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Mali: No End to Conflict in Sight
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jan 15, 2013 (130115)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"Three things emerge from the haze. First, fierce
fighting in the North and the East, with French forces in
the lead, will open up a whole new set of dangers. With
Islamist forces on the attack, foreign intervention was
necessary, and many Malians at home and abroad welcomed
it enthusiastically. Still, this remains a dangerous
moment all around. Second, while the latest crisis might
not break the political deadlock in Bamako, it has
already changed the dynamic. And third, despite the sorry
state of mediation efforts to date - both within West
Africa and beyond - savvy diplomacy is needed now more than
ever." - Gregory Mann, commenting on January 14 on the
situation in Mali.
In his article, included in the issue of AfricaFocus
Bulletin along with an update from the UNHCR on the
situation of Malian refugees and internally displaced
persons, Mann argues that the intervention was necessary
(given the collapse of the Mlian army and the
consequences of failure to intervene) but that it also
offers no solution to the crisis, which requires both
political reorganization in Bamako and more effective
international diplomacy.
Observers may agree or disagree on the wisdom of the
latest intervention, whether in its present phase or as
it evolves with greater involvement of African forces
from ECOWAS. But no one is predicting an easy road ahead
or a quick end to the crisis.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Mali, including in
2012, see http://www.africafocus.org/country/mali.php
For a recent article with additional background on
previous U.S. counter-productive support for Mali's
military, see
"French Strikes in Mali Supplant Caution of U.S.", New
York Times, Jan. 14, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com / direct URL -
http://tinyurl.com/boxv8va
For an article with background on the U.S. role past and
present, see "U.S. Prepares Support for French Military
Intervention in Mali" IPS, January 15, 2012
http://allafrica.com/stories/201301150071.html
For a pair of articles from last fall, by Gregory Mann
and Simon Allison, respectively supporting and opposing
military intervention, appearing in African Arguments and
in the Guardian, now moot but with much useful
background, see http://tinyurl.com/cofaqvv and
http://tinyurl.com/clh4bnt
Also in the Guardian, January 15, 2013: "Mali's crisis
caused by development failures, not military aid" by
Heather Hurlburt
http://tinyurl.com/a4d2vqt - argues that whatever the
failures of U.S. military aid, the basic problem was
neglecting more fundamental issues of development.
For an informed overview of the situation in neighboring
Mauritania and the likelihood of its being more involved
in the conflict in Mali, see "A Mauritania Outlook," in
The Moor Next Door blog. http://themoornextdoor.wordpress.com / direct URL
http://tinyurl.com/d2jfaz6
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++
France in Mali: the End of the Fairytale
January 14, 2013 by Gregory Mann
Africa is a Country
http://africasacountry.com / direct URL -
http://tinyurl.com/agnjrf5
Whew, Mali. French air raids against Islamist positions
in Mali began Thursday night, and the dust hasn't settled
yet. The news is changing fast, but, three things emerge
from the haze. First, fierce fighting in the North and
the East, with French forces in the lead, will open up a
whole new set of dangers. With Islamist forces on the
attack, foreign intervention was necessary, and many
Malians at home and abroad welcomed it enthusiastically.
Still, this remains a dangerous moment all around.
Second, while the latest crisis might not break the
political deadlock in Bamako, it has already changed the
dynamic. And third, despite the sorry state of mediation
efforts to date - both within West Africa and beyond - savvy
diplomacy is needed now more than ever.
First, the fighting. The French have come in hard and
fast, with fighter jets flying sorties from southern
France over Algerian airspace, helicopters coming in from
bases in Burkina Faso, and special forces and
Legionnaires from Côte d'Ivoire, Chad, Burkina, and
France. There are indeed French boots on the ground,
fighting alongside what remains of the Malian army and
troops from neighboring countries. So far it is the air
assault that has garnered headlines, chasing the allied
Islamist fighters from the positions they had taken last
week, as well as from most of their Sahelian strongholds
(as I write, no reports of fighting in or around
Timbuktu). Konna, Douentza, Gao, Léré, Kidal ...: ça
chauffe [it's heating up].
Three things on that.
