the region and it also led to the US being asked to get out of Niger. The US military base was a physical representation of neocolonialism/Western imperialism,” Oluikpe said.
French troops, who were part of the broader Western military presence, completed their withdrawal from Mali in 2021. Guinea followed suit at the end of 2021. French troops withdrew from Burkina Faso in 2023, and the US limited their operations in the country. In Chad, the US still has a small number of troops, their presence is currently limited due to an official request from the Chadian government for US troops to leave the country. In 2024, the Niger Air Base 201 was vacated due to the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
“Since the popular anti-West uprisings in some of these countries, and the overthrow of those leaders who were considered Western stooges, the West, led by the US, has been decapitated temporarily, geostrategically speaking,” Oluikpe said.
The Biden administration is already looking for closer ties with other African countries. US Air General C.Q. Brown arrived to Botswana on June 22 for talks with regional partners and declared: “I do see some opportunities, and there's countries that we're already working with in West Africa”. Oluikpe speculated that the US probably contacted Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana to set military operations as their political leaders are considered pro-Western.
After Western troops left the region, Africa has turned to Russia for cooperation on regional security and development issues.
Johnson believes that Russia has genuine intentions to help, without any interest in resources or extractions: “There's no other country in the world that has that kind of natural resources that Russia has. Russia is genuinely interested in developing.” In turn, Prof. Haniyaremye understands that Russia, in contrast to the West, genuinely wants to help the Sahel region countries defend themselves, as “Russia has been a natural ally of Africa against Western domination”.
“In that attempt to use terrorism, they (Western forces) have denied the governments of those countries access to weapons that they needed to defend themselves against terrorists. So, Russia is more ready to sell weapons for the defense of that region. (…) The security of those countries is dependent on having access to the necessary military assets to defend themselves against terrorists that are founded that are logistically help and also strategically and tactically supported by the West,” said Haniyaremye.
In an interview with Dmitry Kiselev, the general director of Sputnik’s parent media group Rossiya Segodnya on March 13, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that, "The reality is that leaders of certain African nations chose to reach deals with Russian managing companies, opting to work with them instead of the French. This decision was made by our African friends, not us”. The president also stressed that one of the priorities of Russian foreign policy is to develop and strengthen mutually beneficial ties with African countries.
*ISIS (terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries)
