France Boosts Military Presence in Africa to Fight Terrorists or Plunder Resources?

President Emmanuel Macron has said that France’s 4,000-strong counterterrorism ‘Barkhane force’ in Africa’s Sahel region will work with a new African force to “win victories” against Takfiri extremists “in the first half of 2018.”

During a summit of African and European leaders west of Paris, Macron said “we must win the war against terrorism” in the Sahel region, following the military victories in Iraq and Syria. Leaders of the five countries participating in the G5 Sahel force - Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Chad - attended Wednesday’s summit. Two years in the planning, the force brings together troops from the five countries in a desert region the size of Europe but rich in natural resources including uranium. The African military force will reach 5,000 soldiers next year as planned, according to Macron.

To give the force a boost, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the leaders of the five participating countries, Germany and Italy as well as the Saudi and UAE ministers at a summit.

France, US share the plunder in West Africa

As France continues to boost its military presence in its former colonies, the US already has a presence in the region which was partially concealed until its troops were killed in Niger recently. After four American soldiers and at least four of their Nigerien counterparts were killed in an ambush in Niger early October, Sen. Lindsey Graham, retired US Air Force Colonel, admitted that he hadn’t been aware that the US had some 800 troops in the country.

Therefore, it is apparent that, over 130 years after the infamous Berlin Conference, a new partition of the African continent is ongoing as neo colonial powers move to grab oil and gas supplies, strategic minerals such as uranium and other rare minerals in the troubled continent, with terrorism providing a perfect pretext for this plunder.

Neocolonial presence

The brutal colonial presence of France in Africa left the European state with a network of major military bases across the continent that survives into the present day. Former French colonies in Africa even after independence continued to depend on Paris under the terms of a Colonial Pact. The terms of this pact were agreed at the time of independence as a condition of the de-colonialization of the African states.

The Colonial Pact Agreement enshrined a number of special preferences for France in the political, commercial and defense processes in the African countries.

The terrorist threat has given France a perfect pretext of reestablishing a strong military presence in the African countries with critics saying that if Paris harbors no ulterior motives, it should work towards boosting the capacity of African armies instead of sending troops to the continent. Today, France maintains thousands of troops across Africa with thousands more serving as ‘UN peacekeepers’ in countries such as Ivory Coast and the Central African Republic where they are accused of not only failing but actually abetting the genocide of Muslims perpetrated by Christian militia.

Niger, classic case of looting by France

Many analysts argue that increased French military presence in West Africa has nothing to do with fighting terrorists but is a strategic move aimed at reestablishing control of the region’s vast mineral wealth.

Niger is a classic example of the looting of a country’s minerals by former colonial master, France. Niger exports enough uranium to France to generate 50 per cent of the European country’s electricity supply, however ordinary Nigeriens not only get peanuts from France’s control of their country’s uranium resources, with over three-fifths of the population living below the poverty line, but are also suffering amid reports of radioactive contamination of water, air and soil by multinational mining operations.