Discussion Board

U.S. ARMY SERGEANTS MAJOR ACADEMY Sergeants Major Course

J600: Coalition/Joint Force Land Component Command Operations

Lesson J609 Planning for Irregular Warfare and Stability Operations

Reading C Practical Exercise

Region in Crisis: Stabilizing Mali & The Sahel

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Introduction Instability in Mali and the western Sahel can- not be isolated to a single monolithic cause. Long the site of chronic malnutrition and food insecurity, the Sahel is also now home to drug traffickers and terrorist groups that are profiting from “ungoverned spaces” across the region. As a result, simmering humanitarian, development and governance crises are intersecting with global, regional and local security concerns. Mali and the Sahel are embedded in what might be called a regional conflict system. The system can be parsed into discrete levels: inter-state rivalries are often fused to national political competition while subnational conflicts tend to feature political, ethnic, sectarian and ter- ritorial dimensions. The most destabilizing conflicts may not even be taking place at the regional level, but rather consist of vicious disputes within localities (Ould Bah 2013).

The international community is seized by the various crises unfolding across Mali and the Sahel. The French military intervention launched in January 2013 illustrates Euro- pean unease. Meanwhile, the United States has also sent a small number of military per- sonnel to Mali to support allied forces fight- ing there, and it is soon opening a drone base in nearby Niger. Experts concede that the greatest threats are not directly to Europe

or the United States, but rather to the wider neighborhood – particularly the Maghreb and West Africa. The media is replete with stories of Boko Haram in Nigeria collabo- rating with Malian groups. Indeed, Boko Haram has reportedly become increasingly active, leading Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to declare a state of emergency in three states in the country’s East, near the border with Chad and Niger. The impacts of French-led pressure are already being felt. France’s military intervention in Mali prompted Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s “Signed- In Blood Battalion” to attack the Amenas energy facility in Algeria in early 2013. And Islamist militants are reportedly flocking to Mali from Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and even Syria.

Amidst all of the preoccupation with Mali, it is worth asking what is actually going on in the Sahel. Why did yet another “model democracy” in Africa succumb to instability so rapidly? How much of the problem in Mali is home-grown, and how much a product of regional factors? What kinds of opportuni- ties were and are available for preventive action? In what way can peace and stability be resurrected in Mali and the wider Sahel? What kinds of lessons can be extracted for national, regional and international coopera- tion? These are not just esoteric questions, but have profound implications. This issue of Stability asks the hard questions as policy makers and practitioners in Mali, the Sahel and around the world plot out their next steps. Invited authors were carefully selected to offer critical insights on the intervention to date and on the broader regional dynamics.

Zyck, S and Muggah, R 2013 Conflicts Colliding in Mali and the Sahel. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(2): 16, pp. 1-6, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.bf

EDITORIAL

Conflicts Colliding in Mali and the Sahel Steven Zyck* and Robert Muggah†

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* University of York, UK [email protected]

† Igarapé Institute, The SecDev Group, and Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [email protected]

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There is an urgent need for informed analysis of the opportunities and pitfalls of intervention in Mali and the region. Indeed, short-, medium- and long-term planning is proceeding apace. In January 2013 at the African Union headquarters, donors pledged almost half a billion dollars for an international campaign to tackle Islam- ist militants in Mali. The European Union recently held a separate conference in Brus- sels in May 2013 – Together for a New Mali – at which donor nations pledged US$4.22 billion for Mali over two years, an amount exceeding the US$2.57 billion requested by the Malian government.

And while bearing hallmarks of the old model of stabilization, the intervention in Mali is shifting from a French-led operation to activities supported by regional forces, operating under United Nations mandates. The “regionalization” of stability operations there, as in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia, under- lines the ways in the West is reshaping its interventions in Africa.

Securing or Securitizing Mali and the Sahel? Mali and the Sahel (see Figure 1) offer an intriguing if depressing study of the arche- typal conflict ecosystem. Layered atop so- called structural drivers of conflict are over-

lapping armed groups with converging and diverging interests. Many of these actors are able to draw on diverse sources of financ- ing, many of them linked to international networks of organized crime and terrorism. What is more, the region has been subjected to prolonged and repeated interventions – including relief, development and military action. With support from analysts closest to the ground, this edition of Stability attempts to begin unpeeling these layers. It reveals a bewildering level of complexity that must be comprehensively engaged if genuine secu- rity is to be achieved in the region.

As is well known to humanitarian special- ists, Mali suffers from entrenched poverty, unemployment, inadequate basic services, high rates of population growth and food insecurity (Gilpin 2013). This is at least partly a product of its colonial legacy and consid- erable land mass. But under-development is also exacerbated by weak governance and corruption, widening the gap between elite decision-makers and citizens (Ould Bah 2013). The country´s sharp socio-economic inequalities are reflected not just in relation to income, but also land ownership and eth- nicity (Gilpin 2013). Moreover, population displacement fuelled by conflict and food insecurity threatens to spread across the country´s borders throughout the Maghreb and West Africa.

Figure 1: Mali and the Sahel Region. Source: European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office, 2 August 2012

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Political analysts have long feared that Malians are vulnerable to the agendas of range of armed factions across the region. Key stakeholders include Tuareg groups, par- ticularly the National Movement for the Lib- eration of Azawad (MNLA).1 The MNLA, while a secular entity, initially sided with Islam- ists in 2012 in order to push government forces out of north Mali.2 Meanwhile, Islam- ist groups include Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which migrated from Alge- ria to Mali in recent years. The Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), led by a Mauritanian, broke off from AQIM and pursues a broader Islamist agenda across West Africa, including northern Mali. Ansar al-Dine (Movement of the Defenders of the Faith) promotes Sharia law across Mali and the broader Islamic world; founded by a Tuareg, the group also includes Arabs and members of ethnic minorities in northern Mali who are threatened by the MNLA.

Predictably, these diverse armed groups do not necessarily share common agendas. They have, however, vastly complicated the situa- tion in northern Mali. Indeed, they not only oppose the state and international actors, but also one another. As authors in this spe- cial edition show, Tuareg-Islamist tensions persist, as do tensions between Tuaregs and non-Tuaregs in northern Mali. Sectar- ian elements have also recently emerged, with Islamists generally promoting a form of Salafism (and, in a few cases, Wahhabism) that contrasts sharply with the Sufi tradition which tended to predominate in Mali. Ana- lysts predict a growing sectarian struggle inspired by events in Syria and Lebanon but with implications from Mali to Pakistan.

Even more problematically, armed groups and army factions in Mali and across the Sahel are financed by criminality. The Sahel is emerging as key hub for the trafficking of drugs, arms, people and other contraband to Europe. Producers in Latin America are fusing with distribution networks (Ghettas 2012). AQIM has a major stake in the nar- cotics industry in Mali, as evident by the October 2010 “summit” between Colom- bian traffickers and senior AQIM figures in

Guinea-Bissau (Ammour 2012). Drug traf- fickers are so powerful and well financed that, as far back as 2009, they purportedly built an airstrip in Goa (in northern Mali) and flew in Boeing 727 aircraft loaded with cocaine; once the cocaine was off-loaded, they burnt the plane to the ground. How- ever, drugs are not the only lucrative and illicit industry. Kidnappings of, most nota- bly, Westerners is on the rise.3

The easy availability of illicit financing, the presence of large ungoverned spaces, compe- tition between Islamist and more ethno-ter- ritorial factions and regional meddling have led some to equate Mali, or at least north- ern Mali, with Afghanistan. Media pundits speak of the ‘Afghanisation’ or ‘Somalisation’ of Mali, a parallel which scholars criticise as inaccurate and unhelpful (Salah 2012). There are concerns that drawing parallels with other stabilisation contexts could lead international actors to respond to Mali with the same toolkit that has led to uneven out- comes in other settings. Even so, it would be wrong to discount the possibility of learning lessons from other settings. Just as there is a need to learn from Mali’s dynamic and rap- idly evolving situation on the ground, so too there are opportunities to identify insights from other settings. A number of pieces within this special edition of Stability take up that cross-context process of extracting and adapting key lessons.

The Changing Face of Intervention in Mali There is a global trend toward “burden- sharing” in Mali and elsewhere. The United Nations Security Council and regional bodies authorized a French-led intervention in Janu- ary 2013 only after exhausting other options. The 4,000 French troops were described as necessary owing to the fact that a military intervention led by the Economic Commu- nity of West African States (ECOWAS) could not deploy adequate numbers until Sep- tember 2013.4 At present, the French forces (working in partnership with Malian and Chadian troops), are being phased out along with the short-lived ECOWAS-led African-

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led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA).5 The ECOWAS forces will – chang- ing hats – formally hand over authority to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), which was approved by the Security Council in late April 2013. MINUSMA will formally be established in July 2013 and will have up to 12,640 peacekeepers, including 11,200 troops and 1,440 police officers (UNSC 2013).

The rapid succession of bilateral, regional and international military and peacekeeping missions is relatively unique to Mali. It also highlights the inability of regional entities to mobilise rapid-reaction forces to respond to security challenges in their own backyards. West Africans continue to rely on Nigerian forces, and no readily-deployable forces exist in the region to respond to situations like the one occurring in northern Mali.6 With Nigeria itself now beginning a new phase of internal conflict – with the government’s announcement of a state of emergency in mid-May 2013 – the potential for a West Afri- can solution to insecurity in Mali seems to be, at best, in doubt.

There are also outstanding questions for the now-forming UN mission. How will MINUSMA balance the differing understand- ings of the causes and consequences of insta- bility in Mali? Will it treat Tuareg groups as defenders of embattled minorities, or will it acknowledge the major abuses certain Tuareg groups perpetrated against Malian forces (and others)? Will it emphasise governance and reconciliation, two issues that analysts see as crucial, or will it focus more fully on ‘hard’ security? How will MINUSMA balance collaborating with the Malian army in kinetic operations and strengthening its respect for human rights and democratic control? Such questions, which have largely been side-lined, will be particularly difficult to answer given the variety of stakeholders involved.

Questions regarding the Malian security services are on the top of many interna- tional agendas and are poorly researched. What is the status of the Malian armed

forces? To what extent are they capable and accountable? The International Crisis Group (ICG) recently and somewhat inadvertently highlighted the quandary surrounding the Malian military. It called for the Malian army to re-assert control over the country’s North while simultaneously recommending sub- stantial reforms of that very same fighting force, which has been implicated in abuses in the recent past (ICG 2013). Meanwhile, the international community finds itself with comparatively little research into the state of the Malian armed forces, their relation- ship with civilian authorities and the pros- pects for reform. A better understanding of the Malian security services and prospects for integration of Tuaregs into the officer corps in the post-conflict period merits more attention.

