Mali

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. In Jim’s post, he discusses recent events in Mali, and how they may point towards a possible democratic renewal. Last Friday, AFP reported that while Bamako’s political class and ECOWAS want Dioncounda Traore to continue as interim president, the group of low-ranking soldiers led by Amadou Sanogo, who carried out the March 22 coup against President Amadou Toumani Toure, don’t. Nor does the international community want soldiers leading a transition back to civilian rule in the country.  But Sanogo, reportedly, "wants to take back power once Traore’s 40-day mandate is up." Having served as an analyst of West African militaries for many years, I cannot say that Sanogo’s desire to hang on to power is unusual.  However, the extent to which the military has become, or could become, a vehicle for the expression of popular dissatisfaction with old elites--a form of grassroots assertion--must also be considered.  As John Voll observed in his February 13 Wilson Center lecture, we have moved into a new era in which the modes of protest have changed. We now live in a time of grassroots ascendancy, a fact which is being recognized across a spectrum of informed opinion. In her April 16th article in USA Today titled "When Spirituality and Religion Collide," Diana Butler Bass discusses the phenomenon in the religious realm, but observes that the "shift to the grassroots" is a problem for a broad range of organizations and is discernible in many contexts.  Not the least of these contexts, of course, is Europe.  Financial Times editorialized in its weekend edition about Europe’s "painful democratic renewal," saying that, "Voters in Greece, Italy and, to a lesser extent, France, are understandably turning away from a disconnected political class and looking for those offering new ideas and solutions." The expression of discontent with an old, entrenched, and non-performing political class via a coup from below should not be surprising in states where institutions are weak and such discontent cannot be expressed through conventional political channels.  In this connection, Nigeria bears watching, since Major General Sarkin Yaki Bello, coordinator of the Counter Terrorism Center in Nigeria’s presidency, last month told the press that the "army is the greatest employer of labor now in the country," which would mean it includes a large number of young men, an element of society often prone to express discontent. Policymakers see recent events in Mali as a threat to democracy, but democratic roots there were very shallow to begin with.  Given that in a system where, despite elections viewed internationally as positive, those at the grassroots (including the lower ranks of the military) feel their voice in the government is inadequate, could Mali’s coup be regarded as an effort at democratic renewal?  Just like Sheriff Bell in the Coen brothers’ popular film "No Country for Old Men," policymakers may sense that a new form of disorder is on the loose, and they are unsure how to handle it.  

Asch Harwood contributed to this post. Further to my post yesterday of continued military control of Mali’s south, Human Rights Watch has released a troubling report on atrocities committed by Tuareg rebels in northern Mali. The catalogue is grim: rape, use of child soldiers, pillaging, summary executions, and amputations. The abuses appear to be centered on Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal. The report is based, inter alia, on interviews of over one hundred victims, religious authorities, medical practitioners, traditional leaders, and other credible witnesses. Complicating any response is the number of independent, although loosely allied, players implicated in these abuses: the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), Islamist Ansar Dine, an additional unnamed local ethnic Arab militia, and other unidentified armed groups as well as opportunistic locals and prisoners recently sprung from a local jail. And we cannot forget the region’s simmering food insecurity, which is likely to have a disproportionate impact on the estimated 284,000 refugees and internally displaced people uprooted by the conflict. The Human Rights Watch report presents a horrific picture of conditions in northern Mali. As is characteristic of its reports, this one is dispassionate, clear, and credible. It is a wake up call to the international community about what is happening in a remote part of Africa.

Former coup leader captain Amadou Haya Sanago announced on May 1 that his troops had suppressed a counter-coup by forces allegedly loyal to former president Amadou Toure. Sanago said his troops controlled the airport, the state television and radio stations, and the local army barracks. According to the press, fourteen were killed and forty were wounded. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the coup makers reached an agreement for the restoration of civilian government and the development of a timeline for elections. A civilian government has been duly installed. What is curious is that the announcement of the coup suppression was first made by Sanago, not by Dioncounda Traore, the former parliament speaker and now the interim civilian chief of state, or by Cheick Diarra, the interim prime minister, an astrophysicist and Mali and United States dual national. Subsequently, Diarra did announce publicly that the coup had not been suppressed completely, that some troops were still active. Sanago’s soldiers also continue to make arrests. Over the past week they arrested former president Toure’s prime minister, the director general of the Malian Solidarity Bank, and two civil society leaders who opposed the coup. Others already jailed include the former minister of defense, the army chief of staff, and the national police commissioner. It looks like the military is still in charge

