A separatist and Islamist insurgency in the north, weak democratic
governance and drought are pushing Mali to the brink of collapse. The way
forward, argues John Campbell, involves seeking a political settlement with
secessionists and external intervention to avert a humanitarian disaster.
By John Campbell for Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
28 Aug 2012
_____
In northern Mali, Ansar Dine, a radical Islamist group with claimed ties to
al-Qaeda, has turned against the principal indigenous Tuareg separatist
movement, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA). For
now, Ansar Dine has the upper hand but with shallow indigenous roots.
Thousands of Malians are fleeing the fighting and Ansar Dine's harsh regime.
In Bamako, Mali's capital, a brokered settlement between the military junta
and an interim civilian government of the elites is not working. Throughout
the country, drought and a plague of locusts are adding to the humanitarian
disaster. A way forward would include a political settlement between the
junta and the elites in Bamako and between the capital and the indigenous
secessionists. That would require Bamako to drive a wedge between the NMLA
and Ansar Dine. For now, rather than support military intervention in the
North, the international community should move quickly to address the
immediate humanitarian needs.
Mali's Power Vacuum
Mali had beendemocratic in form, but its governance was dominated by weak
elite patronage networks facilitating personal enrichment but not social or
economic development. The system especially short-changed the
Tuareg-dominated north, where there has long been a low-level secessionist
insurgency. After Muammar al-Qaddafi's fall in 2011, access to uncontrolled
Libyan weapons transformed that insurgency into a well-armed rebellion that
the Bamako government of President Amadou Toure could not contain. The
Tuaregs, led by the NMLA, loosely allied with radical Islamic groups,
including Ansar Dine, expelled the Malian forces from the north, and
proclaimed the independence of a new state, Azawad.
A junior officer coup with popular, anti-elite support in Bamako in April
overthrew Toure's government, ostensibly because of its military
incompetence. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),
opposed to coups and secessionist movements, brokered a deal that resulted
in an interim civiliangovernment headed by Dioncounda Traore, the former
leader of the National Assembly. Subsequently, a mob apparently supporting
the junta and seeing Traore as part of the Toure clique invaded the
presidential palace and beat the elderly interim president severely. Traore
has only now returned to Bamako from medical treatment in France. The junta
and the civilian government exercise ill-defined parallel authority. But, in
effect, there is a power vacuum in Bamako.
In the north, Ansar Dine appears to have little public support. Islam in
Mali is more than a thousand years old; it has long been a center of Islamic
high culture, as the monuments in Timbuktu and elsewhere testify. Malians
have little to learn about Islam from Salafists. There have been popular
demonstrations against Ansar Dine. Resorting to the destruction of monuments
in Timbuktu and the stoning of an unmarried couple before a compelled 300
witnesses are forms of terrorism that signal Ansar Dine's vulnerability as
well as its fanaticism.
A Growing Humanitarian Crisis
A government that commands popular support and the restoration of the
territorial integrity of Mali are the goals. The ECOWAS effort to broker the
departure of the military junta and the return of civilian government has
failed. The visceral opposition by ECOWAS leaders to military coups may be
in the way of achieving a genuinely brokered solution in Bamako.
ECOWAS leaders are also frightened of a jihadist Islamic presence in
northern Mali that could threaten their own governments. There is the
prospect that factional fighting in the north will result in more refugee
flows into their own poor countries. According to the United Nations, some
250,000 Malians have already fled to other countries since March, and
167,000 are internally displaced. And ECOWAS states too face the prospect of
food insecurity resulting from drought. The UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) estimates more than ten million people need emergency
assistance in the western Sahel because of poor rainfall, failed harvests,
and conflict.
A paralyzed government in Bamako and jihadist Islamic domination in the
north will also inhibit the delivery of international food assistance. And
funding is tight. According to a UNHCR spokesman on August 1, the agency has
received only one-third of the funds needed to assist uprooted Malians.
ECOWAS appears to see northern Mali as a security problem. It has pledged
some 3,000 troops to a Malian effort to retake the north. The French have
also offered ECOWAS some assistance, but the paralyzed Bamako government has
issued no invitation to ECOWAS. Azawad is a vast desert with only a few
population centers. It is inconceivable that a military force, even if well
trained and equipped, could successfully defeat the Tuaregs on their home
ground. No Malian military force ever has.
ECOWAS and the International Community
Mali is imploding because of the failure of its politics and the opening
that it provided to radical jihadist groups, and because of its failure to
address the deep-seated discontent of the north. Only Malians can save Mali.
But Mali's friends can encourage and support a political process that
establishes a credible government in Bamako and begin the process of
restoring the country's territorial integrity.
Given the visceral suspicion of Western intervention in West Africa in the
aftermath of the French role in Cote d'Ivoire and NATO's campaign in Libya,
it is ECOWAS that needs to take the lead in breaking the stalemate in
Bamako. ECOWAS should re-engage in political horse-trading that might lead
to an effective interim government and holds out the promise of credible
elections within a year. However, its involvement should be more
transparent, and its consultations should be broader than they were when it
brokered the original agreement between the junta and the civilians. ECOWAS
should recognize that popular support for the coup makers cannot be wished
away.
With respect to the north, ECOWAS and the international community should
accept the reality that regional and ethnic alienation cannot be solved
through the use of security forces, and the Tuaregs and Ansar Dine cannot be
defeated militarily on the edge of the Sahara. ECOWAS, with the support of
the international community, especially France and the United States, should
facilitate a dialogue between the Bamako government and the NMLA. Initially,
the goal should be to isolate Ansar Dine. Long-term northern grievances can
probably best be addressed by formulas that grant the region substantial
autonomy. The Bamako government has, in effect, reneged on such agreements
in the past. ECOWAS and the international community should prevent that from
happening again.
In the short term, Mali and the region faces a humanitarian disaster
resulting from the flow of refugees and food shortages caused by drought.
The developed world needs to immediately increase the funding levels of the
various UN agencies charged with relief. Western donors should also
recognize that food aid deliveries to parts of northern Mali that are
controlled by jihadists area humanitarian imperative.
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Received on Tue Aug 28 2012 - 18:42:16 EDT