Moving Forward while Looking Backwards Mali´s instability is embedded in a regional conflict ecosystem. Interventions must focus on Mali, but will prove fruitless if the wider region is not simultaneously taken into consideration. Indeed, this issue of Stabil- ity shows that the conflict in northern Mali was in many ways precipitated by regional dynamics. Tuareg fighters who had helped prop up Muammar Qaddafi – and who returned, with their sophisticated weapons, to Mali once the Libyan regime fell – trig- gered the latest conflict in Mali. An Algerian group took revenge for the French interven- tion in northern Mali, and Islamist fighters from Sudan and elsewhere in East Africa (and beyond) reportedly now see the western Sahel as the newest front in the battle against the West. Nigerian troops are collaborating with forces from Chad and Niger to combat Islamist rebels in Nigeria’s North and East. Of course, the aforementioned regional dimen- sions are only among the best known. Much remains to be learnt about relations among governments and identity groups that cross borders. To what extent and how do security services collaborate? What potential is there

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for a regional conflict? Who has the legiti- macy in the region to prevent, through force or negotiations, such a conflict?

As responses to insecurity in Mali and the Sahel are further considered, designed and implemented, it is also important to emphasise the critical role of development. Donor nations recently acknowledged this fact in pledging US$4.22 billion for Mali in 2013 and 2014 – 60 per cent more than the Malian government had requested. Yet such pledges often fail to become reality, as dis- bursement rates and absorptive capacity lag. In addition, Oxfam (2013) and others have raised concern about the international com- munity’s long-term commitment to Mali and the Sahel. Will donors treat the “Together for a New Mali” conference in May 2013 as a one-off symbol of concern for the country and its region, or will they provide the long- term forms of assistance necessary to foster a sustainable recovery?

Questions also persist over the nature of the development assistance provided to Mali. The outcomes of the Mali donor con- ference in Brussels raise a number of key areas that require attention – from public financial management to decentralisation, anti-corruption and justice sector reform (Donor Conference for Development in Mali 2013). But they also appear to reflect a num- ber of long-term technical priorities which, aside from rather brief sections on private- sector and social development, may or may not yield visible, tangible progress. Evident improvements in the quality of life – and in food security – are also urgently needed. Behind-the-scenes progress is important, but material conditions must also improve so that the Malian authorities have sufficient ‘space to manoeuvre’ as they go about making difficult institutional and political reforms. However, will the international community ensure that local priorities are factored into development planning, especially when its presence on the ground is relatively lim- ited? Will lessons learnt from other, recent conflict-affected contexts be reflected in

the design of any security-focused develop- ment strategies? Will sufficient attention to on-going humanitarian challenges be main- tained despite the renewed focus on sustain- able recovery and governance?

The special issue of Stability can be faulted for raising more questions than it answers. But this is, of course, one of the primary tasks of scholars of contemporary affairs. And it is extremely important to start asking the right questions and identifying knowledge gaps. The outbreak of armed conflict in Mali has revealed a profound lack of understanding about the Sahel within much of the inter- national community, excluding France. This special issue comes at an important time and is intended to feed into policy debates and, just as important, identifies promising entry points for still more research to broaden understanding and informed engagement. Such enquiry must build not only upon the expertise of militaries and peacekeepers but also upon the decades-long knowledge base that area experts, humanitarian and develop- ment personnel have developed concerning the Sahel, its cultures, its geographies and the opportunities and challenges it provides for those seeking to meet basic needs and promote peace.

Notes 1 This is the term used locally to refer to a

would-be but never-recognised state in northern Mali.

2 The MNLA later abandoned them after recognizing that Tuareg separatists had become the junior partner in a loose coa- lition with Islamists (Francis 2013).

3 The practice reportedly generated at least US$70 million for AQIM in recent years, though Al Qaeda is far from the other group involved in abductions (Am- mour 2012).

4 And this, despite being authorized by the United Nations in November 2012.

5 AFISMA came to comprise several hun- dred West African soldiers, particularly Nigeria.

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6 These forces will also encounter issues pertaining to ethical conduct – over- coming past abuses associated with UN peacekeeping missions – and oversight.

References Ammour, L A 2012 Regional Security Cooper-

ation in the Maghreb and Sahel: Algeria’s Pivotal Ambivalence. Washington, DC: Af- rica Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, February.

Donor Conference on Development in Mali 2013 “International Donors Confer- ence ‘Together for a New Mali’, Brussels, 15 May 2013: Joint Chairs’ Conclusions”. Available at http://donor-conference-ma- li.eu/sites/default/files/generated/pdf/ page/Conclusions_Mali_1505_EN.pdf [accessed 19 May 2013].

Francis, D J 2013 The Regional Impact of the Armed Conflict and French Intervention in Mali. Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Re- source Centre, April.

Ghettas, L 2012 The New Gold Rush in the Sub-Saharan Sahel. London: London School of Economics.

Gilpin, R 2013 “Bridging the Gap: Peace- building and Economic Development

in the Sahel”. Washington, DC: Interna- tional Network for Economics and Con- flict, United States Institute of Peace, 22 April.

ICG 2013 Mali: Security, Dialogue and Mean- ingful Reform, Africa Report No. 201. Brus- sels: International Crisis Group, 11 April.

Ould Bah, M F 2013 The Political Economy of Conflicts in Northern Mali. Dakar: ECO- WAS Peace and Security Report, Institute for Security Studies, April.

Oxfam 2013 Oxfam reaction to Mali donors’ conference. London: Oxfam. Available at http://www.oxfam.org/en/eu/press- room/reactions/oxfam-reaction-mali-do- nors-conference [accessed 20 May 2013].

Salah, M M M 2012 Threats to Peace and Se- curity in the Sahel: Responding to the Cri- sis in Mali. New York: International Peace Institute, December.

UNSC 2013 Security Council Establishes Peacekeeping Force for Mali Effective 1 July, Unanimously Adopting Resolu- tion 2100 (2013). New York: United Na- tions Security Council, 25 April. Avail- able at http://www.un.org/News/Press/ docs/2013/sc10987.doc.htm [accessed 28 April 2013].

How to cite this article: Zyck, S and Muggah, R 2013 Conflicts Colliding in Mali and the Sahel. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(2): 16, pp. 1-6, DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5334/sta.bf

Published: 12 June 2013

Copyright: © 2013 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Stability: International Journal of Security & Development is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Ubiquity Press OPEN ACCESS

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Introduction There has been widespread interest in Sahel violence since the Arab Spring in 2011/2012. This analysis reviews politically violent events from that period and in his- torical perspective to explain dominant pat- terns in conflict across Sahel states and the broader African continent in comparative perspective.1

Event data is drawn from the Armed Con- flict Location & Event Dataset (ACLED), which collects and publishes data on politi- cal violence across the African continent.2 A politically violent event is defined as a ‘sin- gle altercation where often force is used by one or more groups for a political end,’ with each individual altercation coded as a dis- crete event between designated actors, at a specific geo-referenced location, on a single

day (Raleigh, Linke and Dowd 2012). Vio- lent events are also distinguished by event type and whether they involve altercations between armed groups (battles), between unarmed civilians and an armed group (vio- lence against civilians) or between demon- strators protesting peacefully or through use of force themselves (riots/protests). The standardised structure of ACLED event data allows for meaningful comparative analysis of violence levels, patterns and dynamics across countries, regions and time periods (Raleigh et al. 2010). Analysis can be supple- mented with data on fatalities – although this is subject to a greater degree of bias and uncertainty – in order to provide an estima- tion of intensity of violence associated with each event.

The Sahel’s violence can be characterised in four ways. Firstly, in comparison to other regions across Africa – central, eastern, the Horn, northern, southern and western3 – conflict rates in the Sahel are relatively low.

Dowd, C and Raleigh, C 2013 Sahel State Political Violence in Comparative Perspective. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(2): 25, pp. 1-11, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.bl

ARTICLE

Sahel State Political Violence in Comparative Perspective Caitriona Dowd* and Clionadh Raleigh*

Policy, media and academic attention to violence in the Sahel region has been widespread since the onset of the Arab Spring and the escalation of violence in Mali in recent months. This research explores the nature, patterns and dynamics of this violence in regional and national comparative perspective, contrasting divergent dynamics of violence both within and across the region. Data is drawn from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Dataset (ACLED), which facilitates analysis of both contemporary and historical patterns. Regional characteristics of Sahelian violence are highlighted, which underscore a relatively low level of violence in the region as a whole, with increases in conflict levels largely driven by the single case of Mali in recent months. Detailed analysis of specific groups and actor types reveals important intra-regional discrepancies which have been largely obscured by char- acterisations of a regional, trans-national crisis. Together, these observations point to the need to interrogate narratives of regional dynamics which may conceal important national and even sub-national variations and drivers of political violence.

stability

* Trinity College Dublin, Ireland [email protected], [email protected]

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Between 1997 and late 2011, political vio- lence was both limited and consistent, with a very gradual increase in underlying violence levels over time (see Figure 1).

In this way, the region differs from North Africa, which witnessed a sudden and sharp increase in violence in 2011 and 2012 follow- ing very little change over the preceding dec- ade. While North Africa is often considered comparable to the Sahel region, the magni- tude of the increase in violence in northern countries is actually far greater than has been witnessed in the Sahel in recent years. Sahe- lian violence is also distinct from patterns in West Africa, which is characterised by con- sistently mid- to high-levels of violence with very little variation over time (see Figure 2).

The second characteristic of Sahelian vio- lence is its lack of volatility compared to other regions across the continent. While other regions – such as Southern Africa – are shaped by sudden and sharp spikes in con- flict events over time, the Sahel has displayed a low ‘baseline’ rate and a gradual trend line increasing over time in spite of several active

conflict groups in the region. Almost every region in Africa has experienced an increase in absolute terms since 2011; and while the Sahelian increase is considerable relative to its previous levels of violence, it is still the least ‘active’ region across the continent. As a proportion of total political violence on the African continent, the Sahel represents just 2.74 per cent of all violent conflict events in the ACLED, peaking in the first quarter of 2013 when it constituted 6.49 per cent of all political violence events.

Most of the increase in Sahelian violence since 2011 has been driven by conflict events in Mali almost exclusively, with some growth attributable to rioting and protesting in Mauritania (see Figure 3).

Within Mali, several forms of violence contributed to the intermittent increases in conflict events and the recent crisis, includ- ing electoral unrest, high rates of communal violence and separatist Tuareg uprisings. Figure 4 charts the evolution of Mali’s con- flict since 1997.

Figure 1: Violent Conflict Events by Region, Africa, 1997 - March 2013

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Figure 2: Violent Conflict Events and Reported Fatalities by Region, Africa, 1997 - March 2013

Figure 3: Conflict Events by Country, Sahel Region, 2000 - March 2013, quarter year

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Sahelian violence is also characterised by a diverse range of conflict actors. While the proportion of government involvement in conflict is relatively stable across all parts of Africa, the proportion of violence per- petrated by other non-state groups vacil- lates considerably from region to region (see Figure 5). In the Sahelian spectrum of political violence, rioters and protest- ers, as well as political and communal mili- tias, are almost as active as rebels. Rebels are involved in approximately 23 per cent of violence in the region, while rioters and protesters are involved in 19 per cent and militias in 17 per cent. In contrast rebels are engaged in over 40 per cent of political violence in Central Africa. The Sahel reflects a more diverse range of actors, suggesting that there are multiple ways in which vari-

ous groups engage with the political envi- ronment of the state.

