 |
| Courtesy: Africanarguments.org |
A lot went wrong for Captain Amadou Sonogo and the military
junta in the wake of their March 22nd coup d’état in Mali.
Maligned by international pressure and unable to secure any semblance of
political leadership in Mali’s capital, Bamako, the military junta signed a
peace accord on April 6th relinquishing
control of the government. The
agreement, sponsored by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),
required Sonogo and the junta to step down and return the country to civilian
rule in exchange for immunity.
Since April 6th, Mali has witnessed the resignation of ousted
president Amadou Toumani Touré and the appointment of Dioncounda Traore,
Speaker of the Parliament, as the interim President – big steps considering
that three weeks ago Mali remained embroiled in a violent coup. Mr. Traore has vowed to reinstate
democratic rule of law and recover territory recently lost to Tuareg rebels
“ideally by peaceful mean, but by all-out
war if necessary.”
The unfolding of events in Mali has been astounding. It has placed the power and leverage of
both regional cooperative mechanisms and international actors on full display.
ECOWAS performed remarkably, choking the junta with sanctions until it
acquiesced and now (at the time of this posting) overseeing Mali’s transition
of power. The broader
international community acted in concert to support ECOWAS with the United
States and Europe leading the field by suspending economic aid packages and
threatening sanctions of their own.
While the international effort to reign in the coup should be applauded,
potentially destabilizing domestic issues were left unaddressed by the
international response, and could pose an even greater threat to Malian and
regional stability than Capt. Sonogo’s power grab. The interim government faces
a formidable opponent in the Tuareg rebels and a burgeoning
humanitarian crisis in the north, both of which are likely to negatively
affect hundreds of thousands of Malians.
These two factors could plunge Mali into a protracted crisis, one that
neither the interim government nor the international community is equipped to
handle, and one that could ripple across the region.
Arguably, Capt. Sonogo’s justification for the coup was
warranted. Over recent months,
Malian security forces have suffered a string of
military defeats in Mali’s northern Sahel region. The Tuareg rebels, recently bolstered
by an influx of
weaponry and battle hardened soldiers (courtesy of Col. Gaddafi’s
failed struggle to hold onto power in Libya) dismantled the young and
inexperienced Malian soldiers stationed in the north with stunning expediency.
The Los
Angeles Times explains that in the days immediately following the coup,
“the Tuareg rebels took control of several key cities, including Kidal, Gao and
Timbuktu, a dramatic advance that saw the collapse of Mali’s military in the
north.” Capt. Sonogo touted the Malian military’s inability to retaliate
against the rebels (reports indicate that Malian soldiers even ran out of
ammunition during skirmishes) as the primary remonstration against the Malian
government. Sonogo citied the
severe lack of equipment and experienced personnel in the north as well as
“incompetence” on the
part of President Touré as the root causes of the military’s failure to defeat
the rebels. Furthermore, generals in Bamako reportedly viewed the Tuaregs as
more of a chronic nuisance than an imminent threat, resulting in yawning gaps
in understanding as to the gravity of the situation on the ground.
The military’s inability to assert control in the Sahel
allowed the disparate groups in the north to coalesce their power under the
Tuareg banner (which now comprises members of the National Movement for the
Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), Malian Tuaregs, Algerian Tuaregs and Al-Qaeda
linked Islamic groups including Ansar Dine, led by Ag Ghaly, and various other
factions linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)). The organized
Tuareg rebels took advantage of the military’s ineptitude and played their hand
masterfully in the security vacuum that developed following the coup. The
Los Angeles Times goes on to explain that, “It took just a few short weeks of
combat for the Tuareg rebels in Mali to achieve a century-old dream: conquering
a huge swath of northern Mali that they see as their homeland.” The Tuareg
rebels gained enough influence and territorial control from their “lightning
advance” across northern Mali, that they have called for the
establishment of an independent state proclaiming, “irrevocably the independent
state of Azawad, starting from this day, Friday April 6, 2012”. This
proclamation has effectively split the country in half, placing Mali in a
precarious situation.
Mali’s interim government now faces two significant
challenges; how to reconcile the Tuareg’s claim to Azawad and how to thwart the
deepening humanitarian crisis in the Sahel. Solving these issues will be equally as important as
returning the country to civilian rule and may prove to be essential to the
success of Mali’s new government.
However, these challenges cannot be accomplished without the explicit
help of the international community.
The international community has a vested interest in seeing
the return of Malian administration in the northern Sahel region. The rise of the Tuareg rebels and their
links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have stoked strong fears that
continued instability in Mali’s north will create a new permissive environment
in which Islamic extremists can operate. The United States regards Mali as "a leading regional partner in
U.S. efforts against terrorism," and has committed resources to
Mali under the auspices of the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCP). However, there are concrete steps that
the United States and willing international actors can take to bolster this
counterterrorism alliance. The Al-Qaeda linked elements of the Tuareg uprising
represent a minority amongst the group and could be effectively marginalized by
leveraging the TSCP initiative focused on ‘discrediting fundamentalist
ideology’. NPR explains
that, "Islamic
fundamentalism is unlikely to go down well in a region that's dominated by the
more tolerant Sufi school of Islam." Isolating the core fundamentalist
elements amongst the Tuareg’s, through the auspices of the TSCP, could prove
vital in mitigating the influence of AQIM in the Sahel. Consequently,
mitigating Al-Qaeda’s influence will require a sustained effort by the Malian
government and the support of the international community.
 |
| Courtesy The Economist |
Bookending Mali’s current turmoil is the growing
humanitarian crisis across Western Africa that could even rival the recent food
crisis that besieged the Horn of
Africa in 2011. Recent
violence in Mali has displaced large populations into neighboring Algeria,
Mauritania, Niger, and Burkina Faso.
The
European Crisis Response Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva explained that,
“Many among the displaced were already on the edge of survival due to the Sahel
food crisis, I fear that the recent violence will exacerbate further the food
emergency both in northern Mali and in neighboring countries where refugees are
flowing to areas of acute food insecurity.” The Tuareg uprising in northern
Mali further complicates relief efforts in Mali provinces hardest hit by the
food crisis. The
International Committee of the Red Cross explains, “Humanitarian work in
northern Mali is a major challenge in the current climate, violence and looting
have severely hampered the operations of a number of agencies.” These competing factors have created an
untenable situation in northern Mali, one that is likely to persist absent
extraordinary efforts by the international community. The European
Commission offered this chilling assessment, “Unless there is rapid
progress in the coming days to open the humanitarian space and allow in
supplies of food an medicines to northern Mali, there will be a major
humanitarian disaster.”
The response to the coup in Mali has created a mixed bag of
outcomes, showing the effectiveness of international cooperation while
highlighting that more must be done to comprehensively address Mali’s
longstanding problems. By
providing decisive security support to Mali’s new government, international
initiatives can help to manage the Tuareg crisis while working to re-establish
an environment where humanitarian aid programs and funding can more effectively
confront the deepening food crisis across the region. Mali has become an
important proving ground for ECOWAS and the international community, but they
must now recommit themselves to supporting the efforts of the interim
government to help stabilize Mali, or risk turning this proving ground into a
cautionary tale.