The Tuareg rebels on April 6 declared their independence from Mali and announced the formation of the state of Azawad. That action was condemned or ignored by the international community. In a thoughtful article, William Moseley, a professor of geography and African studies at Macalester College, puts Azawad in the context of the larger issue of Africa’s colonial borders. He recalls the arbitrary nature of Africa’s borders, most of which were inherited from the colonial period, especially from the 1884-85 Berlin conference. He also recalls the relationship between the Tuareg people and the Mali government, which he characterizes as "uneasy." But, he notes, Azawad was created by force, and that it remains unclear whether it has the widespread support of the inhabitants living within its territory. Then there is the question of what the boundaries of the new state might be. And this political drama is being played out against the backdrop of anticipated famine. Moseley urges dialogue among the Mali government, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA - the ’government’ of Azawad), and the international community. He suggests that many in the south of Mali may not see the north as worth a war. Should Azawad continue to insist on independence, he suggests that it be countered with force only if the MNLA refuses to follow a democratic process in building the new state. Moseley is right in urging dialogue. But, for now, the Tuareg rebels seem to have most of the cards. They are well-armed and they defeated the earlier efforts of Mali’s government to defeat them, thereby leading to a military coup in Bamako. The restored, constitutional government of Mali is still finding its feet and faces elections. It is hard to imagine a regional force could defeat the Tuaregs in an extraordinarily difficult fighting environment that bridges the Sahel and the Sahara. If it can hold the support or acquiescence of most of the population in the Azawad territory, MNLA is likely to be able to stay in power despite the opposition of the African Union or the Economic Community of West African States. But, the elephant in the living room may be the Sahelian drought. UN agencies and humanitarian organizations are continuing to try to energize the international community to respond to what could be a major tragedy. With respect to Azawad, famine could cut many ways. The MNLA might be unable to feed its people, eroding support for Azawad. On the other hand, the ECOWAS states are likely to be distracted from concerted action on Azawad as they attempt to organize famine relief for their own people.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said last week "The truth is that there is very little attention to the crisis in the Sahel. Most of the focus of the international committee has been on the Syria crisis." True enough. UN agencies and other organizations have been sounding the alarm that a devil’s brew of food insecurity, water scarcity, environmental degradation and conflict is likely to lead to a humanitarian disaster in one of the poorest parts of the world. Anthony Lake, the Executive Director of UNICEF estimates that some 15 million people are effected by drought, of whom 1.5 million are children. UN agencies have appealed to the international community for $724 million, but only fifty percent of this amount has been pledged. With respect to international attention to the Sahel, the international community pays more attention to the political crisis in Mali or alleged international terrorist links with indigenous groups than it does to hunger. The UN has issued a wake-up call. It remains to be seen if the international community will respond soon enough.

With reports of violence, especially rape, from Timbuktu following the occupation of the city by the radical Islamic group Ansar Dine, a blog post on buildings risks sounding frivolous. Nevertheless, I want to call attention to Director General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Irina Bokova’s warning to Malians of all stripes as well as the international community that Timbuktu is a World Heritage Site and that under the 1972 World Heritage Convention, governments are obligated to protect such places in times of war. Her UNESCO news release reminds that Timbuktu and other such sites in northern Mali are part of the universal heritage of mankind. Their damage or destruction would diminish all of us. Timbuktu’s earthen architectural wonders include three mosques, numerous mausolea, and cemeteries. It might be thought that given Ansar Dine’s radical Islamic ideology, they would be safe. But the vagaries of war indicate otherwise. During the last round of Balkan wars, numerous architectural monuments were destroyed, and even Dubrovnik, also a World Heritage Site, was shelled at one point. And then there was the Taliban’s seemingly fanatical destruction of monumental Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan. So, Director General Bokova is right to remind combatants of their obligations toward World Heritage Sites, and, at the same time, to remind us that Timbuktu is part of our heritage, too.

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. The putsch is being reported as a coup by lower-ranking officers and senior people have reportedly been arrested in Gao. Apparently, the action was engendered by soldiers’ dissatisfaction with the level of support from the government in fighting the Tuareg insurgency. Insurgents are reportedly thrilled by events, which they feel will make it easier for them to move ahead and take more towns in the North. Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has got to be watching all this nervously. A coup by lower-ranking officers has been a fear of Nigeria watchers since the pre-Civil War days. Senior Nigerian officers are especially likely to be watching events in Mali carefully, while simultaneously looking over their shoulder, so to speak. The parallelism is just too close to home to disregard: Nigeria, like Mali, is a country with an insurgency in its North that it cannot control. However, a difference may be that the GON is spending a lot on security, even though how much of that money goes for equipment that rank and file soldiers need and get is not known. Boko Haram’s views on the Mali coup and the Tuareg reaction is also highly relevant. Will they be encouraged by what unfolds, particularly if a series of northern towns fall? How to answer that one? In other words, what lower-ranking officers in Nigeria’s army might do, and what senior officers might do to pre-empt it, is only half the equation. In past Nigerian coups, an active insurgency was not part of the political environment. Now it is.