Western powers have failed to bully African countries into submission and to persuade them not to attend the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit, Russian Foreign Ministry ambassador-at-large Oleg Ozerov, the head of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum, has told Sputnik.
“Pressure is being exerted. It is of a permanent character. This pressure was exerted through various channels – through the diplomatic corps of Western nations, which literally on a daily basis are trying to dissuade representatives of African states from traveling to Russia, and which demand that African countries firmly pick a camp,” Ozerov said.
The West’s demands look “very strange,” the diplomat said, as they’re coming “from those countries which publicly proclaim democracy and freedom of choice, but in practice demand submission to their dictates.”
There are also other forms of pressure besides politics and diplomacy, the ambassador-at-large said, including economic and financial coercion, with “political conditions put in place for the provision of economic assistance to a number of states both through the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where the United States uses its dominant position to put forward political conditions.”
Similar conditionalities are being set up by the European Union, “when the allocation of loans is conditioned on the termination of contacts with the Russian side, or their reduction to a minimum, the non-attendance of a summit or the non-participation in [other] events,” Ozerov said.
Nevertheless, the diplomat stressed that Russia has not seen “African states following this dictate en masse.”
“It’s now obvious that that the Western bloc cannot bend all other countries to its will, for objective reasons,” Ozerov said, likely alluding to the G7’s falling political and economic weight in the world as the BRICS countries slowly move the planet in the direction of genuine political and economic multipolarity.
Delegations from 49 of Africa’s 54 countries confirmed their plans to participate in the Russia-Africa Summit by last week, with about half being represented at the highest level – by heads of state or heads of government, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Ahead of the summit, Russian President Putin penned an article outlining his vision on the prospects for cooperation between Russia and African countries.
Policy Declaration
Offering a preview of the summit, Ozerov said that Russian and African leaders will be adopting an overarching policy declaration, joint action plan, as well as three documents on sectoral cooperation, with the latter concerned with "the fight against terrorism, the non-deployment of weapons in space and international information security."
The Russian Foreign Ministry expects that these document will become a platform for joint work with African countries on the creation of a new configuration of international relations, based on equality and a multipolar world rather than on a "unilateral dictatorship," the diplomat noted.
Moscow will also propose solutions to problems with food security to African nations amid the expiration of the Black Sea Grain Initiative last week, Ozerov said.
"Of course, it will be not only a discussion as such, but the discussion with solutions for African nations so that they leave St. Petersburg with clear understanding how these issues will be resolved," Russian diplomat said.
