Since the Malian military government ordered the departure of the UN peacekeeping mission known as MINUSMA in June this year, the media has been flooded with a narrative that says the Mali military government kicked out the UN peacekeeping mission whose responsibility was to bring peace to the country and brought in the Russian mercenary group, Wagner. Indeed Mali is working with Russia to combat the security problem that has plagued the country for more than ten years and they may even be working with the Russian mercenary group, Wagner but the question is why is it a problem that instead of sitting down and waiting for Foreign countries and organizations like France, the US and the UN who has been trying to combat the security issues in the country but failed at it, Mali decide to stand up and partner with another country or group whom they believe would solve the issue? Why does it seem as if Mali has committed the gravest sin because they are working with Russia and Wagner? Oh yes, the West would say that if you track the Wagner’s Group activities in Africa, you would find traces of human rights abuse including kidnapping, rape, torture, and death which they are very much correct about but one characteristic of the West you should know about is their hypocrisy.

First, do you think that Russia is the only country in the world that has a mercenary group? Of course not, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France amongst others all have several mercenary groups. However, these mercenary groups are not as loud as Russia’s Wagner. Why do you think so? It’s not because Wagner is the most dangerous or notorious as the media would tell you because the fact is all mercenary groups or private military groups including Wagner carry out the same functions. These people are simply soldiers for hire. This means they can be hired by any government including theirs. Now, even though these mercenaries are all about profit-making, for big countries such as the US, UK, and France who are all about protecting national interests, do you think that they would allow the mercenary groups in their country to work against the interest of the government? The answer is a big NO.

So, like Wagner who works in the interest of the Russian government, these other mercenary groups in Western countries also work in the interest of their respective countries. However, these Western countries would never agree to that but it’s the truth. Take for instance what happened in 2018 when a journalist named Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated. At first, the report was that Jamal was murdered by agents of the Saudi government but later it was revealed that four agents out of the 15 agents were hired from a mercenary group called Tier 1 Group. And guess what? Tier 1 Group is based in Arkansas, USA, and not only that its training has approval from the US State Department. This is just one example of how the West uses these private military companies to carry out operations but obviously, these operations are covert because they wouldn’t want the world to know.

Now, the reason why it seems Wagner seems to be the most dangerous private military group in the world is because Wagner comes from Russia and Russia is an enemy of the West. It’s as simple as that. If Russia were an ally of the United States, no matter the atrocity carried out by Wagner, the West would find a way to cover it up. But since Russia is a rival, and the West is looking for ways to cut the influence of Russia in the world, every activity carried out by Wagner is scrutinized and painted in a bad light. This is not to say that there are not some truths regarding the allegations of human rights abuses carried out by Wagner in some of their operations and it’s important that Mali and any other African government who chooses to work with this group should take note of. But the issue is the hypocrisy of the West which accuses Russian troops and its mercenary group of human rights abuses and portrays themselves as saints but in reality the West is no different, in fact, they are even worse.

When French troops were still in Mali, there were reports of serious human rights abuse including torture and executions. In the Central African Republic, French troops were accused of sexually abusing young children. In 2019, France airstrike killed 19 civilians in Bounti village in central Mali and do you know what France said in response? France denied the allegations and said that the people were combatants. Can you imagine that? All these reports of human rights abuse by France are the few that have been uncovered. Without a doubt, countless others have been shushed up because it will bring a bad reputation to France which they do not want. The same goes for the US, the UK, and other Western states whose troops are in Africa. So, you see how hypocritical the West is for condemning Mali for accepting Wagner.

Now, another point we would like to make is that the media says that the decision by Mali to kick out the UN peacekeeping forces and accept the help of Wagner is a bad one because it would lead to a deterioration of the security crisis. Well, it is said that it is insanity to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result which if you think about it is true. Did the UN and the West really think that the people of Mali were comfortable with waiting for them to take their time to do something about the security in the country and in the meantime they continue to suffer in a country ravaged by instability? Of course they were not and things have to change.