The intervention was necessary. The drama of the Islamist
offensive should not be underestimated -a successful
assault on Sevaré would have meant the loss of the only
airstrip in Mali capable of handling heavy cargo planes,
apart from that in Bamako. The fall of Sevaré would in
turn have made any future military operation a nightmare
for West African or other friendly forces, and it would
have chased tens of thousands of civilians from their
homes. These would only have been the most immediate
effects. After Sevaré nothing would have stopped an
Islamist advance on Segu and Bamako, although it is
unclear to me that the Islamists would have any strategic
interest in investing Mali's sprawling and densely
populated capital. Still, many Bamakois feared an attack,
and had one occurred the human costs would have been
astronomical. Malians remember well that only a few
months ago, insurgent forces ejected the army from
northern Mali as if they were throwing a drunk from a
bar. Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal fell in a weekend. The army
collapsed, and it has only been weakened by internal
fighting since. Any other story is a fairytale.
The enemy is formidable. French officials expressed some
surprise at the level of sophistication of the Islamist
forces - well-armed, well-trained and experienced. In an
early wave of the French intervention, one helicopter
took heavy fire from small arms, and a pilot was killed;
another French soldier remains missing. Malian casualties
were heavy, and likely remain under-reported. Sources
from Mopti refer to dozens of deaths among the Malian
ranks, and there will be other casualties to come. In
short, last week's Islamist offensive put paid to the
argument that the Malian army itself was capable of
defending the country from further attack and of
liberating the territory over which it had lost control.
This is not a neo-colonial offensive. The argument that
it is might be comfortable and familiar, but it is bogus
and ill-informed. France intervened following a direct
request for help from Mali's interim President,
Dioncounda Traore. Most Malians celebrated the arrival of
French troops, as Bruce Whitehouse
(http://bridgesfrombamako.com/) and Fabien Offner
(https://twitter.com/fabienoff) have demonstrated. Every
Malian I've talked to agrees with that sentiment. The
high stakes and the strength of the enemy help to explain
why the French intervention was so popular in a country
that is proud of its independence and why the French
tricolor is being waved in Bamako. That would have been
unimaginable even 6 months ago - and probably even last
week. More important than how quickly it went up will be
how quickly it comes down; this popularity could be
ephemeral. One tweeter figures French President François
Hollande is more popular than Barack Obama right now. I'd
wait for Hollande's face to go up on a few barbershops
before making that call, but the comparison gives a sense
of the relief many felt when French forces came to the
rescue of the Malian army.
Not everyone is in favor of the intervention. Let's count
some of the more vocal opponents - Oumar Mariko, Mali's
perpetual gadfly; French ex-Prime Minister Dominique de
Villepin, who argues that it would be better to wait for
the lions to lie down with the lambs; Paris-based
Camerounian novelist Calixthe Beyala, plagiarist who
argues that those Malians who would prefer not to live
under a crude faux-Islamic vigilantism suffer from a
plantation mentality; and some truly reprehensible
protesters at the French embassy in London, who refuse to
believe that most Malians are Muslims and don't need
religious instruction from Salafists. It's hard to
imagine a leakier ship of fools.
Second, fighting in the north has already changed the
political dynamics on the ground in Bamako. The pro-junta
movement MP-22 and Mariko, one of its most prominent
leaders, opposed the French intervention just as they've
violently opposed the possibility of ECOWAS help (this is
the same crowd that nearly lynched the interim president
last spring). Their position not only contrasts sharply
with public sentiment, it also puts the movement at odds
with Mali's largest political coalition of the moment,
the FDR, which had joined MP-22 in calling for a national
conference in the days before the Islamist offensive.
Since then the FDR has declared that now is not the time.
What to make of this? First, as for MP-22, the dogs bark,
but the caravan passes. Second and more importantly,
although the question of the national conference might be
bracketed for the moment, it will come back soon.
Three important changes have already occurred in Bamako:
First - and strikingly - even Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, who
led the coup in March and who still holds a great deal of
political power, has welcomed the arrival of French
troops. This is important: he had been forced to abandon
the argument that his troops could go it alone. His
fierce opposition to the idea that ECOWAS troops - still
less French ones - would come to Mali's aid had been only
gradually been whittled down over the last several
months, but it withered completely in the face of the
recent Islamist offensive. Now, he has had to reverse
course. When he made a lightning trip to Mopti-Sevaré
over the weekend, it was hard to avoid the impression
that he was struggling to remain relevant to both Kati
(the garrison) and Kuluba (the presidential palace).
