Africans want nothing to do with the West – analyst to RT

The EU’s chief diplomat recently admitted that there is a high level of support for Russia on the continent

African nations are not looking to Russia because it is standing up to the West, but because Moscow treats them with appreciation and respect, Joe Mhlanga, founder and editor of Behind the News Network, told RT on Friday.

The comments come after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell admitted his surprise this week at the high level of support for Russia among people in Africa. Borrell urged the bloc to engage in more information warfare on the continent to remedy the situation and make sure Africans have the “correct information.”

“Africans are not supporting Russia or President Putin because they are fighting the West –  no, it’s the good deeds the Russians are doing for the African people,” Mhlanga said. “It’s the treatment that they get from Russia. It’s the manner in which they are received in Moscow.”

According to Mhlanga, in contrast to Russia, the West “still looks at African people like they are stupid.”

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“For the last 500 years [the West] has been in Africa, they’ve been oppressing Africans – and they thought that would last forever,” he said, adding that Africans consequently now “want nothing to do with the West.”

“It’s time for Africans to look where they will be appreciated and accepted. Not where they will be used as experimental guinea pigs like the West has been doing to African people,” he said.

On Thursday, speaking at the NATO Public Forum in Washington D.C., Borrell admitted that “in Africa, people support Putin” and stressed the need to “disseminate news and occupy cyberspace” in Africa. The EU is “very active” in that area, he said.

Moscow has repeatedly maintained that African countries have the right to “choose their own path of development,” as well as their political and economic partners “depending on their own national interests.”