As
millions suffer from hunger, disease, illiteracy and grinding poverty
in the Lake Chad region of West Africa, a sinister game of resource
extraction and exploitation is playing out, with geopolitics at the
heart of it all.
by
Eric Draitser
Part
4 - Lake Chad and France’s Neocolonial Agenda in West Africa
For the last
five hundred years, colonial powers have dominated the political and
economic life of Africa. But while formal colonialism may have ended
decades ago, the informal dominance and control of Africa continues.
This neocolonial control over the continent and its resources is at
the root of all conflicts in Africa, including the current crisis in
Lake Chad.
Francophone
West Africa includes Cameroon, Niger and Chad. This makes France,
which continues to be the main trading partner for these countries,
into a dominant player in the scramble for Lake Chad. The 2012 coup
in Mali and the civil war that subsequently ensued gave the French
military the opening it needed to permanently station military forces
throughout the region. The ongoing Operation Barkhane has at least
3,000 French troops spread across the Sahel region, including in
Niger and Chad.
However, the
real question is not whether or not France is right in coming to the
defense of its former colonies, but what its real agenda actually is.
Despite its
rhetoric of maintaining democracy, stability and the rule of law,
France has very self-interested motives. With regard to Boko Haram,
Nigeria and the Lake Chad basin, France is the primary beneficiary of
the energy extraction taking place there, as its port of Le Havre is
the final destination for the unrefined oil. Taken in terms of both
actual and potential exports, the area’s vast energy reserves are
worth billions. But France’s economic interest in the region does
not stop with energy.
France has a
keen interest in exploiting lucrative mineral deposits throughout the
area, as is evidenced by the fact that the government of French
President François Hollande is investing more than half a billion
dollars in a new state-owned mining company.
As French
industry minister Arnaud Montebourg stated while announcing the
creation of the new venture, “Francophone African countries,
notably, would like to work with us, rather than do business with
foreign multinationals.” Naturally, one should take such a
statement with a healthy dose of skepticism as to just how much
choice those countries, let alone their citizens, will have in the
matter. Not only will France be looking to exploit mineral deposits
of lithium and germanium, but also rare earth metals that have become
highly lucrative due to significant demand for the metals in the tech
manufacturing industry.
Moreover,
Montebourg’s use of the phrase “foreign multinationals” is
quite revealing. For one thing, it seems that the French political
and business elite do not consider themselves to be “foreign”
when operating in Francophone countries. The neocolonialism of such a
mentality is impossible to ignore.
Secondly, it
seems almost self-evident that the “foreign multinationals” to
which he is referring are ]Chinese companies (both private and
state-owned) that have made tremendous inroads throughout the region
in terms of mineral extraction and investment. France is clearly
cognizant of a possible turf war between themselves and China over
West Africa’s resources.
There are
also vast deposits of uranium throughout the region that have piqued
France’s interest. As Think Africa Press reported in 2014:
“France
currently sources over 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear
energy and is dependent on Niger for much of its immediate and future
uranium supply. This dependence could grow even further when
production at the recently-discovered Imouraren uranium deposit is up
and running in 2015. The mine is set to produce 5,000 tonnes of
uranium per year and would help make Niger the second-largest uranium
producer in the world. Areva, which is 87 percent owned by the French
state and holds a majority share in three out of the four uranium
mining companies operating in Niger, is funding the new mine.”
Add to this
the fact that Nigerian President Mahamadou Issoufou is a former
employee of Areva, a company that still maintains a near monopoly
over the uranium trade. It should come as no surprise that the main
competition for Areva (and France) for this lucrative trade is China,
which “already owns a 37-percent stake in Niger’s SOMINA mine and
has carried out uranium exploration throughout the country.”
The battle
between France and China for control of strategic resources and
markets is becoming an increasingly critical part of France’s
overall policy in the region. France’s goal is to re-establish
economic hegemony in its Francophone sphere of influence, as is
evidenced by the French government’s policy paper “A partnership
for the future: 15 proposals for a new economic dynamic between
Africa and France,” which could be seen as a blueprint for French
policy in the area.
This
increased emphasis is likely due to the fact that “over the past
decade, France’s share of African trade plummeted from 10 to 4.7
percent, while China’s African market share soared to over 16
percent in 2011.” The contours of this proxy war are unmistakably
apparent.
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