Section:GDN 1N PaGe:25 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 26/8/2019 18:03 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Tuesday 27 August 2019 The Guardian •World^25
‘Special status’ Envoy’s intervention points
to expanding Russian interests in Guinea
Ruth Maclean
West Africa correspondentW
hen Alpha
Condé started
hinting that
he wanted to
change Guinea’s
constitution
to allow himself a third term as
president, he found a fervent
supporter in an unexpected quarter.
Describing Condé as “legendary”,
the Russian ambassador to Guinea
backed a change of the constitution
to allow the octogenarian president
to “reinvigorate” the country.
“Do you know many countries in
Africa that do better? Do you know
many presidents in Africa who do
better?” Alexander Bregadze asked
in a new year’s broadcast on state
television. “It’s constitutions that
adapt to reality, not realities that
adapt to constitutions.”
The opposition, civil society and
the Guinean press were quick to
criticise the ambassador’s “populist
and demagogic” meddling.
“He’s campaigning, supporting
the president, encouraging the
diplomatic corps to support a third
term. It’s anti-constitutional,” said
Alpha Baldé, of the opposition
Guinean Democratic Forces Union.
In May, leaving his post as
ambassador, Bregadze took a job at
the Russian aluminium company
Rusal. He now heads Rusal’s key
unit in Guinea, which is home to its
biggest mining interests.
Russia has been trying to rekindle
Soviet-era relationships with
governments across Africa and build
new ties. Arms and military advisers
have been supplied to countries
such as Central African Republic,
while pro-Kremlin “observers” have
been sent to elections in Zimbabwe
and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, producing positive takes on
polls marred by rigging and violence.
While it cannot compete with
China’s economic might in Africa,
Russia is carving out its own role.
Formerly a self-described Marxist
socialist revolutionary state and
the fi rst French colony to becomeindependent in Africa, Guinea was
ideologically important for the
Soviet Union.
Amadou Bah , the executive
director of Action Mines, a charity
that monitors Guinea’s mining
industry, said Russian companies
“derive enormous economic
benefi ts for a Russian oligarchy
that has considerable weight in the
political and economic aff airs of this
country”.
Russia’s contemporary interests
in Guinea have mostly been in
mining, a sector responsible for a
third of Guinea’s revenues.
Rusal owns the Kindia Bauxite
Company (CBK), which accounts
for a third of Rusal’s bauxite output,
as well as the Dian Dian Bauxite
Company and the Friguia complex ,
which mines bauxite and refi nes it
into aluminium. Nordgold, another
Russian company, owns a goldmine
in Lefa , in Guinea’s north, into which
it is pumping ever-greater sums.
Early in Condé’s fi rst term, Guineaadopted a new code requiring
mining companies to pay more tax
and protect the environment and
the interests of communities around
their mines. It was quickly revised
when companies froze billions
of dollars of investment and the
government showed a willingness to
relax the rules for favoured partners.
Companies such as Rusal, whose
agreements were due to expire, had
them extended under the old terms
for 25 years. CBK’s agreement was
extended until 2050. According to
a report by the industry watchdog
Publish What You Pay , it is exempt
from taxes on land and salaries.
“The Russians have a special
status in Guinea. That explains the
advantages given to their mining
companies,” said Bah, alleging
that he knew of a secret agreement
between the two countries.
Alexandra Arkhangelskaya, of
the Russian Academy of Sciences’
Institute for African Studies, said
there was a diff erence betweenthe Russian government and
transnational companies. She
said the comment made by the
ambassador “probably refl ects the
Russian attitude and the posture on
global aff airs ”, not Rusal’s interests.
Alexis Arieff , an Africa policy
analyst at the US Congressional
Research Service, said the spurs for
Russian interest in African countries
could be drawn as a Venn diagram.
“ Does the country have useful
mineral resources? Is the country
ripe for challenging the infl uence of
key western actors? Is the country
a market for Russian arms?” she
said. Another factor for Guinea was
a historical Russian diplomatic and
military relationship , she added.