Second, virtually unremarked upon with all eyes in the
East, several hundred French soldiers are deployed in
Bamako to protect French citizens - of whom there are
reportedly some 6,000 in Mali, of whom expatriates are a
minority (press: please note). In the current emergency
while the French troops are there ostensibly to protect
their citizens and other civilians from terrorist attack,
they implicitly secure the civilian government against
its own military and against mobs like those ginned up by
MP-22 and other radical associations. Meanwhile, soldiers
from ECOWAS nations are arriving by the hundreds,
although it is not yet clear what role they will play or
where they will be stationed.
Third, their presence puts President Traore in a stronger
position. In months past, both the junta and the antiglobalization
Left have been allergic to the idea of any
foreign troops in Bamako itself, and they have used
violence and intimidation to secure their argument. Now
Traore has proven strong enough both to ask for military
aid and to receive it. Neither he nor his new Prime
Minister Django Cissoko remains prisoner to the threats
of the military or the radical opposition.
Still, especially given all that's happened over the
weekend, it is important to recall to that the political
situation in Bamako remains unstable. Dioncounda Traore's
"interim" presidency is long past its constitutional
sell-by date, and the rest of Mali's political
class - including its once-young angry Left - have hardly
failed to notice that. Last week, before the offensive, a
broad coalition formed to demand a "national
consultation" (often bruited, sometimes scheduled, never
held), Traore's resignation (to be replaced by whom?),
and the launching of a military campaign to retake the
north (which, coincidentally, they got, even if it was
not the Malian-led initiative they wanted). On Wednesday
demonstrators burned tires, blocked traffic, and shut
down two of the three bridges across the Niger. Some men
in masks reportedly fired guns in the air and carjacked
trucks and 4X4s. In response, Traore closed all schools
in Bamako and in the garrison town of Kati. If he was
attempting to keep the students from joining the fray, he
failed. In addition to opening Traore up to a certain
amount of Twitter ridicule (Twittercule?), Traore's edict
brought the students' union out on the streets on
Thursday. They broke into high schools, chasing out
students who were sitting exams (bad luck: apparently the
questions were easy). At the moment, schools are open
again, but the President has declared a state of
emergency. In short, Bamako remains uneasy, and the
"sacred union" of the last few days can only be
temporary.
Third, what all this suggests is that the Mali
crisis - which long ago became the Sahel crisis - needs
diplomatic intervention every bit as urgently as it
needed military intervention.
To date, West African meditation efforts have been
manipulated by Burkinabe President Blaise Campaoré, whom
ECOWAS has dubbed its mediator in the conflict. Few
Malians take Campaoré as a legitimate interlocutor, and
no one believes that he has the country's interests at
heart. After profiting from hostage-taking by negotiating
ransoms with AQMI, Campaor´ was until recently harboring
dozens of MNLA fighters while attempting to manipulate
ex-Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra by remote control.
The military threw Diarra out of office in December, and
a steady campaign to tarnish his image irreparably has
accelerated since then, as he stands accused of diverting
funds intended to aid the refugees to finance his
political party. As for Campaor´'s guests from the MNLA,
it's said that he asked them to leave Burkina after they
refused to keep a low profile. Several dozen have since
turned up in Mauritania. In response to the latest round
of skirmishing, which compelled the postponement of
further negotiations in Ouagadougou, Campaor´'s lead
diplomat Djibril Bassolé called on both sides to stop
firing and hold their positions, as if this was a
legitimate request to make of a national army defending
its own territory and civilians, and as if he himself had
anything better to offer than the prospect of further
degrading the situation.
As for the UN, although after much discussion the
Security Council has authorized the use of force by
ECOWAS to re-establish Mali's territorial integrity, the
organization's Secretary General seems to be running, as
ever, on empty. Ban Ki-moon named Romano Prodi his
emissary for the Sahelian crisis, leaving some to wonder
if he had not got his dossiers shuffled. Prodi, a former
Prime Minister of Italy, knows nothing of the Sahel and
speaks none of its languages, only stumbling along in
French. He is scarcely qualified for the job: in 2008, he
led a UN-African Union panel on peacekeeping. More to the
point, perhaps, he once helped to negotiate for the
release of hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Yet the narrow lens of the hostage conundrum is precisely
the wrong way to examine the Sahelian crisis (see:
Nicolas Sarkozy), and this is not a peacekeeping
scenario. At an event in Paris back in June, Manthia
Diawara made the very good point that if Mali's friends
and neighbors take the country's crisis seriously, they
ought to be delegating some serious mediators to it.
Campaoré and Bassolé, on behalf of ECOWAS, and Prodi, on
the part of the UN, don't make the grade. Could
Presidents Yaya Boni of Benin or Macky Sall of Senegal,
for instance, step in where Campaoré has failed? Africa
is not short on diplomats, elders, and people of
experience. President Traore - and Secretary-General
Moon -should be writing to them as well.
