Mali faces a number of challenges in its ongoing peace process to address the political and security crisis that began in 2012. These include the political armed confl ict in the northern regions of the country, poor governance, violent extremism and transnational organized crime perpetrated by extremist Islamist groups such as Ansar Dine, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mouvement pour l’Unicité et le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest (MUJAO) (see section II). Three key steps in the peace process have been: (a) the installation in April 2012 of an interim government that ensured the country’s leadership until August 2013; (b) the conclusion on 18 June 2013 of a preliminary peace agreement that enabled the holding of free and transparent elections leading to a new legitimate government; and (c) the negotiation of a comprehensive peace agreement that was offi cially endorsed by the parties to the political confl ict on 15 May and 2.
See Full PDF See Full PDFOn 25 April 2013 the UN Security Council decided on sending a 12,600-strong peacekeeping force to Mali. In a new DIIS report Signe Marie Cold-Ravnkilde offers an analysis of the basic causes of the crisis in Mali and the central challenges to the country with regard to the coming peace- and state-building process. The report deals with four central conflict potentials: The fragile Malian state and the political crisis in Bamako after the military coup on 22 March 2012 – in relation to this, focus is placed on the long and on-going erosion of Mali’s democratic institutions and on the political positions which presently, in relation to the elections in July 2013, divide opinions in the Malian capital. The Tuareg rebellion – its background and current status, and the premises for establishing the necessary process of peace and dialog. Organized crime in Mali – its influence on the coming peace-building process and, in connection to this, the need for creating alternative sources of income, especially in the northern part of the country. Regional cooperation – the role of regional and international actors in the escalation of the crisis and the handling of militant Islamic groups and organized crime in the region. These different lines of (potential) conflict should not be seen as separate from each other, but rather as intertwined and mutually intensifying. The report points to an interrelation in the Malian crisis between the local, regional and international dimensions, both historically and in the present situation.
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THE IMPACT OF ARMED GROUPS ON THE POPULATIONS OF CENTRAL AND NORTHERN MALI
Since 2012, Mali has seen many armed groups operate on its territory. International interventions, as well as national reconciliation and stabilization efforts, have led to a categorization of these groups along lines of conflict relevant to the national and international levels. Groups can be classified according to their opposition to or alliance with the Malian Government and the official forces; their ideological agenda; or their association with criminal activities. However, these categories do not necessarily reflect the internal identity of these groups and the many facets of their interactions with the communities with which they coexist. This study attempts to describe these interactions and to explain the positioning of communities in the presence of these groups. The coexistence of communities and armed groups on the same territory generates renegotiations of the security, economic or social relations between the actors involved. These social changes must be taken into account in the responses adopted by the Malian Government and its partners to the presence of armed groups on the territory of Mali
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The armed conflict in northern Mali has developed significantly since it broke out in 2012. The overwhelming result of this study is that its respondents are in unanimous agreement that the root causes of the violent conflict in Mali are marginalization and discrimination. The conflict is nurtured by the pervasive stratification between almost all groups in the society. The cleavages run between geographic locations, genders, ethnic groups, generations and classes, and enables hierarchies between those that dominate and those that are dominated. Marginality serves as a place of resistance for many groups, also northern women since many of them have grievances that are linked to their limited access to public services and human rights. For these women, marginality is a site of resistance that motivates them to mobilise men to take up arms against an unwilling government. The Islamists have exploited the vacuum left behind by the absent government, through their provision of services such as health care and employment. They have also used the stratification between social classes to gain the support of impoverished communities and offer some sort of social mobility to both poor women and men.
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Small Wars & Insurgencies
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This article examines the effects of UN peacekeeping and international counterterrorism operations upon the possibilities of peace in Mali. Following the January 2013 French operation Serval, the international intervention was divided between two military missions: UN peacekeeping in Mali and French-led counterterrorism. The article explores what it means to distinguish between peacekeeping and counterterrorism for international conflict management and Malian conflict resolution dynamics. It is argued that the binaries of war and peace, and of intervention and sovereignty, are no longer opposites, but blurred into an emerging ‘new normal’ of permanent military intervention. The construction of a regional counterterrorism governance or militarisation is shown to circumvent the fundamental questions about Malian peace, state sovereignty, and nationhood. The article points to how the international ‘division of labour’ between peacekeeping and counterterrorism defines the possibilities of peace in Mali in relation to the perceived necessities ofthe ‘global war onterror’.
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The War Report. Armed Conflicts in 2018, 102-116
In 2018 Mali, supported by France, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and by militias of the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA) and the Imghad Tuareg Self-Defense Group and Allies (GATIA), continued to be involved in a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) on its territory against Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). According to the War Report, intercommunal clashes between Dan Nan Ambassagou and the Alliance for the Salvation of the Sahel also reached the threshold of a NIAC during the last year. This chapter in the War Report 2018 offers a complete overview of the several conflicts afflicting Mali in recent years. The first parttraces back the root causes of the initial Tuareg rebellion in the Northern regions, to then show the jihadist takeover of the insurgency. It provides an in-depth analysis of the planning, generation and deployment of two multinational operations, one sponsored by the African Union, the other authorised by the United Nations. It sheds light on the French intervention in Mali, first as Operation Serval and then under Operation Barkhane. Finally, it accounts for the progressive return to peace in the Northern territory, while intercommunal conflicts in the Central regions rise to the level of a separate non-international armed conflict. The second part of the chapter scrutinizes the status and legal position of each party to the conflict. Key developments in 2018 are then surveyed. The last part summarises concluded and ongoing prosecutions before the International Criminal Court for crimes committed in the Malian conflicts.
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The Sahel security issues in Africa and the Malian crisis in particular have brought the region to the center of the Algerian foreign policy concerns. Algiers has been an indispensable provider of stability in the African Sahel. In recent years, weak governances, political instability and fragile security have become common features of the Sahelian states. The large quantity of natural resources of the Sahel has paved a road for foreign intervention and increasing rivalry among the world economic powers across the region. In order to safeguard the long-term security in its backyard, in many times the Algerian leaderships have promoted state-building and dialogue as the best ways to lift states of the Sahel out of crisis. Neighboring countries like Mali are looking to Algiers to play an effective role in leading conflict management efforts in the region.
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MALI Crisis Management and Military Logistics
Nowadays, military intervention has grown consecutively and emphasized the importance of decision- making regarding logistics for any successful intervention.
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