As Russia annexes Crimean territory, some African lands are vulnerable to ambitious big neighbours who might use ethnicity as an excuse for land grabbing

Like the rest of the world, Africa witnessed from afar the vote by Crimean residents on 16 March 2014 to rejoin the Russian Federation, from which it departed in 1954 as a “gift” from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to neighbouring Ukraine.⁽²⁾ The international view was that the vote was as illegitimate as Khrushchev’s original gesture. Ukraine was a Soviet satellite in 1954 and totally under Moscow’s control. It made no practical difference whether Crimea was part of Ukraine or the USSR. Russia continued to ‘possess’ Ukraine in 2014 via a puppet government led at the start of 2014 by a pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych. In November 2013, Yanukovych did Moscow’s bidding by cutting off talks with the European Union (EU).⁽³⁾ After weeks of protests, over 100 anti-Yanukovych demonstrators were gunned down by security forces. Yanukovych fled to Russia, which declared that a coup d’état had taken place in Ukraine and stepped in to exert overt control where, several months before, Moscow was able to comfortably control by proxy. What was of interest to African observers of the conflict was the role population manipulation and nationalistic/ethnic sentiments played in the land grab.

As of this writing, Crimea is under de facto Russian control and Russian President Vladimir Putin has implied that Russia is the rightful owner of all territories where Russian speakers reside. The Ukrainian citizenship of Russian speakers was dismissed by Russia as secondary to their ethnic origin. They were Russian first, Ukrainian by accident, Moscow’s story line stated. Russian speakers were then said to be in danger, firstly from discrimination and then physically.⁽⁴⁾ This was the pretext for Russian military movements into Crimea, swiftly followed by an election on 16 March 2013 in which people of Russian ethnicity voted to depart Ukraine and join Russia. The Crimean parliament voted on 17 March to become part of Russia, and within hours Putin recognised Crimea as an independent state. A formal ceremony of annexation was signed on 18 March.⁽⁵⁾ That the Crimean people did not have the right to make such a decision on independence in an election imposed by a foreign country whose troops were in the country at the time, is generally understood internationally, including in Africa.

Africa depends on the UN more than any other continent for humanitarian assistance and, as importantly, as a means for its voice to be heard. As the French Ambassador to the UN noted, the underpinning of the UN’s rules for an orderly and civilised world were subverted by Russia’s antics in Crimea. However, while the international community led by the US would not recognise the Crimean polling, African’s reactions were muted. No African nation wished to put forth an opinion, much less a condemnation. What most impressed African leaders, who are power pragmatists and judge all territorial developments, not on the basis of morality, but on results at the end of the day, was that Putin’s land grab worked.

They learned that the process of annexing territory calls for a combination of adroit propaganda and military might. Both are put in the service of aggression founded on the pretext that a group of people who are of the aggressor’s own ethnicity are imperilled within a coveted territory. Once this premise is established, evidence of the people’s danger is manufactured by a full-scale media assault while, quickly, troops are moved into place. Russia had 22,000 soldiers polling in Ukraine by the 16 March. The military personnel and weaponry’s placement ensured a fait accompli. Nothing says possession as clearly as a military occupation.

Russia’s economy was damaged as certainly as was the Russian brand that had achieved a momentary gaudy triumph with a winter Olympics sporting event the week before the Crimea crisis. African nations have no such ‘brands’ that are so necessary for First World prestige, and do not depend on international goodwill to attract tourists and investment. Uganda’s authoritarian government shrugged-off loss of Western aid after instituting discriminatory laws against its own citizens,⁽⁶⁾ and indeed sanctions against Africa would be less harmful to that impoverished country than to the more developed Russia. For Africans who are powerless against dictatorial governments, so that passive acceptance of misery might be mistaken for a cultural norm, any additional misery from sanctions’ effects would not differ from the latest natural disaster or armed conflict.

