Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative Anna Evstigneeva at UNSC briefing on Central Africa
Mr.President,
We thank SRSG Fall for the assessments of the situation in the Central African sub-region that he presented. Russia inalterably supports the activity of the UN Office in Central Africa (UNOCA) as an important tool of preventive diplomacy. We are convinced that “good offices” of SRSG Fall are highly demanded.
Mr.President,
The situation in Central Africa remains complicated. The main threat comes from the activity of numerous armed formations and terrorist organizations, first of all “Islamic State in West Africa” and “Boko Haram”. Militants retain their potential: they continue with attacks against the military of Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, and terrorize the local population. They maintain rear bases in hard-to-reach areas in order to make raids to the inland of neighboring states.
Low combat capacity of regional states, insufficient tactical coordination, and the lack of reliable intelligence data do not let them effectively oppose the well-organized armed formations that use methods of guerilla war and often have support of local population, who have to live side by side with militants. The ideology of radical Islam becomes more widely spread, especially among young people.
The characteristic feature of the region is so-called porous borders that unimpededly let through civilians and goods, as well as militants and smuggled items. In this connection, we believe states need to enhance their efforts to identify and curb channels of terrorists’ recharge with ideological, material, technical, financial, and human resources, as well as advance cooperation with African partners in the area of countering terrorism both bilaterally and at international fora. On our part, we stand ready to share our expertise in this area, implement projects that should build capacity of African states in combating the threats of terrorism and extremism.
We are gravely concerned over the socio-economic situation of local population in Central African sub-region, that can be characterized as almost critical. Hundreds of thousand people became homeless, the number of refugees and IDPs is on the rise, food and drinking water are scarce. COVID-19 remains a threat for the sub-region, having exacerbated the already complex socio-economic situation.
Mr.President,
The situation with ensuring safety of navigation in the Gulf of Guinea raises serious concern, in particular the growing incidence of taking merchant seamen hostages for ransom.
Broad international cooperation, first of all with regard to regular sea surface monitoring, creating a system for vessels identification and escort, as well as early warning about potentially dangerous objects along sea transportation lines could mitigate risks of pirate attacks.
We welcome the convening of the Gulf of Guinea Maritime Collaboration Forum in July this year. It is a new format for cooperation and coordination of power anti-piracy operations. We stand ready to engage actively with this mechanism and assist our regional partners.
We commend the activity of the UNODC-sponsored Global Maritime Crime Programme, which has already added to collective efforts aimed at normalizing the situation off the Horn of Africa coast. This year Russia plans to make a voluntary contribution to GMCP to facilitate technical assistance to Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. In 2020, we made a special contribution to provide technical assistance to coastal guard services of Ghana and Nigeria. Also, in October 2021 a squadron of ships of the Russian Northern Fleet was on a combat duty in the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, performing an exercise on countering piracy. We specifically highlight a successful operation of our marines who prevented vessel “Lucia” from being captured by pirates.
Taking into account considerable region-specific differences in manifestations of piracy and related criminal activity, we advocate for prompt implementation of President Putin’s initiative to create a specialized universal mechanism under UN auspices for addressing the whole range of issues related to maritime crimes in various regions.
Mr.President,
As for the accusations that some delegations dropped against Russia today, there is nothing new about this narrative. We underscore that all those who made such allegations, and those who are likely planning to make some after I have made my statement – they all have a very sad record of destabilizing situations in states (not only African), as well as committing mass crimes against entire nations. Now they are not flawless in terms of human rights either. Quite often, lots of civilians die as a result of their interventions. Mass Media ever more frequently report such cases. That is why we cannot consider allegations made by those SC colleagues as anything else but a hypocritical, evil-eyed, and coordinated information campaign.
I remind that the major factor of instability in the Central African Republic is the activity of illegal armed formations. This country, as any other state in Africa or elsewhere, has a sovereign right to choose partners for addressing security challenges.
Thank you.