Yet, the Sahel’s regional profile is shaped by considerable internal variation across Sahe- lian countries (see Figure 6). For instance, rebels are responsible for over 40 per cent of conflict events in Mali compared to 8 per cent in Mauritania and less than 1 per cent in Burkina Faso- the latter of which can be attributed to cross-border activity, rather than domestic groups. Similarly, state/mili- tary violence constitutes a relatively low share of conflict in Mali and Burkina Faso when compared to Niger, where the state is active in approximately 50 per cent of con- flict events.

Other distinctions worth noting include the variation in dominant conflict event types across the Sahel. The proportion of violence

Figure 5: Actor Type (Proportion) by Region, Africa, 1997 – March 2013

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in which civilians are targeted, for example, is highest in Chad, though it has been on the decline over the course of the dataset; the proportional increase in attacks target- ing civilians has been steady and region- ally most significant in Niger since 1997. In absolute terms, Mauritania and Burkina Faso experience comparably low levels of violence against civilians, while Mali has witnessed the highest levels of civilian targeting in the most recent time period (2012 – March 2013) (see Figure 7).

One of the more striking divergences from regional trends is the high level of protest activity in Mauritania where, in spite of nar- ratives of crisis and fragility, there appears to be a significant and growing role for non- violent demonstrations and civil society in

the political arena (see Figure 8). The most consistent type of violence is communal con- flict, which refers to violence between militia groups which identify themselves by ethnic or highly localised communal identities. This type of violence represents an average of 4 per cent of conflict regionally, and differs only notably in Mauritania (see Figure 6).

In addition to these geographic and tem- poral dynamics, there are notable differences across specific conflict actors and groups. The role of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has received considerable atten- tion in light of its involvement in northern Mali, and the characterisation of Sahelian violence as intermingled with North African conflict more generally is largely derived from the activity of this group. Analysis of

Figure 6: Actor Type (Proportion) by Country, Sahel Region, 1997 – March 2013

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Figure 7: Conflict Events by Type by Country, Sahel Region, 1997 - March 2013 (Four Time Periods)

Figure 8: Actor Type (Proportion), Mauritania, 2003 – March 2013

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AQIM ‘events’ reveals that over the course of the past six years, the vast majority of its violence has been concentrated in Algeria, shaped by its national agenda for regime change. The year 2010 marked a turning point in the group’s involvement in conflict in neighbouring countries, driven in part by the intensification of the Algerian military’s campaign in southern Algeria and the almost total cessation of AQIM’s activity in the north of the country (see Figure 9).

In addition to a regional presence, AQIM activity has provoked a regional response which has drawn a wide range of regional African militaries into contact with the group.

Another significant type actor in the region is the wide range of Tuareg militant groups, which are active across Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and to the north in Algeria and Libya (see Figure 10). There are three char-

acteristics of Tuareg political violence that largely reflect how each state handles ethno- regional inclusion: first, Tuareg communi- ties represent significant ethno-regional minorities or majorities across many Sahel states and hence demand a role within government. Second, different Tuareg com- munities of relative military and political strength and significance – notably in Mali and Niger – engaged in violence to pursue this goal; after decades of low-level conflict, each state reached separate peace deals on integration. Third, the capacity and willing- ness of states to engage with and integrate Tuareg populations continues to be an issue: in Mali, the state’s record of Tuareg integra- tion is especially poor. Meanwhile in Niger, the chequered progress led to an escalation in violence during early 2007, which contin- ued until a stalemate in mid- to late-2008.

Figure 9: AQIM Activity by Country, Sahel Region, 2007 - March 2013

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Figure 10: Tuareg Violent Activity, Sahel Region, 2006 – 2008 (top) and 2011 - April 2013 (bottom)5

Figure 11: Tuareg Violent Activity by Country, Sahel Region, 2006 - March 2013

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Peace talks in Niger begin February 2009, followed shortly by a split in the MNJ (Mouve- ment des Nigériens pour la justice) rebel group, which undermined its capacity and ability to negotiate with the government.4 This frac- ture led to the disposal of arms in June 2009. Violence has to date not re-started in Niger in spite of the broader engagement of Tuareg groups in conflict in the region. Figure 10 maps the distinct locations of violence in the 2006–2008 and 2011-April 2013 periods.

Conclusion This analysis has attempted to highlight evolving patterns and dynamics of conflict activity within and across the Sahel region, and in a broader comparative perspective, through use of the disaggregated data on conflict events and associated fatalities. Through this, several key points can be observed: in the first instance, in spite of recent media and policy attention on Africa’s ‘arc of instability,’ conflict levels in the Sahel as a region remain regionally among the low- est on the continent, even when taking into account the most recent spike in activity in Mali over the past year. Furthermore, the region has to date been characterised by low- grade and consistent growth in conflict lev- els, as distinct from the sustained high levels of conflict and marked volatility witnessed elsewhere on the continent.

In addition, in spite of a general tendency to conceive of developments in the Sahel in regional, trans-national terms, it is clear from the data that the vast majority of the increase in conflict activity has been driven by violent events in a single country: Mali. While the sharp escalation of conflict in northern Mali represents a departure from the most recent conflict patterns in the country, a longer historical view of the data reveals preceding spikes in conflict levels and fatalities, reflecting the depth and per- sistence of underlying drivers of conflict. Narratives of a ‘regional crisis’ should be interrogated more thoroughly in light of the available data on violence, governance and fragility in these states.

This point speaks to a broader imperative to consider the intra-regional variation across Sahelian states: data on dominant actor and event types within the region speak to pro- nounced discrepancies between the conflict profiles of each constituent state, which should inform attempts to draw broader regional lessons and conclusions on peace and conflict in this vast area. This is not to deny the trans-boundary nature of select actors in the region – most notably, AQIM and a range of Tuareg separatist groups – but to highlight the need to interrogate and challenge gener- alisations which obscure important regional, national and even local variations.

Notes 1 All data is drawn from the Armed Conflict

Location & Event Dataset (ACLED), online at acleddata.com.

2 See acleddata.com for published data. 3 In this article, regions are defined as fol-

lows: Central Africa (Angola, Burundi, Cen- tral African Republic, Democratic Repub- lic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Rwanda); East Africa (Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda); the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethi- opia, Somalia, Sudan); North Africa (Alge- ria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia); the Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Maurita- nia, Niger); Southern Africa (Botswana, Le- sotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe); and West Africa (Benin, Cam- eroon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea- Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sen- egal, Sierra Leone, Togo).

4 The MNJ is a predominantly Tuareg rebel group which emerged in northern Niger in 2007, alleging neglect and marginalisa- tion by the government of the region.

5 Map author: Léa Macias; map visualisa- tion provided by SpatialKey.

Acknowledgement Research and realtime coding is supported by, or in part by, the U.S. Army Research Office contract/grant number W911NF-09-1-007

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Introduction After years of recurring humanitarian crises linked to climate change and drought, high food prices and chronic poverty, the 2012 cri- sis that threatened up to 18 million people with food insecurity in the Sahel worsened with the political breakdown in Mali. A new Tuareg rebellion and the killing of close to a hundred Malian soldiers in January, a mili- tary coup in March, the country’s partition and the occupation of its North by radical Islamists all shed a new light on the current and emerging peace and security challenges that weaken countries in the Sahel region. Although the crisis erupted in Mali, most countries in the region face the same threats to peace and security. Hence, more coordi- nated and comprehensive efforts are needed

to prevent general instability. In Mali, the slow erosion of the state behind a veneer of democracy, weak justice and security insti- tutions, and the long-time marginalization of some ethnic communities in the north have combined to durably stall stability and development. The French-African military intervention in January 2013, which pushed back the Islamist groups’ attempts to move southward, liberated Mali’s northern cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, and prevented the country from becoming a haven for radical Islamism and terrorism. Nevertheless, fur- ther efforts are needed to bring sustainable peace back to Mali and the region.

In Mali, despite the formal adhesion to principles of democracy, governance, human rights and the rule of law proclaimed at national, regional, continental and inter- national levels, the recent collapse of the state has exposed the limited (or lack of) implementation of these various principles,

Affa’a Mindzie, M 2013 Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights in the Sahel. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(2): 30, pp. 1-12, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.br

ARTICLE

Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights in the Sahel Mireille Affa’a Mindzie*

stability

* International Peace Institute, U.S. [email protected]

Despite formal adhesion by countries in the Sahel to regional and international standards promoting governance, human rights and the rule of law, weak state institutions, poor human rights track-records, as well as poor governance and corruption remain widespread and have built up to erupt in the political and security crisis that unfolded in Mali. Strength- ening human rights and the rule of law by renewing the commitment made by countries in the region to democratic, governance and human rights frameworks, has the potential to bring sustainable peace back to Mali while preventing escalation in the neighbouring countries. Beyond the complete ratification and effective implementation of these various instruments, efforts must be pursued to improve democratic practices; strengthen ineffec- tive national institutions; and support human rights monitoring mechanisms established at national and regional levels. Moreover, comprehensive transitional justice processes must be implemented in countries emerging from crisis, with a view to addressing past human rights abuses.

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and the absence of strong and independ- ent national institutions to support their realization. A renewed commitment to, and effective implementation of, the democratic, governance and human rights standards sub- scribed to by Mali, as well as its neighbours, have the potential to strengthen the rule of law and advance the protection of human rights in the Sahel region. Such a develop- ment could help address the root causes of the multifaceted crisis, and bring sustainable peace back to Mali while preventing escala- tion in the neighbouring countries. After the wake-up call addressed to all countries in the region by the Malian crisis, this paper examines the need for Sahelian countries to clearly manifest their adherence to princi- ples of human rights and the rule of law as a way of addressing the crisis. First, the paper provides an overview of the human rights situation in the context of the Malian crisis. Second, useful legal frameworks and tools being developed at national and regional levels that have the potential to advance human rights and the rule of law in the Sahel are evaluated. Third, the paper presents con- crete suggestions being developed or imple- mented that illustrate the effective contribu- tion that respect for human rights and the rule of law can bring to the ongoing efforts to address the crisis in Mali and the Sahel.

Human Rights and Rule of Law Challenges as Sources and Consequences of the Crisis in Mali Ineffective rule of law and weak security institutions, as well as poor governance and corruption have been listed among the root causes of the current crisis in Mali. Prior to the January 2012 Tuareg rebellion, specific human rights challenges concerned both civil and political rights, as well as economic and social rights. They included, among oth- ers, restrictions on freedoms of speech and assembly, impunity and widespread corrup- tion in the judiciary and the police, domestic violence and discrimination against women, child labour, trafficking in persons, as well as

discrimination against certain ethnic groups (US State Department, 2011). A dysfunctional democracy with limited popular participa- tion in regular elections and the absence of opposition; poor social service delivery espe- cially in the border areas; political, economic and social marginalization of nomadic com- munities and years of poor management of ethnic Tuareg’s grievances; as well as the chal- lenges faced by an ill-trained, ill-equipped and divided national army all combined to fuel insecurity, weaken political institutions, and stall economic growth.