Therefore, there is nothing stopping African despots with territorial ambitions from studying Putin’s playbook to see if they too may grab land as successfully. Africa has always been a tremulous patchwork of illogical national boundaries, simmering ethnic hatreds that sometimes rise to genocide, national resources coveted by neighbours and authoritarian leaders whose imperialistic desires could be met if only they could find a way to get away with land grabs. African people are much like the Crimeans, new to democracy and more devoted to ethnic and tribal ties than to democratic ideals.

African land grabs by way of domestic genocide and the vulnerability of neighbours

The danger of regions taken over by powerful neighbours was on display in Central and East Africa in early 2014, and exists in lesser and incipient movements elsewhere. These developments are not new and have been a part of Africa’s post-colonial history. Idi Amin’s military incursion into Tanzania in 1977-78 was a land grab. The original pretext for the invasion into the Kagera region of Tanzania was to pursue anti-Amin army forces that had taken refuge there. However, Amin proceeded to annex Kagera, claiming that the land had always belonged to Uganda. The Africa continental body of the day, the Organisation for African Unity (OAU), was a fragmented and militarily powerless entity compared to today’s African Union (AU). It was up to Tanzania to mount a counter offense, which led to the collapse of the Amin regime and his exile to Saudi Arabia.

Uganda’s impulse to annex by way of military action and expand its borders into neighbouring regions continued in 2014. The pretext for Uganda’s attempt at territorial expansion in South Sudan, its northern neighbour, is ‘security’ against ‘terrorists’ (see ‘The Ugandan-spawned rebel group in the eastern DRC ‘, Africa Conflict Monthly Monitor (ACMM), April 2014 edition). This excuse has been favoured by authoritarian governments throughout Africa as their reason du jour after the collapse of the Soviet Union retired the long-running excuse for foreign aggression and domestic oppression in the name of “battling Communism.” Uganda’s president since 1991, Yoweri Museveni, had a role in Amin’s overthrow but evidently learned from Amin lessons on cross-border incursions. Days after South Sudan’s capital Juba was shaken by factional fighting in December 2013, Ugandan troops moved northward into the country, ostensibly to protect Ugandan citizens there.⁽⁷⁾ However, the troops remained after the Ugandans were evacuated, and the occupation further destabalised the young country. Peace talks stalled as the rebel groups made withdrawal of Ugandan soldiers conditional to discussion of any treaty.⁽⁸⁾

On 10 March 2014, East African heads of State meeting in Addis Ababa voted to create a regional stabalisation force under the authority of the Inter-government Authority on Development (IGAD) to restore order in the country. IGAD is East Africa’s eight-nation trade bloc, and has the credibility to address the South Sudan crisis. South Sudan accepted IGAD’s Protection and Deterrent Force (PDF), and the head of the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF), General Katumba Wamala, announced on 16 March that UPDF troops would be withdrawn from South Sudan. He did not present a timetable.⁽⁹⁾

Because Uganda’s claim that it was acting in the name of security when its troops invaded South Sudan was illogical – a civil war is an internal affair and anti-government forces had committed no acts against Uganda – the conclusion drawn by the international community was that Museveni was drawn by an opportunity. A militarily and politically insecure new country was laden with oil wealth, and seemed ripe for occupation by an autocrat’s troops.

Rwanda’s genocide was based on a desire for territory. A populous country where tensions between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes centred on the joint sharing of a single place, ethnic cleansing was seen as the answer by Rwanda’s Hutu-led government in 1994. The ethnic cleansing playbook was followed. First, people of the Tutsi tribe were demonised in the propaganda of government its co-conspirators. Marginalisation and discrimination of Tutsi followed, and then their forced removal from homes and businesses. Then the actual killing began, and an estimated 800,000 Tutsi’s were massacred.⁽¹⁰⁾

No ethnic considerations were used as an excuse by foreign powers to invade the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). DRC land was sought by Rwanda and Uganda so mineral resources might be looted. Rwanda’s aggressiveness turned external following the genocide. Rwanda’s financing of rebel groups in DRC was done not to destabalise a country on ethnic grounds as part of an overt annexation, but rather to destabalise the DRC to achieve an invisible annexation, for economic benefits. According to a June 2013 UN investigation, anti-government M-23 rebels received support from both Rwanda and Uganda who, in turn, were able to access the DRC's mineral wealth through illicit means.⁽¹¹⁾ Both countries condemned the report despite a surfeit of evidence against them.

