What Does Viktor Orban Want in Africa?

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Congo sentences coup plotters, Tanzania bans opposition protest, and Senegal dissolves parliament.

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Hungary is set to deploy about 200 troops to Chad, ostensibly in an effort to fight terrorism and curb illegal migration to Europe. Hungary, a member of the European Union, has suggested sending its contribution of 14 million euros (about $15.6 million) from the European Peace Facility to Chad, a proposal that will be discussed at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Sept. 26.

Last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hosted Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno in Budapest. “Migration from Africa to Europe cannot be stopped without the countries of the #Sahel region,” Orban wrote on social media ahead of the talks.

Security experts contend that 200 soldiers are unlikely to make an impact in a country more than twice the size of France and nearly 14 times larger than Hungary. Orban’s true goal seems to be a slice of the abundant critical minerals pie in Chad. The far-right Orban is following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s playbook of achieving lasting influence with the cheapest of security investments.

In recent months, Budapest has forged closer ties with N’Djamena. It has proposed opening up an embassy, providing  $150-200 million to support the food and agriculture sectors, and offering 25 scholarships a year for Chadian students to study at Hungarian universities. Orban’s son, Gaspar Orban, has reportedly been appointed as a “liaison officer” spearheading the mission in Chad. Some analysts fear that Budapest, which is close to the Kremlin, may help further Russian interests in the Sahel.

Chad sits at a central crossroad between North, West, and Central Africa, making it a crucial location for foreign nations competing for African influence. It is France’s last bastion in the Sahel, with more than 1,000 French troops stationed in the country. Chad has also received EU troops as they’ve been kicked out from Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. A 10-member team led by Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman of the U.S. Africa Command visited N’Djamena last month to negotiate the return of the American troops that were ejected from Chad in April.

But Chadians have never known democracy, and the country remains one of the world’s poorest, with more than 40 percent of its population of 17.7 million living below the poverty line. In a move backed by France, Déby took power in April 2021 following the death of his father, former President Idriss Déby Itno, who died fighting rebels. Déby Itno’s totalitarian 30-year rule was marked by nepotism and corruption.

Any real opponents to the Déby dynasty were barred from running in the country’s most recent ostensibly democratic elections, held in May, which were won by the younger Déby. Pro-democracy protests organized by Chadians in recent years have been violently shut down.

Some analysts believe that Déby has borrowed his late father’s road map of using international military interventions to stay in power. Chad’s military leadership has made itself indispensable in the fight against jihadism while at the same time creating the ingredients for armed groups to prosper.

Sahel states have not sufficiently addressed the root causes of insecurity in their countries beyond foreign military deals. “Just as the war on terror prevented France and the West from correctly ascertaining the root causes of jihadism in the Sahel. … geopolitical rivalry has added another dangerous layer to an already complex crisis,” warned John A. Lechner, Sergey Eledinov, and Adam Sandor last week in Foreign Policy.

Africa has become a geopolitical playground, with varying emerging powers competing for critical minerals, trade, and security opportunities—including Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Hungary’s population is just 10 million. As democracy erodes across the continent, the door has been left wide open for even the smallest of foreign powers to strike bargain basement deals with African autocrats who care less about their publics than about securing power for life.

Yet rampant violence and economic neglect from autocratic regimes help extremist groups recruit jihadi fighters. And security deals alone will not stem the resulting flow of young Africans to Europe. Russia lost experienced fighters in a recent battle in neighboring Mali as armed groups grew stronger. Under these circumstances, the escalating violence will only hasten migration from the Sahel, ultimately creating a bigger headache for Orban and other European leaders.

Thursday, Sept. 19: U.N. Security Council report due on its mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Tuesday, Sept. 24: Guinea-Bissau marks 51 years of independence from Portugal.

Friday, Sept. 27: U.N. Security Council report due on the situation in Somalia.

Congo coup hearing. A court in Kinshasa sentenced 37 people to death in a decision announced on Friday, including three U.S. citizens, a Briton, a Belgian, and a Canadian charged with participating in an attempted coup. Their lawyer said that all six foreigners intend to challenge the verdict, which was broadcast on Congolese television.