The conflict that unfolded after the renewed Tuareg rebellion in January 2012 and the military coup that overthrew former presi- dent Amadou Toumani Toure in March has triggered further human rights abuses. The collusion of Tuareg rebels with radical Islam- ists who had been operating in northern Mali for a number of years, and the latter’s con- nections with terrorist groups resulted in the implementation of a strict version of sharia law. This led to numerous violations commit- ted against civilian populations, including summary executions, arbitrary arrests and forced disappearances, rape and forced mar- riages, the destruction and looting of prop- erty, conscription of child soldiers by armed groups, and the destruction of places of wor- ship. Since the January 2013 military inter- vention that pushed back the Islamist mili- tants out of the main cities of Mali’s north, reports have further denounced human rights violations committed by elements of the Malian security forces against the Tuareg and Arab communities as well as other groups that are perceived to have either been associating with rebel groups or cooperating with them (Amnesty International, 2013). Moreover, after 14 months, the conflict has forced 475,000 people, mainly women and children, from their homes in the north. Often fleeing for fear of violence due to their presumed links with Islamist or separatist groups, many found refuge in neighboring countries. Precarious conditions in refugee camps, including limited water supply, nutri-

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tion and health facilities are some of the challenges facing Malian refugees and inter- nally displaced persons.

These new human rights challenges develop while, as recalled by the March 2013 United Nations Secretary-General’s report on the situation in Mali, over 77 per cent of the Malian population remains under the international poverty line. Most of them lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation services. Healthcare services and infrastruc- ture also remain limited, and risks of malnu- trition as well as infant and maternal death are high (United Nations, 2013). Meanwhile, undue influence on the judiciary, limited legal knowledge and assistance, the scarcity of legal infrastructure and the limited num- ber of lawyers (there are less than 300 lawyers for the entire country) as well as the high cost of justice due to both filing fees and corrup- tion, are some of the obstacles to access to justice (American Bar Association, 2012).

The crisis factors identified above are not unique to Mali. Despite its vast natural resources, Niger is listed among the poorest nations in the Human Development Index (HDI) with a score of 0.304, close to Chad and Burkina Faso, two other Sahelian coun- tries (Human Development Report 2013). Women are disproportionately affected by underdevelopment and Niger ranked 146 out of 148 countries in the Gender Inequal- ity Index. Only 2.5 per cent of adult women have reached a secondary or higher level of education compared to 7.6 per cent of men. Female participation in the labour market is 39.9 per cent while men’s stands at 89.9. Fertility rates, including of adolescents, are also very high, as is the number of women dying from pregnancy-related causes. Niger further faces shortages in food supplies on a seasonal basis due to the limited ability of a large number of its population, who depend on local produce and subsistence farming, to provide for themselves every year from June to September when harvest is low. Corrup- tion, the lack of transparency and impunity also prevent equitable sharing of the coun-

try’s resources and an effective provision of the public service of justice. In Chad, the African Union (AU) Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a monitoring mecha- nism established under a 1981 regional char- ter, expressed its concerns about the human rights situation in the country. The Commis- sion particularly underlined the high rate of illiteracy and low levels of education, in particular among girls and women; women’s limited participation in the management of public affairs and the existence of traditional and religious practices restricting women’s rights; as well as the working conditions of the National Human Rights Commission and the country’s delay in fulfilling its report obli- gations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 2013).

Moreover, in a region where most states are unable to ensure full control of their vast territories, porous borders, limited job opportunities and cultural specificities (including nomadic traditions across the Sahara desert) have gradually facilitated the enrooting of drugs, arms and human traf- ficking. West Africa and the Sahel-Sahara regions are now considered a transit hub of the cocaine trade from South America to Europe and beyond. The United Nations Office of Drug Control (UNODC) estimates that, since 2006, 20–40 tons of cocaine per year have been transited through West Africa to Europe, which amounts to a minimum value of about $1 billion each year (Lacher, 2012). In Mali, the Islamist Movement for Unity and the Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) was particularly pointed at for using religion only as a cover for drug and cigarette traffick- ing, an activity that critically impacts on com- munities’ socio-economic fabric and increas- ingly raises health and security concerns especially for young males (Brown, 2013). Besides drugs, large numbers of arms are cir- culating in the Sahel, fuelling instability and violence. In addition to some 2,000 heavily armed Tuareg mercenaries who returned from Libya in 2011, the arms trafficking is

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fuelled by the limited success of a disarma- ment, demobilization and reintegration pro- gram started in 1996, which saw only about a third of 12,000 rebel soldiers, mostly Tuareg, presenting their weapons (UNODC, 2013). With regard to human trafficking, additional cash flow is collected from migrants trying to reach Europe through the desert, and the business of hostage taking and the payment of ransoms.

In its March 2012 report on “Delivering justice: programme of action to strengthen the rule of law at the national and inter- national levels,” the UN Secretary-General recalled, “(t)ransnational threats, such as organized crime, piracy and trafficking, are both the cause and consequence of a weak rule of law environment, and pose a serious challenge to the legitimacy of the State and to international peace and security” (United Nations, 2012). In Mali, the erosion of the state and government’s legitimacy linked to public officials’ collusion with local traf- fickers, a laissez-faire and profiteering atti- tude, and the weakness of the justice and security institutions are all illustrations of the weak rule of law environment that plunged the West African country and the region into recent turmoil. Mali’s state and security apparatus collapsed although the country had subscribed to a wide network of national and regional standards aimed at promoting the respect for human rights and the rule of law.

National and Regional Frameworks for Advancing Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Mali and the Sahel Mali’s February 1992 Constitution, which formalized the country’s transition to democ- racy at the time, contains a Bill of Rights pro- claiming individual civil and political rights, social and cultural rights, as well as group or third generation rights such as the right to a clean environment (Article 15). Mali has adopted several laws protecting human rights. These include the 2009 laws on medi- cal assistance and on compulsory health-care

scheme, and a 2012 law to combat human trafficking. In addition, a family code, ini- tially adopted in August 2009 after 10 years of discussion, developed measures to increase equality between men and women in relation to marital status, parental rights, ownership of land and inheritance, wages and pensions, employment laws and educa- tion. However, under pressure from Islamist groups, the family code was revised in 2011 and deprived of its progressive measures in favor of women and children (Luongo, 2012).

Complementing this normative frame- work, Mali has established national institu- tions such as the 2009 human rights com- mission mandated to promote and protect human rights. To improve the functioning of the Commission, its chairperson recom- mended, when presenting its first report in 2009, more independence, an autonomous management of its budget, as well as a new reading of its founding legislation to make it more compliant with the 1993 UN Paris Prin- ciples on the status of national human rights institutions (Sissoko, 2011). Like other coun- tries in the Sahel, Mali has also established the Médiateur de la République, an ombuds- man office that intercedes between citizens and public administration, and whose man- date was broadened to include conflict reso- lution and the promotion of governance, human rights and the rule of law. Moreo- ver, countries in the Sahel have developed national policies and plans to organize and improve the public service of justice. In Mali, the Ten-Year Program for Reform of the Jus- tice Sector (PRODEJ), launched in 2000, rec- ognizes the importance of access to justice as “a fundamental right that determines the exercise of all other rights” (American Bar Association, 2012).

A series of human rights instruments that proclaim the categories of individual and collective civil and political rights, as well as social and economic rights, have also been adopted at regional and international levels. Specific treaties protect particular groups namely women, children, persons with disa- bilities, refugees and internally displaced per-

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sons; or deal with particular issues such as the prohibition of genocide, torture, the pro- liferation of small arms and light weapons, and the involvement of children in armed conflict for example. This body of norms aims to ensure the dignity of every human being without discrimination. In the Sahel, it can serve to protect the wide-range of civilians, including women and children, who have been affected by enduring discriminatory practices and more recently by the Malian conflict, and the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees who fled the theatre of violence. While each individual country commits to implementing the rights proclaimed for all the people living on its territory, national protection is rein- forced by the monitoring mechanism gener- ally attached to each treaty. For the countries in the Sahel, these mechanisms include the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice, the AU Commis- sion on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the AU Committee of the Rights and Welfare of the Child, as well as the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Inaugurated in 1987, the African Commis- sion on Human and Peoples’ Rights, located in Banjul, the Gambia, is the main African human rights monitoring mechanism. Mak- ing use of tools such as the consideration of state parties’ reports on the measures they would have taken to implement the rights and freedoms contained in the 1981 Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights; communica- tions or complaints alleging human rights violations committed by state parties; and any investigative method, the Commission helps advance human rights and the rule of law in Africa. To achieve this objective, the Commission has also established the mech- anisms of special rapporteurs, working groups and committees, which lead its work in areas such as: women’s rights, human rights defenders, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced persons, economic, social and cultural rights, the death penalty and extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary killings, and extractive indus-

tries, environment and human rights viola- tions in Africa.

Moreover, the Commission adopts resolu- tions, which formulate principles and rules aimed at addressing issues relating to human rights across the continent. Recent resolutions have condemned unconstitutional changes of government following the military coup in Mali; and condemned the declaration of inde- pendence of Azawad in April 2012, the con- flict between the Tuareg rebels and the Malian armed forces, as well as the ensuing human rights violations including looting and vio- lence against civilian populations, abduction of foreigners, and the forced displacements of populations within and outside Mali. The work of the Commission is complemented by that of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights created in 1998 which, unlike the Commission, has competence to take final and binding decisions on human rights viola- tions, therefore reinforces the protective man- date of the Commission.

Assessing the evolution of human rights protection in Africa twenty-five years after its establishment, the African Commission took note of the progress realized by the domestication of human rights instruments into national laws, some degree of willing- ness by AU member states to cooperate with the Commission by complying with its decisions, the Commission’s increased vis- ibility manifested in the growing number of communications brought before it, and the Commission’s more prominent role in Africa, by its undertaking of fact-finding missions to countries including Mali and Mauritania. However, despite these achieve- ments, the Commission has deplored the persistent lack of political will by member states to support its work, as evidenced by the limited ratification and implementation of several continental human rights instru- ments, the lack of implementation of its recommendations, including with regard to provisional measures issued to prevent irreparable harm to victims, and countries’ reluctance in granting authorization for the Commission to conduct promotion and fact

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finding missions (African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 2013).

In addition to human rights instruments, African countries in the Sahel have sub- scribed to a broad range of regional frame- works that promote democracy and gov- ernance, and can usefully serve to advance human rights and the rule of law in the frag- ile region. The March 22nd military coup in Mali occurred about a month after the 2007 AU Charter on Democracy, Elections and Gov- ernance (ACDEG) entered into force in Feb- ruary 2012. Not yet ratified by Mali, the char- ter proclaims African countries’ adherence to shared values including democracy, human rights, the rule of law and the independence of the Judiciary. The charter reaffirms the importance of holding regular, transparent, free and fair elections; the promotion of gen- der equality; transparency, fairness and citi- zen participation in development processes and the management of public affairs; and the condemnation and rejection of unconsti- tutional changes of government.