Exploiting ethnicity and race to access territory

Carving ethnic enclaves out of sovereign nations has been a form of territorial acquisition found whenever there is a civil war in Africa. All the self-declared ‘break away regions’ and ‘autonomous homelands’ are attempts by niche populations to replace democracy, where a country’s peoples work toward a common cause while safeguarding the rights of minority groups, with autocratic enclaves that serve one group while excluding others. The Séléka militant group overthrew the government of the Central African Republic (CAR) on 24 March 2013, to create an Islamist state. Séléka’s atrocities were so widespread prior to their ouster from the capital Bangui in February 2014 that a subsequent anti-Muslim backlash created its own atrocities.⁽¹²⁾ African and European peacekeepers were positioned with a mandate to ensure the country is not ethnically torn asunder. In Nigeria, the jihadist group Boko Haram seeks to overthrow government and create an Islamist state, where citizenship would be based on ethnicity and religion.

Idi Amin stoked anti-white sentiment to expel not only Europeans, but Ugandans of Indian ethnicity during the 1970s. The injustice was viewed as regrettable by the international community but as sort of an inevitable historical ‘payback’ over previous colonial exploitation of Africans. Zimbabwe’s autocratic president Robert Mugabe’s ethnic cleansing of his country of white farmers and businessmen occurred 30 years later, when a less jaundiced international community responded by imposing sanctions because of the property seizures and other political and human rights violations. Mugabe’s political cronies now occupy, but do not make productive use of confiscated properties. State propaganda demonised white Zimbabwean’s, whose lack of popularity amongst Zimbabwean’s of other races made their victimisation a populist triumph for government, the way Hitler’s seizure of Jewish property was achieved by exploiting German’s emotions and prejudices. Hitler committed genocide, and while the murders of white farm owners in Zimbabwe and post-apartheid Africa were a trend in the 1990s and 2000s, with state-sponsored thugs implicated in Zimbabwe, fears of genocide did not become reality. However, seizure of territory (massive amounts of farmland and businesses) by playing the race card did succeed, and racist demagoguery is still as common in Africa as homophobia. South Africa’s former African National Congress (ANC) Youth Leader Julius Malema exemplified this in his habitual advocacy of shooting “Boers” which he sang at rallies of his supporters.⁽¹³⁾

Political demagoguery founded on ethnic or racial hatred is a form of aggression. In South Africa hate speech is actively prosecuted. Enlightened Africans recognise that such demagoguery is the first step toward conflict, land grabs and genocide. For aggressors motivated by greed, long-term consequences of aggressive acts are not considered. Yet, the consequences of aggression never fail to affect Africa and further impoverish African people. Of all the world’s currencies negatively impacted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it was Zambia’s kwacha that suffered the greatest fall in value.⁽¹⁴⁾ Global uncertainty caused the value of copper, Zambia’s main export, to drop to a 44-month low. This negative effect of aggression was not the lesson learned from Crimea, however.

African aggressors draw wrong conclusion from Putin’s land grab

The conclusion drawn from Russia’s take-over of Crimea by Africa’s aggressors, from warlords to national dictators, is that ‘might makes right.’ Aided by a state-run propaganda apparatus and enforced by superior military force, an aggressive act done in the name of nationalism or ethnic pride is a certain short-term domestic success. A disapproving international community may be again powerless to stop (or as often in the case of Africa, uninterested in stopping) the aggression, while at home the popularity of the country’s leadership will soar. As for long-term complications, such as harm to a national economy from sanctions, African leaders feel that Russia’s situation is much like their own. Like the proud Russians, Africans have long-held grievances and decades of poverty inoculating them against any inconveniences or economic setbacks that sanctions might bring. The most common trait of African society is endurance, against nature and against human occupiers. Eventually, Africans know, the weather will change and the occupiers will depart.