Disclaimers
The situation is changing very quickly, and much of what
is written here may soon be outdated.
For lack of a better term, I use "Islamist" to refer to
the alliance of AQMI, Ansar Dine, MUJAO, and other
foreign movements. Other terms are inadequate
("terrorist") or inaccurate. I reserve the terms rebels
or insurgents for the host of anti-government forces,
which includes the MNLA, a movement now at odds with its
former allies Ansar Dine.
Mali: UNHCR Says Stepped Up Fighting in Mali Triggers
Fresh Displacement
by Helene Caux, 15 January 2013
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/201301150971.html
Press Release
Dakar - The UN refugee agency said on Tuesday that
clashes over the weekend between the French-backed Malian
army and Al Qaeda-linked Islamist groups in northern and
central Mali have resulted in new population displacement
- both within Mali and into neighbouring countries.
In Niger, UNHCR teams are reporting that 450 refugees
arrived on Friday and Saturday in the west of the country
at Mangaize camp (north of Ouallam), Banibangou and
Tillabery towns as well as in the Tillia area. "Refugees
are telling us they fled the ongoing military
intervention, the absence of subsistence opportunities
and basic services, and the imposition of Sharia law,"
spokesman Adrian Edwards said.
In Burkina Faso, 309 people have arrived in camps in the
north and north-east, including in Damba and Mentao
camps, as well as in Bobo Dioulasso.
In Mauritania, 471 Malian refugees have reportedly
arrived at the Fassala reception centre near the Malian
border. They will be transported further away from the
border to the Mbera camp, which is already hosting some
54,000 Malian refugees who were displaced in 2012.
Ninety per cent of the new arrivals are women and
children from the Lere area in Mali. "UNHCR has updated
its contingency planning in case of new major potential
influxes to neighbouring countries and new displacements
in Mali, and we are ready to respond with assistance as
needed," Edwards said.
He added that details on the displacement situation
inside Mali were less clear. "According to our partner,
the Commission on Populations Movements in Mali - and
based on mixed reliability information sources - 648
people arrived in [the capital] Bamako from the north
between January 10 and 13, [some] 360 arrived in Segou
and 226 arrived in Mopti from the Timbuktu region."
He added that to the north of Mopti, at Konna, around
5,000 people (or half the Konna population) are reported
to have fled the town across the River Niger, and are
staying among the local community.
In Mopti itself, the situation is said to have calmed.
Currently, access to new areas of displacement in the
north remains impossible because of the security
situation. A number of residents of Mopti and the nearby
town of Sevare fled last week to Bamako via Segou, which
has been hosting some 30,000 internally displaced people.
In Bamako, which is host to some 52,000 internally
displaced people (IDPs), many IDPs are struggling to make
ends meet. UNHCR staff recently spoke to displaced
families who are struggling to pay their monthly rent.
Many families live in small dilapidated rooms with no
electricity or direct access to water. They generally
lack enough space to accommodate all family members. The
needs for money, food and shelter are huge and UNHCR is
working with partners on income-generation activities to
help ease the situation.
"Meanwhile, we are continuing to assist those refugees
who are in camps in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania by
providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene structures,
health care and education," spokesman Edwards said.
In Burkina Faso, UNHCR has relocated close to 5,000
Malian refugees from Ferrerio and Gandafabou sites, close
to the Mali border, to a safer camp at Goudebou, which is
located further inland near the city of Dori. An
additional 13,500 refugees should be relocated in the
coming weeks from the border area to safer camps. In
Niger, UNHCR staff continue to register individual
refugees to improve reliability of data and information
on needs.
On the funding front, UNHCR has only received 63 per cent
(US$77.4 million) of the US$123 million the agency is
seeking for its operations to help Malian refugees and
IDPs.
The total number of Malian refugees in the region is
144,500, with some 54,100 in Mauritania, 50,000 in Niger,
38,800 in Burkina Faso and 1,500 in Algeria. Small groups
are also in Guinea and Togo. The internally displaced
population inside Mali (including people displaced last
year, and those newly displaced in the past week) was
estimated by Mali's Commission on Population Movements at
228,918 - principally in Bamako, Segou, Kayes, Koulikoro,
Sikasso and Mopti as of Monday.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic
publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on
African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and
international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by
William Minter.
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