Monitoring of the ACDEG’s implementa- tion is entrusted to the Addis Ababa-based AU Commission, which, among other tasks, assists state parties with implementing the Charter (for example by developing bench- marks); assesses state compliance; and pro- motes the creation of favorable conditions for democratic governance in Africa, includ- ing by facilitating the harmonization of national laws and policies. The Commission also ensures that effect is given to the deci- sions of the AU Assembly (for example that perpetrators of unconstitutional changes of government are tried before the competent court of the AU). It assists the Chairperson of the AU to play a role in coordinating the AU electoral assistance and election obser- vation missions.

In West Africa, the ACDEG complements the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance adopted in 2001. The ECOWAS Protocol, the ten-year anniversary of which was commemorated at a regional conference held in Bamako, Mali in Decem-

ber 2011, is considered to have facilitated West Africa’s progress in peace, stability and democracy. The Protocol lists a series of con- stitutional values to be shared by countries in the region, among which: separation of powers, the empowerment and strength- ening of parliaments; the independence of the Judiciary and access to justice; access to power through free, fair and transparent elections; popular participation in decision- making; the strict adherence to democratic principles and decentralization of power at all levels of governance; the apolitical nature of the armed forces; non-discrimination and respect for human rights; and the principle of zero tolerance for unconstitutional changes of government. The principle prohibiting unconstitutional changes of government served as basis for ECOWAS, and for the AU, to condemn coups d’état in Mauritania in 2009, in Niger in 2010, and in Mali in 2012.

Under the NEPAD (the New Partnership for Africa’s Development) Declaration on Democ- racy, Political, Economic and Corporate Gov- ernance, adopted by African leaders in July 2002, African countries further committed to ensuring stability, peace and security; pro- moting closer economic integration; ending unconstitutional changes of government; supporting human rights; and upholding the rule of law and good governance across the continent. The Declaration established the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a self-assessment mechanism that conducts reviews in four thematic areas: democracy and political governance, economic govern- ance and management, corporate govern- ance, and socio-economic development. As of January 2013, thirty-three countries had acceded to the APRM process, among which Sahel’s Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. Seventeen countries have completed their self-assessment exercise and were peer-reviewed by the Forum of Heads of State and Government. In the Sahel, these include Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal.

The APRM has highlighted cross-cutting issues that have the potential to cause ten- sion in Africa. These include elections, diver-

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sity management, resource control and man- agement, unemployment, corruption, poor service delivery, and violence against women and gender inequality. In Mali, specific chal- lenges highlighted by the 2009 APRM coun- try report included issues of diversification and modernization of the economy, a better involvement of women in decision-making and development policies, as well as the need to tap into the asset formed by the diaspora. However, at the time, observers of the pro- cess noted the lack of specific mention of the rebellion in northern Mali among the topics retained for review (Touré and Diarra, 2010). The provision of useful conflict preven- tion and potential reform frameworks; the creation of a platform for peer learning and sharing of experiences and best practices; as well as opening up of the political space for citizens’ participation in policy debates, increased advocacy for good governance, and improved service delivery have been identi- fied as some benefits of the APRM processes. However, the limited implementation of the recommendations formulated at the end of the processes has in some cases appeared as a missed opportunity for preventing conflict, protecting human rights, and strengthening the rule of law.

The complex and multifaceted crisis in the Sahel region, which escalated in Mali, shows both in its causes and its consequences, the continuous gap that exists between the proclamation of rule of law and human rights principles in Africa, and their actual implementation on the ground. What fur- ther efforts can lead to a better protection of human rights and actual respect of the rule of law, thus contribute to a holistic response to the crisis in the Sahel? This is the question the third part of this paper addresses.

Strengthening Human Rights and the Rule of Law in the Sahel as a Response to the Crisis For countries in the Sahel, a renewed com- mitment to strengthening human rights and the rule of law requires first the ratification of the regional and international instruments

adopted to advance democracy, governance and human rights. As indicated above, Mali has yet to ratify the AU charter promoting democracy, elections and governance. And beyond ratification, countries in the Sahel must fulfill their treaty obligations by adopt- ing the necessary measures, including leg- islative, executive and administrative, to ensure the implementation of the principles proclaimed by the ACDEG, the ECOWAS Pro- tocol on Democracy and Good Governance, as well as all human rights instruments rati- fied at regional, continental and global levels. Practical implementation measures include, among others, concrete and comprehensive programs to ensure the realization of eco- nomic, social and cultural rights by providing employment opportunities and basic social services such as healthcare, education and the fight against illiteracy. In addition, the politi- cal, social and economic marginalization of ethnic minorities, women and the youth, as well as the challenges facing other vulnerable groups such as internally displaced persons, refugees and migrants, should be addressed, including through regional cooperation and international assistance. To counter the treaty implementation challenges that are perennial to most countries in Africa, citizen participa- tion in the definition and implementation of national human rights and development plans and policies is critical. And to facilitate civil society’s involvement in the preparation and realization of such plans, sensitization and public awareness, training and education are also required.

Improved democratic practices facilitate the implementation of citizens’ right to participate in the conduct of public affairs, including through elected representatives. Effective democratic practices also serve to limit powers by facilitating Parliament over- sight on the Executive, thus strengthening the rule of law. Moreover, they ensure the accountability of the elected leaders, whose practical legitimacy also results from the pro- vision of basic services or the realization of a number of economic and social rights. Inclu- sive and transparent democratic processes,

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which take into account the risk of conflict in societies where winners-take-all electoral sys- tems increase the stake of elections, should ensure that the political dimensions and not only the technical aspects of electoral pro- cesses are considered from the pre-election, to the election, to the post-election phases of the electoral cycle. In the context of Mali’s presidential election scheduled to take place in July 2013, this entails the establishment of an independent and functioning election management body, the adoption of consen- sual, inclusive and consistent criteria to facil- itate voter participation, clear rules for the organization of voting, vote counting and verification of results, as well as the conduct of post-election reviews. Additional require- ments for the holding of credible and peace- ful elections include adequate resources— also needed for advancing decentralization policies and strengthening local govern- ance—the commitment of all political actors, and an active participation of women, both as voters and candidates. Moreover, context- specific challenges linked to the recent lib- eration of territories in northern Mali, and the organization of the vote for thousands of Malians displaced within and outside their country need to be addressed.

To strengthen weak institutions and over- come the challenges that facilitated the development of transnational organized crime in the Sahel, a reform of the security sector is further needed. In Mali, the national reform process of the defense forces is being conducted under the leadership of Cap- tain Amadou Sanogo, the former head of the junta who led the March 2012 military coup — an appointment met with discontent by some of the Malian militaries in January 2013. The military committee for monitoring and reforming the defense forces is charged with preparing a reform program for the defense and security forces, as well as train- ing troops and supervising military opera- tions. It is anticipated that the committee will help reconcile the divided army, boost its morale, and address the training and equip-

ment challenges that led to the relationship breakdown between the Malian national army and the civilian authorities. Meanwhile, 150 European Union trainers, backed by 400 troops representing 22 European countries, have begun a 15-month EU Training Mission in Mali (EUTM) in April 2013. The mission aims to improve the capacity of the Malian army to take on the Islamist insurgency rag- ing in the north and protect the country’s territorial integrity. Both the national reform program of the defense and security forces and training of the Malian army by the EUTM should increase knowledge in, and improve human rights practices by the Malian secu- rity and defense forces, a process which will enhance civilians’ safety and protection.

Like the security and defense forces, train- ing in quality and quantity of judicial actors, and the provision of adequate working con- ditions have the potential to advance the rule of law. A request for support to the con- tinued implementation of the PRODEJ was made during Mali’s universal review in Janu- ary 2013 by the UN Human Rights Council. A strong and independent justice system can help reduce influence by the Executive, ensure respect for human rights by provid- ing legal recourses and remedies in case of violations, and restore citizen confidence in the state. Enhanced cooperation among law enforcement authorities across borders can also help tackle transnational organized crime in the Sahelian countries, contribute to the security of local communities and, in the long-term, help restore legal economies able to pave the way to sustainable development. Parallel national monitoring mechanisms should also be reinforced. Proper checks and balances of the definition and imple- mentation of public policies require clear financial, human and material autonomy for parliaments to effectively represent people’s rights and interests. Where they do not exist, control mechanisms to help institutionalize economic and corporate governance should be put in place. For example, anti-corruption commissions, the effective functioning of

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which can also be hampered by their lack of autonomy, political interference and limited funding and institutional capacity, must be put in a position to fulfill their mandate to prevent, investigate and prosecute corrup- tion (UNECA, 2009).

Moreover, national human rights institu- tions must be provided with the necessary material and financial resources to ensure their independence and facilitate the imple- mentation of their mandate in accordance with the Paris Principles, a recommendation formulated by the Human Rights Council at the end of Mali’s review. At regional and continental levels, human rights monitor- ing mechanisms should also be supported and reinforced. For the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, this calls for political will on the part of state parties to cooperate with the commission and comply with their charter’s obligations. Continuous and constructive dialogue between the com- mission and all stakeholders, especially state parties, is critical for supporting the promo- tion of human rights across Africa, includ- ing by implementing the commission’s rec- ommendations and decisions. At the level of the AU, adequate human, financial and material resources must be provided for the commission to carry out its mandate and activities. Moreover, the various continen- tal mechanisms supervising the democratic, governance and human rights and the rule of law principles proclaimed by the AU must improve their necessary collaboration, as well as with national human rights institu- tions, civil society organizations and other partners working in the area of human rights and the rule of law on the continent.

In post-conflict and post-authoritarian rule contexts, transitional justice is another tool that can usefully contribute to strengthen- ing human rights and the rule of law. Transi- tional justice mechanisms provide significant avenues for addressing past human rights abuses by ensuring accountability, establish- ing the truth and granting reparations to the victims. They constitute an important way to

build or reform institutions, restore confi- dence in the state and, ideally move towards peace and reconciliation. In Mali, transitional justice processes have been initiated to over- come the human rights deficit caused by the crisis. Acknowledging the national courts’ inability to prosecute or try the alleged per- petrators of the crimes committed since Jan- uary 2012 in Mali, the government decided in July 2012 to refer the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Office of the Prosecutor initiated a preliminary examination of the situation and decided, in January 2013, to formally open an investigation. In July 2012, the Prosecu- tor had already warned belligerent groups in the north that the deliberate destruction of UNESCO-classified ancient shrines in the city of Timbuktu might constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute. Noting that “the crimes committed in Mali have deeply shocked the conscience of humanity,” the ICC Prosecutor recalled, “justice can play its part in supporting the joint efforts of ECO- WAS, the AU and the entire international community to stop the violence and restore peace to the region” (ICC, 2013); an ambi- tion that should be duly considered follow- ing recent threats during the May 2013 AU summit of a mass withdrawal of its members from the Rome Statute, in protest namely of the perceived targeting of African leaders by the ICC.

