Private military companies: What are these actors doing in the Sahel region?

Antoine Quiquempoix
4 days ago
4 min read

Introduction

In the past decade, new security actors arose around the globe, and particularly in Africa, where companies like the Wagner Group or Africa Corps raised concerns. These groups, operating all over the continent are French, British, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Turkish or American, and participate in multiple security activities, ranging from enhancing national military, to conducting reconnaissance and intelligence operations, and some of them directly take part in combat operations.

The first Private Military Company (PMC) that ever existed as such is Executive Outcomes, a South African company created by a former officer of the South African army in the late 1980s. The logic behind these companies is profit-driven, operating with legal contracts, and are used as quick stabilisation tools supporting governments. Since the attack on the twin towers on 11 September 2001, PMCs have flourished in the USA for example, particularly present in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they represented more than 50% of the Department of Defence personnel.

Multiple definitions of these actors are available, but none seem to be universal, yet some features remain common. PMCs operate militarily, enhancing military capacities and exercising force as they are authorized to by contract. Nevertheless, each country holds a specific stance on these actors. For example, Moscow banned mercenaries and authorized private security companies (PSCs) which are different from PMCs. Therefore, in Russia, PMCs are logically operating in a grey area as they are not regulated. Similarly, in most of the African countries, no clear regulation exists on these security actors, which maintains their activities in a grey area.

What are their impacts?

The impacts of such actors are multiple and vary depending on the way they operate. PMCs taking part in combat operations are the most critical, as they may target civilian population, therefore impacting the civil society. For example, “Wagner mercenaries most frequently engage in the targeting of civilians through mass killings, abductions, and looting”, and the Africa Corps, often called the successor of the Wagner group, is also conducting similar operations in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. In addition to this negative impact on the population, these groups reinforce incentives to join radical Islamist groups, therefore undermining the security in the Sahel region.

Economically speaking, PMCs’ footprint varies again depending on the way they operate. Chinese PMCs for example focus mostly on securing strategic Chinese projects in Africa. On the other hand, Russian and Turkish PMCs take part in the extraction of gold, protecting mines and securing these external sources of income. That is how the Wagner group “earned more than US$2.5 billion from illicit gold mining, since the invasion of Ukraine alone”. Regarding Western PMCs, they are more often used as PSCs, securing extraction sites for private companies such as Orano.

Politically, PMCs can be used by states themselves to reinforce their presence on a foreign territory. The Turkish PMC SADAT, used in multiple countries around the Sahel region, is directly used by Ankara in its “drone diplomacy”, operating as a military enhancing tool, providing training on Turkish drones sold in the region. Similarly, the Russian PMCs are linked to the Kremlin, which enables Russia to operate outside of its territory at a minor cost, reinforcing its ties with the military juntas in the Sahel. For example, the Wagner group took part in misinformation campaigns in Mali, targeting the French presence in the country and reinforcing the anti-French feeling in the region. On the contrary, Western PMCs are less tied to their countries of origin, which therefore implies a lower political impact. When tied to governments (Wagner Group, Africa Corps, SADAT, Chinese PMCs), PMCs play an active role in the competition of power in the Sahel, influencing local government by providing support to juntas.

Finally, their security impact could be seen as low. Indeed, they operate a selective security, focusing primarily on strategic sites, such as gold mines, to protect their own financial interests or the one of their countries of origin. Furthermore, few companies are directly involved in combat operations, and therefore they do not represent a serious force to contain the security risks the Sahel region is facing. In addition, they seem to be a counter-productive tool in the region, reinforcing incentives to join radical Islamist groups and targeting civilian populations. Nevertheless, PMCs also answer to the failure of central governments to counter the radical Islamist threat in the region.

Conclusion:

PMCs have become over the past decade a serious tool of foreign influence mainly in the Sahel region, where multiple of these actors are involved. The low regulation over PMCs, and their growing use in the region seem problematic, and reinforces insecurity in a zone already deeply impacted by violent non-state actors. They further raise* strong challenges, as some of them destabilise the region fuelling conflicts, reinforce the competition of power, challenge national sovereignty, and challenge economic development. The continued reliance on PMCs in the Sahel region does not offer a solution, but rather a deepening of the crisis they claim to address, therefore perpetuating a pattern of neocolonial subordination and dependency. It is therefore possible to question whether or not the security in the Sahelian region could be imagined outside of the logic of privatisation and foreign control?

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