When Russia annexed Crimea, the country resounded with nationalistic pride; the type of consequences-be-damned pro-war hysteria that commonly enthuses people at the start of conflicts. The country may suffer in the long term because of Western counter-measures, but Putin’s policies are intended to be generational, methodically expanding the Russian Orthodox Empire in a push that absorbs temporary setbacks, such as market declines and currency devaluations, to achieve a Russian-speaking hegemony over Eurasia that, unlike Hitler’s Reich, would be intended to last a much longer than 1,000 years. African leaders also follow similar generation timelines, and like their conservative, tribally and ethnically-centred peoples are motivated by centuries-old memories. Museveni’s championing human rights abuses in Uganda was a calculated political move, and considerations of consequences beyond immediately-achieved objectives were of no interest to him. Museveni and Putin were voicing identical sentiments at the very same time when they condemned the ‘decadent West’ and claimed for themselves ultimate moral authority – a morality that allows for the persecution of all people considered ‘others’ by the politicians’ political base.

Russia’s successful annexation of a portion of a neighbouring country has raised the likelihood of similar land grabs in Africa. As soon as an opportunity arises, land grabs will be made by African leaderships remembering Putin in Crimea, not Saddam Hussein in Kuwait.

This article is extracted from the April 2014 edition of CAI’s Africa Conflict Monthly Monitor (ACMM) – the brainchild of award-winning journalist and columnist, James Hall. The +-70 page report dissects conflict trends across the African continent to guide businesses, governments, academics and other stakeholders in Africa’s growth and stability.
Find out more about ACMM.

Written by James Hall ⁽¹⁾

Notes:

(1) James Hall, Founding Editor of the Africa Monthly Monitors (AMMs) and critically acclaimed author, columnist and filmmaker, pioneered insider coverage and analysis of Africa, in Africa, with six books and thousands of articles and news stories for publications worldwide. Contact James at jhall@realnet.co.sz. Edited by Dominique Gilbert.
(2) Herszenhorn, D., ‘Crimea votes to succeed from Ukraine as Russian troops keep watch’, The New York Times, 17 March 2014.
(3)‘Yanukovych: Ukraine not ready to sign key EU deal’, Associated Press, 26 November 2013.
(4) Karmanau, ‘Moscow will protect “compatriots” in Ukraine’, Associated Press, 24 February 2014.
(5) Lally, K., ‘Pro-Russian forces break into Ukrainian naval base in Crimea’, The Washington Post, 19 March 2014.
(6) Plaut, M., ‘Uganda donors cut aid after president passes anti-gay law’, The Guardian, 25 February 2014.
(7) ‘Uganda deploys troops in South Sudan’, Sudan Tribune, 20 December 2013.
(8) Manson, K., ‘South Sudanese rebel leader appeals for international support’, Financial Times, 13 February 2014.
(9) ‘Uganda ready to withdraw its troops from South Sudan’, Sudan Tribune, 17 March 2014.
(10) ‘How the Rwandan genocide happened’, BBC News, 18 December 2008.
(11) ‘US warns Rwanda over support of DRC rebels’, Associated Press, 24 July 2013.
(12) Bouckaert, P., ‘The Central African Republic has become a nightmare for Muslims’, The Washington Post, 17 March 2014.
(13) ‘ANC’s Julius Malema “Shoot the Boer” ruled hate speech’, BBC, 12 September 2011.
(14) ‘Zambia kwacha falls most in Africa’, Business Report (Johannesburg), 18 March 2014.