Complementing the judicial efforts, the Malian authorities adopted a transitional roadmap in January 2013 that established a Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission, a truth-seeking mechanism that will facili- tate an all-inclusive national dialogue to address the various factors that constituted the root causes of the crisis. The Commission will specifically seek to identify the armed groups eligible to participate in the national dialogue; record human rights violations committed during the crisis; propose all necessary measures to help the victims over- come the trauma they have gone through; and make proposals for actions that can help

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strengthen social cohesion and national unity and focus on dialogue and peace. Over its first two-year term, the Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission is expected to contribute to restoring peace and reconcili- ation in Mali, a process which will also serve to build citizens’ confidence in the country’s institutions and therefore help advance the rule of law. While the composition of the 33-member Commission takes into account the diversity of the Malian society, the com- missioners’ appointment, essentially led by the political authorities may raise con- cerns about the commission’s independ- ence, as well as civil society’s support and ownership of the process by the population (Labelle, 2013). Other lessons learned from transitional justice processes implemented in Africa can help the Malian Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission achieve its objectives. These include the provision of sufficient resources for the commission to implement its mandate; the involvement and empowerment of traditionally marginal- ized groups such as women, children, as well as refugees and internally displaced persons; and government’s sustained commitment throughout the process, and its political will to implement the recommendations to be adopted by the commission.

Conclusion It is now acknowledged that Mali’s twenty years of democracy were built on fragile foundations and the erosion of the West Afri- can country’s institutions paved the way to the current political, security, humanitarian, as well as human rights crisis. While the con- flict erupted in Mali, the same factors are pre- sent in neighbouring countries and have the potential to durably threaten peace, stability and development in the entire Sahel region and beyond. At the same time, several instru- ments and frameworks have been developed at national, regional and international levels, which can usefully address the root causes of the crisis in Mali and other countries in the region. In searching for comprehensive and durable responses to the crisis, countries in

the Sahel, with the support of the interna- tional community, are called upon to fulfil their commitments to promote governance and democracy, respect for the rule of law, and ensure the protection of human rights across the region. Thus, the complete ratifi- cation and effective implementation of the various instruments adopted at the regional and continental levels by ECOWAS and the AU, as well as at global level by the United Nations, must be pursued among the pri- orities identified to respond to the crisis. In addition, the specific measures needed to realize the norms and principles enshrined in these instruments should be developed by the countries concerned. These include implementing the basic civil and political rights, as well as economic, social and cul- tural rights recognized to the people in the Sahel. It further calls for improved demo- cratic practices and the organization of free, fair and peaceful elections that give due consideration to the political aspects and the risk of violence attached to electoral processes in the region. Weak national insti- tutions must be strengthened, and adminis- trative oversight must be improved. Moreo- ver, the national and regional mechanisms established to monitor the implementation of human rights must be reinforced and sup- ported. And transitional justice mechanisms in countries emerging from crisis must be established. Strengthening human rights and the rule of law are critical components of the strategies being developed or imple- mented by the multiple national, regional and international actors trying to find a response to the multidimensional crisis in Mali and the Sahel. With the mandate given to the newly-established United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) to ensure, with a focus on women and children, the protection of civilians, the promotion and protection of human rights, national and international justice, humanitarian assistance and cultural preservation, human rights and the rule of law will be further reinforced in Mali and

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the Sahel region, paving the way to durable peace in this fragile region.

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How to cite this article: Affa’a Mindzie, M 2013 Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights in the Sahel. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(2): 30, pp. 1-12, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.br

Published: 27 June 2013

Copyright: © 2013 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

Stability: International Journal of Security & Development is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Ubiquity Press OPEN ACCESS

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This article concerns governance and vio- lence rates across the ‘ungoverned’ spaces of the African Sahel1. We consider how the dominant narrative for Africa generally, and the Sahel specifically, ‘securitizes’ space, and presents poverty, underdevelopment, and ‘ungoverned’ spaces as security threats to be addressed (Abrahamsen 2005; Keenan 2008). We argue that the terms ‘failed’ and ‘ungoverned’ have become coterminous and common because they benefit various state and international powers within and across the Sahel, who avoid responsibility for the geo-political and economic processes within these spaces. Not only does the term ‘ungov- erned’ obscure the actual practices of power within large states with significant under- populated spaces, but it wrongly assumes and accuses those within that space of being more likely to engage in forms of violence that are destabilizing to state structures and external interests. Actual practices of power across the Sahel reveal that large Sahelian states differ significantly in their types of governance, violence rates and trajectories, activities of opposition groups, and long- term prospects for peace.

The concept of ‘ungoverned space’ pervades discussion of global security threats, and dominates analysis and policy approaches

to North Africa and the Sahel in particu- lar. The term is intended to refer to both physical territory and non-physical policy space in which there is an absence of effec- tive state sovereignty and control (Piombo 2007; Hazen 2010). In 2003, the Director of the Central Intelligence’s Worldwide Threat Briefing maintained that the threat posed by ‘vast stretches of ungoverned areas – lawless zones, veritable “no man’s lands,”’ demanded ‘a constant level of scrutiny’. At that time, emphasis was placed on the need to focus on ‘ungoverned spaces’ in spite of the fact that such challenges were ‘not occupying space on the front pages’ (Tenet 2003). In the intervening decade, ungoverned spaces have become a staple of the security lexicon of policy-makers, analysts and researchers, and the territories the term describes thereby inextricably linked to terrorism, terrorist ‘safe havens’ and multiple emerging security threats (State Department 2012: 180)

The Sahel region, in particular, has been subject to characterization in these terms, allegedly constituting little more than ‘a scrubby band of ungoverned terrain strad- dling Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa’ (Schmidle 2009). More recently, the specter of ‘vast ungoverned expanses’ in Mali has featured in US Senate nominations hear- ings for Commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) (Rodriguez 2013), while ‘ungov- erned spaces’ also surfaced in the hearing for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (Brennan 2013). Similarly, in the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken repeat-

Raleigh, C and Dowd, C 2013 Governance and Conflict in the Sahel’s ‘Ungoverned Space’. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(2): 32, pp. 1-17, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.bs

ARTICLE

Governance and Conflict in the Sahel’s ‘Ungoverned Space’ Clionadh Raleigh* and Caitriona Dowd†

stability

* Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway [email protected]

† Trinity College Dublin, Ireland [email protected]

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edly of the need to ‘close down’ ungoverned spaces (Cameron 2013a, 2013b), while a for- mer member of Cameron’s National Security Council has reportedly spoken in terms of how ‘to civilize an “ungoverned space”’ (For- syth 2013).

‘Ungoverned space’ is presented as a step towards state failure in the Sahel. As Mitch- ell (2010) notes, the rhetoric of ‘rogue’ states has drastically changed in order to present these areas as the new frontier of terror: “it is no longer just the strong, aggressive and authoritarian states that provoke concern, but also their opposites: those which allow their territories to appear chaotic, cut off, ungoverned or ungovernable”. As summa- rized by Simon & Tucker (2007) “analysts focus on ‘forests of failure’ rather than trees. Despite catchy terms like ‘the arc of insta- bility’, entire regions don’t collapse; entire states never fail. Not everything falls apart, even when there is no government control.” This alternative perspective on Sahelian spaces and sub-national violence dynamics reveals the deficiencies of theoretical and policy exaggeration in this region.

Overview of Argument Using data from Sahel and other African states, we show how the argument regard- ing ‘ungoverned space’ is theoretically thin, based largely on conjecture, and does not reflect the logistical realities and strategies of violent actors. Political violence is about a contest for power, not its vacuum. Large, peripheral spaces may be useful only at a particular stage of conflict, or potentially as a conduit for resource generation. Orches- trating a rebellion from a peripheral area is particularly ineffective if a group plans to make any advancement, generate support- ers, or engage with enemy forces. We sup- port our assertions and claims with real-time data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Raleigh et al. 2010) on political violence from across the Sahel.

Our argument is built on three pillars: we begin with examining theories of spa-

tial governance and specifically question the dominant narrative that suggests links between ungoverned space, state failure and violence. After a review of the main theories, we problematize the concept of ‘ungoverned’ and state capacity interpretations of govern- ance. We suggest that Sahel states are actu- ally effectively governed, albeit by a variety of agents. Given that Sahel states are among the poorest, largest and most underpopulated African states, the reach of state capacity is bound to be limited, and more accurately, directed towards areas of high population and resource wealth (Herbst 2000). The char- acterization of other spaces as ‘ungoverned’ obscures the practices and exercises of power and governance that take place therein.

The main consequence that we focus on is how the reach of the state creates oppor- tunities for violence. ‘Ungoverned space’ perpetuates a state-centric understanding of governance and conflict, implying in the first instance, that in such spaces the state is entirely absent; and in the second instance, that such absence results in a lack of any effective governance, and therefore conflict. Contrary to the ‘space securization’ narrative, stability and violence are largely products of the geopolitics of groups’, communities’, states’ and international actors’ relationships instead of hinterland size, the politicization of religious and ethnic identities, or environ- mental considerations.

Our second pillar considers the geopolitics of the Sahel specifically. We argue that the challenges facing the Sahel are less the result of ‘ungoverned’ space than of ‘too many overlapping forms of governance/interests’. The aims and constraints, differences and practices of violent groups, regions, states and international interests are presented in light of contests for power, rather than the absence thereof. We emphasize the agency and agendas of various actors, including biased regimes that may be complicit in the proliferation of violence, and state policies that create instability through neglect, mar- ginalization, corruption and/or collusion.

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Finally, we look specifically at the violent actors operating in the Sahel and how they use space. Political violence generally pools in towns, cities and populated areas, but there is a persuasive argument that, during early points in their life cycle, groups take advantage of underpopulated spaces to pre- pare, strengthen, train, and generate income through illegal smuggling. In particular, the ‘ungoverned’ argument suggests that terror- ists specifically benefit from this ‘hinterland’ geography. This is wrong on two counts: the groups that are active in the Sahel are largely local, have national aims, and act accord- ingly. Branding all organizations as terror- ists is a tactic of national governments and international interests who have shared and distinct reasons for seeking to characterize violent actors in these terms. Groups operat- ing in the Sahel are far more likely to be rebel groups dedicated to changing the regime within a state, militia groups organized by regional or local powers to secure power therein, or those engaging in the commu- nal contests. These groups did not seek out ‘underpopulated’ or ‘ungoverned’ territory: most originate from these territories and emerge within their local communities. Like any violent group, they organize from a base of strength first.

Hence, in seeking answers to why groups organize in peripheral, poor, and large regions, it is far more useful to consider peripherality and poverty as reasons for vio- lence organization, over the base logistics of space. Indeed, when the activities of domestic groups are fully considered and understood in terms of their goals and motivations, the immense external focus and concern about the Sahel seems to have been largely gener- ated by the presence of AQIM, a group that, for all intents and purposes, is not especially active. It is perhaps more similar to the rov- ing Lord’s Resistance Army than any feasible global or western threat.

Further, those violent actors (like AQIM) who seek to engage with state or interna- tional forces, western interests or others, do

not need large, peripheral spaces to do so: violent actors are just as prevalent in areas considered ‘well controlled’ by states. Indeed, this dynamic illustrates a significant tautol- ogy – if a group focuses on western inter- ests, they are branded as terrorists and their actions are seen as a function of lacking con- trol, instead of a strategy built to take advan- tage of environments and institutional struc- tures in which they find themselves.