Around 50 armed men stormed the presidential palace on May 19. They were spurred on by self-exiled Congolese opposition figure Christian Malanga, who livestreamed the attack on Facebook. Malanga, who formed the U.S.-registered United Congolese Party, was shot dead by Congolese security forces during the siege.

One U.S. citizen who declined the trip to Kinshasa said that Malanga had offered up to $100,000 to join him on a “security job” in Congo. The Congolese government ended a moratorium on the death penalty earlier this year in a bid to curb spiraling militant attacks in the country.

Senegal dissolves parliament. Citizens of Senegal will vote in a snap parliamentary election on Nov. 17. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has dissolved parliament in an effort to expand his power base. Faye—Africa’s youngest democratically elected leader—is struggling to fulfill his election promises, in part because parliament, elected in 2022, is dominated by allies of his predecessor, Macky Sall.

Sahel Alliance. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger plan to introduce new biometric passports as part of a new Sahel alliance after their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc. The new passports, announced on Sunday by Malian junta leader Assimi Goita, will be issued without the ECOWAS logo, which—like the European Union’s Schengen Area—allows visa-free travel to citizens from member states. ECOWAS has warned that the three countries’ withdrawal risks the now-12-member bloc’s future and regional security.

Tanzania bans protest. Tanzanian police announced on Friday a ban on a protest planned by the main opposition party. The Chadema party had called for a mass rally on Sept. 23 in Tanzania’s former capital, Dar es Salaam, to call on the government to investigate the disappearances of several of its members, as well as the recent death of a senior party official.

Ally Kibao, a member of the secretariat of the party, was found dead last week after being abducted from a bus by armed men. His body had been “severely beaten” and had “acid poured on his face,” his party told the press. Chadema plans to defy the order and go ahead with the protest.

Israel-Hamas war. Approximately 37 percent of Israel’s crude oil is supplied by just three African nations, according to research by nonprofit Oil Change International. Gabon supplies 22 percent of Israel’s oil, Nigeria about 9 percent, and the Republic of Congo roughly 6 percent.

The report suggests that these countries may risk complicity in crimes against Gaza’s population after a landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on Jan. 26 ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Much of the oil, according to the report, has been used to make fuel to power Israel’s fighter jets, tanks, and military vehicles. Currently, 13 nations have announced their intention to support South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel.

Oil firms in the dock. A South African high court in Pretoria on Friday ruled that oil giant BP must pay 53 million rand (about $3 million) in fines for environmental crimes, after it constructed 21 gas stations in the year 2000 without approval. Meanwhile, six former Glencore employees—including the billionaire ex-head of oil, Alex Beard—appeared in a London court last Tuesday while facing bribery charges. The United Kingdom’s fraud office accused the six men of making corrupt payments to government officials and state-owned oil firm employees in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Ivory Coast between 2007 and 2014.

• Germany Is Considering Ending Asylum Entirely by Paul Hockenos
• Netanyahu Is Playing Into Khamenei’s Hands by Dennis Ross
• The Coming Clash Between China and the Global South by James Crabtree

African cinema’s golden age. In Wallpaper, Marris Adikwu reviews Amy Sall’s book celebrating Africa’s greatest photographers and filmmakers, The African Gaze: Photography, Cinema and Power. “Beyond photography, The African Gaze cuts across the world of cinema, highlighting the social, political and cultural impact of filmmakers, from Ousmane Sembène and his dedication to depicting the postcolonial climate exactly as it was to Souleymane Cissé’s pushback against flawed, Eurocentric depictions of Africans,” Adikwu writes.

Russia’s Africa doctrine. In Foreign Policy, Benjamin R. Young argues that Moscow markets itself as the spearhead of a new global anti-colonial movement in Africa, building on the Soviet Union’s history of support for independence movements across the continent. But Russia is doing this, Young writes, despite Moscow’s own imperialist legacy and its current war of recolonization in Ukraine.