Wagner Group of mercenaries

Wagner Group of mercenaries

Subject :International relations

Section : Msc

Context:

• Tensions are escalating between the United States President Joe Biden’s administration and the US Congress as they debate over designating the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization.

What is the issue:

• The US had imposed the designation of a transnational criminal organisation on the group.
• A group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers is trying to pass legislation known as the Holding Accountable Russian Mercenaries (HARM) Act, which would require the US State Department to label the Wagner Group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).
• However, the Biden administration argues that the FTO designation might result in a “potential, negative blowback”,

What would the FTO designation mean for the Wagner Group:

• FTO is a designation for non-US organisations that are deemed to be involved in terrorist activities. 
• According to Section 219 of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of State can “designate an organisation as a foreign terrorist organisation if the Secretary finds that:

1. The organisation is a foreign organisation.
2. The organisation engages in terrorist activity or terrorist.
3. Threatens the security of United States nationals or the national security of the United States.

• Once an organisation is labelled as an FTO, “it is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide “material support or resources” to” it.
• Moreover, members and representatives of an FTO, “if they are aliens, are inadmissible to and, in certain circumstances, removable from the United States”.
• The department also adds that the funds of an FTO must be frozen and reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury.

Why is the Biden administration not designating the Wagner Group as FTO:

• The Biden administration is reluctant to label Wagner Group as FTO as it believes that the move “could impede US efforts to convince and work with African nations to end their associations with or dependency on Wagner.

About Wagner Group:

• The Wagner Group also known as PMC Wagner is a Russian paramilitary organization.
• The group is believed to have been founded in 2014 by a Russian veteran of the Chechen war who so admired Hitler he named the group after Richard Wagner, the führer’s favorite composer.
• The skull is the symbol of the Wagner Group.
• The organization first came to the world’s attention in 2014, fighting alongside Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
• The organization has also been active across Africa in recent years — Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Mali and the Central African Republic.
• Today there are thought to be some 10,000 Wagner Group members.
• The U.S. government has called Wagner a “proxy force” of Russia’s defense ministry.