Theories, Narratives & Realities A main tenet of the failed/ungoverned space argument is the presumption that states should be internally and externally sover- eign, legitimate and capable of delivering public goods, including security, welfare, and development to their citizens and spaces. By this logic, areas excluded from the state ‘net’ are likely to descend into anar- chy and violence by allowing non-state vio- lent actors to settle, plan logistics, engage in crime to generate funds, recruit, train and operate therein. Exclusion is typically defined by the presence of active, sovereign control and poor states, such as those found throughout the Sahel, are less likely to have complete state sovereignty. Hence, the types of effective governance being practiced in the poorest states across Africa are the result of choices between the delivery of public goods and the realistic extent of capacity and power.

Governance There are four main theoretical frames which consider how regimes make choices about space, inclusion and exclusion: Herbst (2000) contends that African states have a favorable or unfavorable political geogra- phy, largely determined by state size, popu- lation distribution and resource wealth. The type of political geography influences the extent of state capability and control; in turn this regulates how much violence is likely to erupt therein. Small states with even population distributions are expected to be the most peaceful, while large states with

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underpopulated ‘hinterlands’ are likely to have the most violence, due to the inability of states to effectively police these territo- ries. This is a static approach to governance, predetermined and, seemingly, unaffected by state policies or practices. It is also plainly contradicted by the experience of mass vio- lence in supposedly geographically favora- ble states, such as Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and others. In many ways, Herbst (2000) provides the theoreti- cal underpinning to the ‘ungoverned space’ argument and uses Sahel state examples extensively in his approach.

A slightly different interpretation comes from Clapham (1986) who argues that differ- ent regimes have changing interests, largely based on their ‘legitimizing’ support base. Hence, the geography of governance should be understood as a result of shifting, layered interest: economic interests dominate, to be followed by political relationships, physical abilities etc. In turn, Boone (2003) effectively argues that Western African regimes practice governance based on economic interests and relationships, and this results in four clear categories of governed space: those where the state is directly present and extractive; indirectly present and extractive; indirectly present and non-extractive; and non-incor- porated. Finally, Mehler (2004) argues that new institutional configurations of the Afri- can states are based on multiple power hold- ers and sources, each connected through alli- ances, hierarchies and effective relationships to dictate the extent and depth of power across territories.

What each theory effectively argues is that there are limits to central state power: the opportunities and constraints of states in each of these theoretical approaches remain fixed, while the governance process differs in application, spatial presence, and depth. In understanding the realities and limits to power (especially in large states), we accept that regions and groups will be differentially governed, and some margin- alized. Those that are excluded tend to live in peripheral areas, have higher rates of

poverty and are effectively ‘politically irrele- vant’ (Raleigh, 2010). Yet only Herbst (2000) argues that those areas outside of effective ‘central’ and ‘hierarchical’ state power can be considered ‘ungoverned’ due to a vac- uum of power.

The present narrative defining the Sahel belt suggests that its large, underpopulated states, with significant Muslim populations, are new hotbeds of terrorism, regional dis- order, destabilization, and attacks on west- ern targets. The assumption is that as a significant part of the Sahelian states are ungoverned, unencumbered by control from regimes, armies, etc., violent groups flourish, train, generate support and engage in con- flict with local, national, and even interna- tional ‘enemies’. In short, its power vacuums are dangerous. However, evidence from Afri- can states and Sahel states specifically coun- ter the notion that violence is more often present, or more intense, in areas far from national capitals or underpopulated relative to other areas. At its most basic level, the pre- sumption that Sahel states are amongst the most dangerous on the continent is not quite the case. As Figure 1 shows, the rate of Sahelian violence is not insignificant, but pales in comparison to individual high violence states in Africa. Even considering the drastic rise in 2012, the Sahel remains an actively violent region, but hardly quali- fies as a crisis relative to other spaces. Vio- lence for Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Northern Nigeria combined was similar in intensity to all of DR-Congo’s 2012 vio- lence rate.

In addition, the violence in the Sahel is also less fatal than several of the other regions displayed in Figure 1 (see Appendix Figure A1), and fatality rates are largely in line with event occurrences (see Figure 2).

As is clear in both Figures 1 and 2, violence across the Sahel increased at a very limited rate before 2011–2012, and tripled in 2012 from previous rates. These increases within the Sahel are largely due to Northern Nige- ria and Mali (see Figure 3). Northern Nigeria has been highly unstable since 2009, as Boko

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Haram has terrorized civilians and regional governments with increasing frequency and intensity. Regional competition and govern- ance in Nigeria’s northern states largely drive this violence.

Indeed, the overall effects of violence on civilians in the Sahel belt are largely borne by Northern Nigerian residents (Figure 4).

We can therefore conclude that the risks of violence within and outside the Sahel differ to the patterns that the ‘ungoverned’ space narrative would suggest. The Sahel may be a space for political violence, but its combined violence rate is similar to indi- vidual African states. Further, that is largely due to the increase in 2012, which itself is

Figure 1: Rate of Conflict in Sahel Versus other Select African States

Figure 2: Rate of Conflict in Sahel with Fatalities

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largely attributed to Northern Nigeria, and the active government and civilian attacks of Boko Haram.

Trigger Mechanisms The ungoverned space narrative is under- scored by a context of state failure, and the trigger mechanisms for regional instability

are variously presented as poverty, Islam or environmental change. These other narra- tives of violence in Sahel states are also poor. In detail, the poverty mechanism suggests that ‘disconnected’ areas within states are the hotbeds for modern political violence (Bar- nett 2004). The Sahel as a poor world region is classified as ‘disconnected’ at best and does

Figure 3: Comparison Across Individual States

Figure 4: Violence Against Civilians in Sahel

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experience political violence. But these vio- lence rates shift over time and space. This indicates that spatial characteristics are not the sole concern (or there would be little temporal vacillation). However, these states are no more violent per capita, or over space, than small states2.

An alternative speculation is that climate changes and vulnerability can explain high Sahelian violence rates. Until the overlapping regional crises of 2011–12, most Sahelian violence was couched in environmental crisis terms, suggesting that the negative climate changes in Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASAL) would lead to direct increases in community based scarcity and conflict. The evidence for this link is shallow: despite fears that climate change may contribute to and exacerbate the present political crisis, conflict rates are not in line with expected trends. For exam- ple: there were droughts in the Sahel in both 2010 and 2012. In 2010, overall Sahelian violence rates were not statistically different than the preceding and following years; in 2012, the drought mainly affected Maurita- nia and Chad, both of which lost over 50 per cent of the crop from 2011 (Oxfam 2012). However, both states remained relatively peaceful in 2012. Mauritania did experience an increase in events, largely due to border events with Mali and intermittent activity clustered in the capital, but these did not concern food, climate, or water.

The ‘environmental crisis’ narrative for the Sahel has been a standard line for decades (as discussed by Swift 1996), bolstered with weak links between rainfall aberrations, presumed land degradation and violence by Herrero (2006); Keita (1998), Bennett (1991); Homer- Dixon (2001) and Baechler (1999) to name a few. Alternatively, other academic work adamantly argues that the risks and vulner- abilities to climate change across the Sahel are a result of marginalization and political exclusion, largely based on group identity and livelihoods. Violence may, or may not, be an outcome of this political process (Turner 2004; Benjaminson 2008; Raleigh 2010b).

Islam is the final mechanism used to sug- gest how ungoverned space promotes vio- lence. Throughout the recent discussion of the Sahel crisis, a strong current of ‘Islama- phobia’ dominates: Traub (2012) blatantly states that ‘terrorism is only a problem in failed states with significant Muslim popu- lations” and using his own index of failed states as evidence where 13 of the top 20 Foreign Policy Failed states can be defined as large, African and Muslim. Wege (2012) takes up this point, noting that the African continent is characterized by a number of failed states, and Hizbollah (and others) are exploiting these weaknesses. Islamist activ- ists are therefore the ‘primary drivers of ter- rorism’ across the Sahel; he too, provides no evidence for these points.

The link between large, Muslim, African states and state failure is presented as a trans- parent assessment by indices measuring the capacity to provide public security, rule of law and basic social services; low levels of democ- racy and civil liberties; de-legitimization and criminalization of the state; ethnic and elite factionalism; low, unequal economic perfor- mance; inability to contain/manage political conflict and the potential presence of large scale insurgency (Menkhaus 2010). On mul- tiple ‘Failed State’ scales, Sahelian states top the list, but the exact positions of states vary considerably from index to index, or even within the same categories of a single index.

A critique of the ‘Failed State’ lists is that they apply ‘broad strokes’ to Africa, and per- petuate a sense of state crisis where it may not exist. Take, for example, the 2012 Failed State list from Foreign Policy: almost all of the Sahel, and indeed most of Africa is at the highest ‘critical’ risk of failure; some of the more stable states in 2012 were Mali (‘in danger’), Algeria, Senegal, Benin, Tanzania, and Gabon (also ‘in danger’). On the Fund for Peace Failure Index, Niger was regarded as in ‘alert’ status in 2012; Chad in ‘serious alert’, Mauritania in ‘Warning’ while Mali in between ‘Warning’ and ‘Stable’. In fact, Chad was regarded as the 4th most unstable state

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in the world in 2012 despite a clear reduction in conflict, a peaceful election etc. The expe- rience of violence across the Sahel, and the instability within these ‘high risk’ states is at complete odds with their political violence profiles: Niger, Mauritania and Chad have had minimal issues with internal fighting3 as shown by Figure 1.

These examples serve to underscore the general casualness at which countries in the Sahel are treated as ‘in crisis’ or ‘failing’ without much basis in fact. Both the physical size of a country, coupled with Muslim domi- nance inhabitants, seem to be significant factors in where one lands on a failed state index. Yet, despite painting all states with the same brush, there are sharp variations in how countries have dealt with, and prepared for, internal security threats.

As a whole, the narrative about failed states and mechanisms for increased vio- lence is not based on solid facts or trends in the Sahel. A response to this dominant con- jecture argues that the external interpreta- tion of Sahel politics suffers from an aggre- gation of threats, conditions and states into a distorted, artificially monolithic region of ungoverned Islamic terror. This is an unhelp- ful fiction (Berschinski 2007) leading to policy goals directed towards strikes on indi- vidual ‘terrorists’, and the corrosion of local African support for intervention and change. Simons & Tucker (2007: 390) go further in questioning the original link between terror- ism and state failure:

“Contrary to a commonly held view, significant numbers of international terrorists do not come from failed states. Nor do failed states house many organizations that support terrorism. All states consistently fail some por- tions of their population. In fact, were we to generalize, it should only be along the following lines: from disen- franchised populations can come foot soldiers, from alienated populations can come terrorists.”

Therefore, the argument that ungoverned spaces are violent because they are parts of failed states, Islamist states, or those under- going some sort of environmental crisis is unsubstantiated. Indeed, the broader nar- rative about ‘ungoverned’ territory is highly suspect, as is the relationship between underpopulated areas and violence overall.

