Behind the African peace mission between Kiev and Moscow, the Brazzaville Foundation

The creator of the Brazzaville Foundation Jean-Yves Ollivier at the United Nations headquarters on May 26, 2015, in New York. © Michael loccisano / Getty Images, via AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's announcement of an African peace mission to Ukraine and Russia surprised many African diplomats, as preparations are being made by the Brazzaville Foundation, created and directed by Frenchman Jean-Yves Ollivier.

Advertising

Read more

The announcement was made on Tuesday, May 16 by Cyril Ramaphosa. According to the South African president, Kiev and Moscow have agreed to host a delegation led by the heads of state of Zambia, Senegal, Congo-Brazzaville, Uganda, Egypt, and South Africa. But since then, radio silence. Contacted, the officials of the states concerned do not wish to speak for the moment. "In this type of negotiation, a detail can call everything into question," says one minister.

It is therefore in parallel with the usual diplomatic frameworks that this mission project was mounted. With, at the heart of its presidential networks, the Brazzaville Foundation, created in 2015 and chaired by the Frenchman Jean-Yves Ollivier. The businessman has made his fortune in commodity trading around the world, particularly in Africa where he has forged strong ties with decision-makers for four decades. From former Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny to Congo-Brazzaville President Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Angolan José dos Santos, Jean-Yves Ollivier is a regular at presidential palaces. "I dedicated myself to business and politics caught up with me," he told RFI in 2014.

Shadow actor

Close to President Jacques Chirac, Jean-Yves Olivier worked in the shadows in South Africa during apartheid and then with Nelson Mandela, in the DRC, the Comoros and Sudan. In 2020, he also organized a conference in Lomé on the fight against fake medicines with seven heads of state from the continent. "We know today that trafficking corrupts from the grassroots to the highest level of the state, that it also feeds terrorism," he said at the end of the event.

And it is therefore again his foundation that is at the origin of this peace mission project formalized by Cyril Ramaphosa. By coordinating this project with six African presidents, Jean-Yves Ollivier breaks diplomatic codes and tackles an international challenge. If Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky have accepted the idea, the most difficult thing remains to organize it. It will now be necessary to launch new negotiations in order to establish a common agenda between six African heads of state and Presidents Putin and Zelenskiy. According to our information, this peace mission is planned over four days with the end of June as the deadline. The only certainty: if it holds, the mission will stop first in Kiev and then in Moscow.

► Read also: South Africa faced with its position of neutrality on the war in Ukraine

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

  • Ukraine
  • Diplomacy
  • Russia
  • France
  • South Africa
  • Volodymyr Zelensky
  • Vladimir Poutine
  • Congo