Analysis: Towards intervention in Mali
BAMAKO, 2 October 2012 (IRIN) - After weeks of shuttle diplomacy,
speculation and contradictory signals, the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) now looks to have the backing of the Malian
government for a major troop deployment in northern Mali.
ECOWAS is still seeking support from the UN Security Council, whose members
are divided on the issue of military intervention. Internal ECOWAS documents
point to a draft plan, outlining provisional troop numbers, budget and
time-frame.
In Bamako, supporters of an ECOWAS deployment are adamant that a strong
outside force is crucial if Mali wants to “recapture” the north, ousting the
Islamic movements which took over the area six months ago but have dominated
an extensive criminal economy for years.
Speaking at a high-level meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly
last week, Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon highlighted the Sahel's need for
closer regional cooperation and a special UN emissary of its own, warning of
"terrorist groups, transnational criminal organizations and insurgencies",
and noting: "Human trafficking is on the rise, along with drug-trafficking
and arms smuggling.”
Who is in control in the north?
When the rebellion in northern Mali broke out in January, it was the Tuareg
National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) that quickly
out-manouevred a demoralized, ill-equipped army, capturing large swathes of
territory.
The MNLA's demands for an independent state carried strong echoes of
previous insurgencies but its combatants and fledgling administrations were
rapidly supplanted by radical Islamic movements.
For Bamako, the main enemy no longer had a separatist agenda, but a rigid
commitment to a Salafist Islam largely alien to Mali. At the same time, Al
Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), widely presented as the controller and
financier of the Islamic radicals in the north, has extensive trafficking
and kidnapping networks there - reportedly secured with the discreet
connivance of sections of the Malian military and Algerian security forces.
While there has been endless speculation about the size, military strength,
internal structures and support networks of the three main movements (Ansar
Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa - MUJAO, and AQIM),
hard information has often proved elusive.
Visitors to the north suggest AQIM's leadership is very much present, but
extremely mobile, individual warlords frequently shifting location, while
MUJAO’s strength is allegedly growing, much of it fuelled by non-Malian West
Africans.
What about mediation?
Regional mediation efforts have yielded little. ECOWAS's designated
mediator, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré, was much criticized in
Mali, seen as pro-Tuareg and taking unilateral initiatives without
consulting the transitional government in Bamako.
Peace initiatives from Mali have been exploratory. Among those to have
headed north was the Guinna Dogon (GD) movement, representing the Dogon
ethnic community, mainly based around Mopti and Djenné in the north. "We
went as cousins", GD president and Foreign Ministry adviser Mamadou Togo
told IRIN. Both "occupiers and those being occupied" wanted peace and
dialogue, but he found AQIM and MUJOA to be dominated by non-Malians, who
seemed to have little understanding of the country, he said.
Togo found Ansar Dine veteran Tuareg leader and long-term negotiator Iyad Ag
Ghali more approachable, but still with a wholly unrealistic agenda. "Iyad
wants Sharia", Togo explained. "The Islamists argue that 95 percent of
Malians are Muslims, so Sharia must be imposed now. How do you negotiate
with that?"
What are the human rights concerns?
In a <
http://www.hrw.org/africa/mali> 23 September report Human Rights
Watch (HRW) warned that under the control of Islamic radicals "stonings,
amputations and floggings have become the order of the day in an apparent
attempt to force the local population to accept their world view."
There is evidence of strong cohesion between the three movements on imposing
Sharia, with courts now sitting regularly in Timbuktu and Gao, according to
senior HRW Africa researcher Corinne Dufka, who also confirmed major
recruitment drives of children and adults.
Could intervention make matters worse?
The reports of excesses in the north have inevitably strengthened the calls
for prompt, decisive military action, with warnings that the longer the
Islamists are left to their own devices, the more difficult they will be to
dislodge.
But there are serious caveats about the humanitarian implications of renewed
conflict. "There are no easy answers," Ban ki-Moon warned. According to
Oxfam West Africa Regional Director Mamadou Biteye, “there is a major risk
that military operations in northern Mali would make an already fragile
humanitarian situation much worse.”