Securing votes on the UN security
council and worrying western
nations are two reasons for Russia ’s
push in Africa, analysts say. It has
succeeded in the latter: Gen Thomas
Waldhauser, the US commander
responsible for military operations
in Africa, said in February that in
Central African Republic “elected
leaders mortgage mineral rights for
a fraction of their worth to secure
Russian weapons”.
Russia is not the only foreign
power with interests in Guinea,
which fi rmly cut ties with France
after independence. China signed
a $20bn (£16bn) infrastructure-
for-minerals deal in 2017. The
Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz ’s
company BSG R recently dropped out
of a massive iron ore project.
A Rusal spokesman said there
was no confl ict of interest regarding
Bregadze’s appointment and no
“secret strategic accords” between
Rusal and Guinea. Responding to a
follow-up question clarifying that
the alleged agreement was between
Guinea and Russia, the spokesman
reiterated: “ There are no such ‘secret
strategic accords’ concerning Rusal.”
The Guinean foreign ministry and
the Russian embassy in Conakry
were also approached for comment.
Since the former ambassador’s
comments, Condé has been ramping
up his rhetoric, recently telling his
supporters to “prepare for battle”.
Condé’s opponents have launched
a campaign to prevent him from
changing the constitution.
Russia’s backing does not carry
the weight that the USSR’s did,
according to Bah. “Russia has
nothing to teach us in terms of
democracy or the functioning of the
state,” he said.Additional reporting
Fatoumata Kanté ConakryRussia details radioactive gasses
released from unexplained blast
Matthew Bodner
MoscowRussia’s meteorological service said
yesterday it had identifi ed four radio-
active substances in samples from
Severodvinsk, a city 18 miles from the
site of an explosion on 8 August where
radiation levels briefl y spiked.
The blast killed at least fi ve scien-
tists at a research centre of Rosatom,
the Russian state nuclear agency. Thesubstances identifi ed were the “tech-
nogenic radionuclides” strontium-91,
barium-139, barium-140 and lantha-
num-140 , which are fast-decaying
isotopes that emit inert radioactive
gasses if exposed to the open air.
These gasses were responsible
for the “sharp, short-lived change in
the radiation situation over Severo-
dvinsk”, the nuclear agency said. The
organi sation has been monitoring the
situation but said no further radiation
had been detected.The Russian government and
Rosatom have been vague about what
exactly happened. A Rosatom state-
ment on 10 August said only that the
device was an “isotopic power source
in a liquid-fuel engine ”, suggesting the
incident had been some kind of failed
missile test.
A second statement from Rosatom,
issued by the head of the research
institute where the fi ve specialists
worked, suggested the test involved
either a small nuclear reactor or a
radio isotope thermoelectric generator
(RTG), both of which have applications
on spacecraft.
The four radionuclides identifi ed
are extremely unusual, according to
Andrei Zolotkov, a chemist who spent35 years working on Russia’s nuclear
icebreaker fl eet and knows the details
of typical nuclear reactors. The y could
be the product of a uranium-235 reac-
tion common in nuclear reactors , but
strontium-91 was still unusual and
caesium-137 should have also been
detected if that had been the case,
said Zolotkov.Local media reports since 8 August
have suggested doctors who treated
victims of the explosion had tested
positive for caesium-137. There were
two possible explanations, Zolotkov
suggested: the failed test involved a
highly unusual reactor or yesterday’s
announcement was a diversion.
Dr Edwin Lyman, of the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a US-based
advocacy group, said yesterday’s fi nd-
ings indicated an accident involving
a reactor. “However, I’m still puzzled
why there was no detection of iodine
isotopes, some of which would be
released in greater quantities,” he said.
Asked if there had been a reactor
blast, Rosatom referred back to its
statement on 10 August.▲ A satellite
view of Conakry,
Guinea’s capital
and largest city
PHOTOGRAPH:
UNIVERSAL IMAGES
GROUP NORTH
AMERICA/ALAMY‘The radionuclides
identifi ed are
extremely unusual’Andrei Zolotkov
Nuclear chemist▼ Guinea’s
president, Alpha
Condé, with
his Russian
counterpart,
Vladimir Putin,
in MoscowRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws