RE: Strategic Partner24 May 2024 20:45
(1) Re Big Den meeting with Lavrov, security may well be on the agenda.
See this from Africa Intelligence (albeit 18 months ago) :
https://www.africaintelligence.com/central-africa/2022/09/28/washington-and-paris-perturbed-by-wagner-s-congo-foray,109826863-eve
.."Washington and Paris perturbed by Wagner's Congo foray
The United States and France are worried that Wagner, which is already heavily involved in the Central Africa Republic and Mali, is now trying to get a foothold in Congo. Fears that the mercenary group might be trying to set up shop in the port of Pointe-Noire are being taken very seriously.
Defence, Diplomacy 28.09.2022 "
(2) Re concurrent Little Den visit to Brazil in 10 days' time, I wonder what that's really about ? There's already been some lower-level engagement with his ostensible visit purpose :
https://www.embrapa.br/busca-de-noticias/-/noticia/65164252/embrapa-discute-cooperacao-com-agentes-do-congo---brazzaville
OTOH, consider :
- Vale is / was an instrumentality of Brazil's foreign policy. It went into Simandou during the last year of Lula's first Prrsidency and likely at his behest;
- Lula has shown (recent Petrobas management changes) that he's still of an 'interventionist' mindset with his/Brazil's 'parastatals';
- he's on good terms with Big Den, not least a shared interest (cough) in forestry;
- his election campaign(s) benefited from lots of publicity paid for indirectly by Asperbras Africa;
- Asperbras was at the heart of a corruption investigation (12 hospitals contract) back in 2012 that involved Little Den, it's been back in the news recently on a re-start of the same (!) contracts.
With that context, it's interesting to note the recent flight history of our old friend, PP-FCC :
.."The Bombardier BD-700-1A10 Global 6000 with registration PP-FCC is owned by CREDIT SUISSE AG. It was delivered on May 27, 2014 and is still active as of September 15, 20231. The aircraft is operated by Greenplac Tecnologia Industrial Ltda."
Greenplac is part of Asperbras , see https://asperbras.com/nosso-negocio/greenplac/ and is a timber processor.
Starting 9th May, PP-FCC flew from Cascais to Brazzaville (9th); to Oyo (10th) and back to Braz 11th , to Oyo and Libreville12th, back to Oyo 15th, to Braz 16th, back again to Oyo 17th, before leaving same day to Cascais, arriving at base Penapolis on the 18th.
Greenplac itself may have been discussing logging operations in C-B and Gabon (Brazil apparently imports (from somewhere) about 1/10th of the 150,000 m3 of logs that it exports). Or the parentco hospital contracts in C-B.
Another possibility is that Asperbras is a useful conduit/messenger/bag-carrier for whatever discussions have been going on between the various parties above.
AFAICS
GLA