MINUSMA was established by the UN Security Council in 2013 when the uprising in northern Mali by armed groups linked to al-Qaeda began to spiral out of control. On 1 July 2013, MINUSMA took over from the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA) and their mission was to provide security, stability, civilian protection, support political dialogue, and reconciliation, and also to ensure human rights promotion amid rising insurgent and jihadist movements in Mali. The mission comprised 17,430 personnel. Initially, these troops were very well welcomed by the Malian government and its people who hoped that the foreign soldiers would be able to help the Malian military drive back the rebels who had captured large swathes of land in the north. Ten years later, however, nothing changed, the situation is even worse off than before the peacekeeping troops came to the country. Thousands of people have been killed, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the violence. Aside from this, the Malian government believes that instead of propagating peace which is their mission, the UN peacekeeping troops have become part of the problem by fuelling community tensions exacerbated by extremely serious allegations that are highly detrimental to peace. So, with this background, why should MINUSMA be allowed to stay in the country when their presence regarding the security situation has done nothing?

In trying to justify why their mission failed, officials of the peacekeeping group said that restrictions on troop and aircraft movements prevented it from fulfilling its mandate. Some analysts add that the political climate in Mali is also responsible for understanding the mission of MINUSMA but that doesn’t even justify why they failed because the political climate these analysts are referring to started in 2020 when the first coup occurred which removed the elected President Ibrahim Bubacar Keita for his inability to deal with the security crisis. Then a second military coup occurred the following year which made France angry because it no longer had an ally and so France sanctioned Mali and began to push for ECOWAS to intervene militarily. While this was going on, Mali began to rely on military instructors” from Russia as France and the UN condemned alleged extrajudicial killings by operatives of the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group.

The presence of the mercenaries has drawn strong condemnation from Western countries, who argued that the presence of the Wagner Group threatens Mali’s stability. Later on, the US accused Wagner, which is headed by Russian billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, of collaborating with Mali to facilitate the UN mission’s exit. Well, regardless of all this, MINIUSMA had seven years before the first coup occurred in Mali to deal with the security problem but they failed so the fact that there was a military coup doesn’t change anything. The plain truth is that MINUSMA failed and Mali kicked them out because there was no reason for them to remain.

Now, if you were in a position whereby you tried a method but it didn’t bring the result you were expecting, wouldn’t you want to try something different? Of course, you would. It’s what the Malian Junta did. The UN failed to contain the security crisis and so the Malian Junta decided to seek another alternative as it was his right as head of a sovereign nation. It is truly irritating the way the West views the situation. Imagine what Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said after Mali ordered the departure of their troops. She said, “The abrupt end of the entire UN mission is bitter news for the people in Mali to whom the mission gave protection and hope.” This statement is truly laughable because one, how could she possibly know the minds of the Malian people and two, how can the MINUSMA mission still continue to give hope to the people of Mali after ten years of failure?

The superiority that these Westerners feel towards Africa never ceases to end. It’s baffling that despite the failure of the mission, the West still feels they are the only ones who can solve the security problem. To them, the government of Mali is not wise or smart enough nor can it make any capable security decision to solve the problem. This is the reason why all over the media the conclusion of the decision Mali made to kick out the UN peacekeeping mission is that it would result in a further deterioration of the security problem. And guess what? After the first group of MINUSMA troops began to leave Mali, the media carried more news of how the jihadist killed so and so number of people and how the rebels took over so and so town. All this was to show that without MINUSMA, the security is truly deteriorating but the fact is that these news are no different from the situation when the peacekeeping mission was active in the country.

The media also says that Mali kicked out French troops and the UN peacekeeping force because they were not able to deal with the security situation and yet Mali has still not been able to solve it. Honestly, It’s not even up to two years since the French troops left and neither is it up to a year since MINUSMA left and yet they expect a government that has been ravaged by the crisis to quickly solve it. Isn’t that illogical? With all the resources including financial and military intelligence, they had ten years but they couldn’t do anything. Yet another hypocrisy of the West.

So, Mali shouldn’t be blamed for trying to seek another alternative to deal with their problem when the West couldn’t fix it despite the years they had to do it. We are not saying that Wagner and Russia are better but they are far better than the hypocritical West. Russia and Wagner may even have an ulterior motive for helping Mali but the fact cannot be denied that they would be more efficient than the UN, US, and Western forces. Their partnership with Mali and other African countries that have partnered with them such as Burkina Faso is certainly different from the demeaning relationship African countries have with the West and Europe.

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