How Africa is armed
Africa is increasingly in need of weapons and is increasingly involved in a real competition to see who can grab the best weapons at the best price. The article by Giuseppe Gagliano
Paradoxical as it may be, Africa is increasingly in need of weapons and is increasingly involved in a real competition to see who can grab the best weapons at the best price.
In this frenzied race, African states are increasingly turning to state-owned companies or companies directly related to producing countries. Russia, which became the continent's largest arms exporter in 2020, operates through Rosoboronexport, a state organization.
In France, Thales, Safran and Dassault are well established. During his recent visits to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accompanied by Ismail Demir of the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB in Turkish). An increasingly important military actor, Ankara's ambition is to make the International Defense Industry Fair ( Idef ), held annually in Istanbul, a key meeting place for African decision makers. In 2021, Erdogan inaugurated the fair with the president of Sierra Leone, Julius Maada Bio.
On the fringes of this regulated trade between clearly identified actors are still some rare characters – representatives of a bygone era. These are intermediaries who, for the most part, avoid the spotlight due to the bad press that the business receives.
These men embody, each in their own way, a nefarious African business in which small arms, second-hand aircraft and armored vehicles of all kinds are always bought at a bargain price. We call them arms dealers. They themselves prefer the softer term "arms brokers". As if to give the impression of being able to trade weapons in the same way that raw materials are exchanged.
But who are the most important arms traffickers in Africa?
Aboubacar Hima, Ivor Ichikowitz and Rafi Dermardirossian. The first, based in Niamey, was the cause of a serious corruption scandal. The second is a "philanthropist" who owns the largest arms company on the continent. The latest is a Franco-Lebanese trader in his forties who moved to Ouagadougou in the early 2010s.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/come-si-arma-lafrica/ on Sun, 03 Jul 2022 07:33:05 +0000.