Dufka of HRW warned of a conflict where humanitarian law would get little
recognition, emphasizing that aerial strikes and drone attacks were likely
to feature.
She also warned of a "fratricidal" element to the conflict, with armed
groups like the northern militia group Ganda Koy (made up of ethnic Songhai
and traditionally violently opposed to the Tuaregs), coming into the
picture. Many Tuareg refugees told IRIN they were too afraid to return home
because they would be targeted in attacks.
Dufka also expressed concern about the professionalism of the Malian
military. An investigation has been promised into the killing of 16 Malian
and Mauritanian Islamic preachers from the Dawa movement at Diabaly, 400km
northeast of Bamako on 8 September, an incident which has further
complicated Mali's relations with Mauritania and drew a furious response
from Islamists in the north.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned in a
<
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/west-africa/mali.aspx> recent
report that "all scenarios are still possible in Mali," including a wave of
attacks, major social protests, or another coup. The ICG urged the
international community to help heal divisions and build strength in Mali’s
military, re-establish stalled development aid, and give the crisis a much
higher profile.
Is ECOWAS capable of effective intervention?
Diplomats, who see a conflict as likely if not yet inevitable, suggest an
intervention begun in haste will be catastrophic, not least because serious
questions remain about ECOWAS's own capacity.
Key member states like Senegal appear lukewarm about intervention in Mali.
Nigeria, facing its own Islamic fundamentalist threat in the shape of the
radical Boko Haram movement, may face domestic pressure not to commit
troops.
Few available ECOWAS troops have combat experience in a desert. Mauritania,
which has criticized Mali in the past for being “soft” on “Islamic
terrorism”, and has sent its own troops into Mali on counter-insurgency
operations, is not an ECOWAS member.
Neither is Algeria, accused by many Malians of spawning the Jihadist
movements and their accompanying kidnapping and trafficking networks, which
have played such a destructive role in northern Mali.
Neither the Malian army nor ECOWAS will be able to tackle the influx of arms
and soldiers from Libya to northern Mali through southern Algeria and
northern Niger, warns the ICG without “clear involvement of the Algerian...
authorities”.
ECOWAS has made it clear that it needs and expects strong backup from
outside, particularly in airlifting troops to the combat zones, promoting
speculation that France and the USA could play critical roles. Both,
predictably, are downplaying their importance.
France has serious concerns about French hostages still held by Islamic
radicals. The US formally suspended military engagement with Bamako after
the National Committee for the Recovery of Democracy and the Restoration of
the State (CNRDRE), headed by US-trained Captain Amadou Sanogo, took power
on 22 March.
What about the new government in Bamako?
Military intervention is further complicated by the power vacuum in Bamako,
where the government has no electoral mandate and where none of the three
actors sharing power has sufficient legitimacy, say observers. Critics warn
that the restoration of democracy has barely begun.
The government formed by President Dioncounda Traoré in August under outside
pressure and headed by Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra, remains a weak,
compromise administration, described by one diplomatic observer as, at best,
"an imperfect construct, but one that could move forward".
Other concerns include continued support for Cpt Sanogo, the military's
retention of key ministerial portfolios, including Defence, Home Security
and Territorial Administration; and a history of serious human rights
violations, with security forces targeting critical journalists and the
reported torture and disappearance of soldiers hostile to the military
junta.
"This is not a normal democracy; this is Mali post-coup," said a
Bamako-based analyst.
Relations between ECOWAS and CNDRE have been volatile, with Sanogo and his
political allies wanting to keep foreign troops outside Bamako and confining
ECOWAS’s role to logistics and training. The current civilian administration
is more accepting, with Traoré issuing an invitation for military
intervention.
But there is no evidence yet of a more robust approach from the Malian
military, with reports instead of dangerous schisms, particularly after the
“Red Berets” - Mali’s elite force - were accused of leading a counter-coup
attempt in late April.
Timbuktu parliamentary representative Sandy Haïdara is adamant Mali cannot
go it alone. "We are from the north and we know our army cannot do this," he
told IRIN. "They will need help".
cs/aj/cb
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Received on Tue Oct 02 2012 - 18:25:16 EDT