Hence, instead of the ‘vacuum’ assumed in theories and suppositions about ungov- erned space, those that are without a cen- tral authority presence are not necessarily spaces of violence. There may, in fact, be violence between state and non-state actors across the boundaries and territories that are differentially governed, but this is not a function of power vacuums, but power contests. Further, according to direct tests of the Herbst thesis, violence rates are not higher in areas with low/indirect/alterna- tive state presence compared to those of effective state presence (gauged by popula- tion, garrisons, roads, distance from capi- tal) (see Raleigh and Hegre, 2009 & Raleigh 2010a). The most pressing issues in hinter- land areas are how non-state actors create forms of governance, and how regions and agents therein deal with the multiplicity of potential ‘governors’ and interests. Indeed, in the Sahel, the areas of most concern are located between regulated and unregulated spaces, and those where non-state agents are actively and effectively competing with the central regime (Peltier 2009).

Who is in Control of the Sahel? An alternative perspective on ‘ungoverned space’ is that it does not exist: all spaces that are populated also have some sort and figure of governance. Areas may not be governed in ways that suit powerful interests, but a range of alternatives- whether a traditional authority, communal organizations, rebels etc.- create a system of order4. Contrary to being a prime example of the political fallout in ungoverned space, the Sahel is an effec- tive counter to perceptions of lacking gov- ernance. Governance in hinterland regions

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is often by combinations and permutations of state and non-state local actors. This form of government incorporates some aspects of hierarchy, even if the intent is a nonhierar- chical mode of effective governance. In turn, “non-state actors become ‘governors’ in that they systematically engage in rule-making about the provision of collective goods. It would be equally incorrect to assume that the state is absent: central state authorities are present directly and indirectly in areas of limited statehood- through negotiation, contributions, alliances, or direct obstruc- tion, but they lack capacities to centrally and hierarchically govern” (Risse, 2011).

These arguments draws from Campana & Ducol (2011) and Clunan and Trinku- nas (2010) who argue much the same, using examples from around the world. For example, it is well established that Sahe- lian national governments practice a form of indirect rule, using traditional authority leaders and associates. In Niger’s and Mali’s hinterlands, the form of tacit federalism was, Berschinski (2007) argues, to contain the ani- mosity between northern communities and politically dominant, southern communities in the wake of earlier Tuareg revolts. But, he cautions (2007: 96), “such detailed ethnogra- phies are difficult to reduce to talking points. They do, however, produce a picture at odds with a key premise of the ungoverned- space thesis as it relates to West Africa”.

An associated issue with the ‘ungoverned’ space perspective is how alternative groups are situated within the political space. An aggregation of goals and group behav- ior often results in the characterization of groups as both ‘terrorists’ and ‘foreign’ to the environment in which they operate. Violent groups operating throughout the Sahel have disparate goals, which dictate their level of activity, type of violence, inter- actions with government forces and overall position within the range of violence occur- ring therein. They are also reacting to, and motivated by, different aspects of govern- ance. This, more so than their financial and

support systems, will dictate how and where they operate (Dowd & Raleigh 2013). Further, regional states’ treatment of and responses to violent groups are distinct, and are neither neutral nor unbiased in how they promote state power. Indeed, the actions of states within domestic or regional arenas is a far more effective explanation for violence rates, patterns and processes than any indication of physical space or ‘absent’ national forces.

Overall, 44.2 per cent of violent events in the region involves state security forces, while the remainder of events are contests among competing militia and rebel groups, violence against civilians, and confronta- tions with external forces (such as transna- tional militaries). This almost even split indi- cates two things: in the first instance, state security forces are far from absent, and are active parties in sustained local, national and regional conflicts. The simplistic assertion that ‘ungoverned’ spaces are territories of government absence is simply and directly refuted by the high degree of state involve- ment in conflict activity in these suppos- edly lawless zones. In the second instance, while national forces are certainly a target for militant groups, contests for local power between alternative sources of security, gov- ernance and authority in the form of rebels, militias and communal groups also continue to shape the regional conflict profile of sup- posedly ‘ungoverned’ spaces in a significant way. The second tenet of the ‘ungoverned space’ thesis – that the absence of physi- cal state presence and authority implies an absence of governance mechanisms of other kinds – is also refuted by these data.

An actor-based analysis also presents a challenge to the narrative of ‘ungoverned spaces’ as it is typically articulated. In the past two years, much of the conflict in the Sahel has been attributed to the presence of al-Qaeda affiliates, although AQIM is the only formal al-Qaeda affiliate active in the region, and the group’s activities actually represent only 3.5 per cent of all non-state violence in the Sahel since 1997, and result in just under

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2 per cent of recorded fatalities.5 For several years, AQIM and its predecessor, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), tried to integrate into northern communities, only to be dismissed by native populations as foreign. Simon & Tucker (2007) explain this as a process as ‘ethnic inaccessibility’ and it is found throughout underdeveloped areas: ethnic inaccessibility is compounded when the community is remotely located or diffi- cult to access and/or when groups have been treated as though they deserve to be margin- alized. Throughout much of the world, and especially in areas with no sustained physi- cal government presence, terrorists can only successfully hide or train if they secure local support and/or local silence; in such locales, groups need to be able to count either on communal ties and codes of honor and/or on sympathetic elements within the security services. In face of this opposition, over time, AQIM has sought to establish ties with local communities in the Sahel through a deliber- ate process of social and economic integra- tion (Goïta 2011), the necessity of which itself refutes claims that the group is highly mobile and fluid in ‘ungoverned’ territory in Northern Mali.

Further, the only significant inroads the AQIM and other transnational groups made across the Sahel came after local agents agreed to strategic alliances. Those alliances were loose, as seen in the unstable asso- ciation between Ansar el Din militants and AQIM, and indicate that most of these groups are not international terrorists as defined by governments and western interests, but local militant groups who are organized against national regimes. They share this feature in common with other violent groups active in regions beyond the Sahel. In particular, AQIM faced several problems in Northern Mali, as Tuareg and other ethno-nationalist groups initially fought against them. The turn in for- tunes for AQIM in the region came only after Tuareg forces were prevented from actively fighting by the Malian Military Forces, who did not have the means to do so. Burbank

(2010) finds that AQIM forces grew fourfold in the past years due to few local enemies.

To represent Sahelian violence as gener- ated and dominated by foreign (i.e. Algerian) rebels with a ‘global’ jihad agenda is to mis- characterize the region, the conflicts and the crises that occurred in both in 2012 and over the longer term. AQIM are but one group in the entire region; the number of discrete violent groups vacillated from 23 non-state violent groups active in 2007 to 27 in 2010, and 13 discrete groups in 2012.6 These groups are largely domestic, and fighting for national goals and political change. The role of regional groups, with ties to groups such as Al Qaeda is also often directed against, or colluding with, Algeria and while attacks on Western targets and interests are the most high-profile events, these are actually extremely rare (this is discussed at length in Dowd & Raleigh 2013). Attacks on inter- national civilians and aid workers make up only 3.8 per cent of all recorded incidents of violence against civilians. Military forces are active in states that made concerted efforts to limit violence within hinterlands, and those that did so were largely success- ful, despite the significant space to operate. Table 1 offers a description of each active politically violent group in the Sahel, their goals and patterns of behavior.

The most active area in the Sahel is north- ern Nigeria, which is home to the most active group- Boko Haram- and a number of violent communal and ethnic militias. Addition- ally, among other prominent actors over the course of the dataset are the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) in Chad, the National Movement for the Lib- eration of Azawad (MNLA) in Mali, and the Movement for Democracy and Justice (MDJT) in Chad, and the Nigerien Movement for Jus- tice (MNJ).

That these groups are native to the Sahel region and act on explicitly articulated (ethno-) national agendas counters the implicit assumption that ‘ungoverned spaces’ pose a danger because they draw to them

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highly mobile, transnational militant actors. These groups emerge in local contexts in response to specific, often communal issues, largely centering around the highly politi- cal issues of perceived marginalization; the allocation of national resources and wealth; and claims to autonomy. The shortcomings of this paradigm are particularly clear in the Malian case: under the 2006 Algiers Accords peace agreement, the Malian government committed to the economic development of its north-eastern region, greater sub-national autonomy, and the creation of special Tuareg security units to police the area. The failure to adhere to these conditions led in turn to deteriorating security and the collapse of the peace process in a reinforcing cycle of conflict, underdevelopment and margin- alization. The irony is that while analysis of the present Malian context is couched in terms of ‘ungoverned space’ and the need to bolster and consolidate state sovereignty throughout the territory, among the main parties opposing the government are armed groups which sought precisely to establish alternative structures of governance, author- ity and security provision.

These actors and other ethno-nationally oriented groups throughout the region are not rootless militants opportunistically capi- talizing on the chaos of ‘ungoverned’ or ‘law- less’ spaces. Nor is it necessarily the case that the appropriate security and policy response to these challenges should involve state- building, bolstering central authority, and the explicit depoliticization of challenges to the state by framing them as functions of insufficient control or state presence in a region, when deliberate state policy and strategy is being contested.

Roaming areas Our final point relates to the use of space by groups, both domestic and foreign, through- out the Sahel. For each point in a revolution or rebellion, the type and use of space is dictated by both political and physical con- siderations. McColl (1969) observes that the

use of under-populated space is beneficial at an early stage of mobile war, where the intent is to gather strength, determine logis- tics, secure financing etc. The strength of the group relative to that of the government(s) will dictate both how long an initial stage lasts, and how close to major cities a group’s designated ‘area’ can be located. The condi- tions that allow for particular regions to be more hospitable than others include a pre- vious experience in revolution; access to important military and political objectives (including provincial capitals); areas of multi- ple, confused, overlapping authorities, either by international border or by multiple local power centers; economically self-sufficient, and suitable for military training. Overall, stability on the local or national level should be lacking. Naturally, all bases will not meet all these criteria, but the most important consideration is that the area allows for mili- tary engagements and also space for hit and run attacks (McColl 1969). After this mobile stage, the group should progress into the ‘creation of core areas’ wherein an insurgent movement is established, and provides the daily necessities of populations therein. Dif- ferent to the mobile stage, a core stage is a point of concentration, which allows for standard engagements with military forces. Groups that cannot achieve this stage, either due to their own weakness, or that of the government, are unlikely to have a stable or successful transition to power.

McColl’s (1969) bases for revolutions are helpful in this discussion as it presents an alternative rationale for why some groups may organize in underpopulated regions, and the political benefits and consequences therein; it also provides a further counter to the notion that an initial stage ‘roaming area’ for groups is an ultimate goal, capable to unsettle entire regions. Indeed, a perpetual state of ‘mobile war’ and hit-and-run attacks is much more likely to be a sign of weak- ness over strength. Bosi (2013:80) takes up these points by arguing “the opportunities provided by safe territories are not necessarily

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conducive to the continuation of political violence, although they facilitate its persis- tence over a long period of time”.

This argument is particularly relevant to the Sahel, as its space, demography, overlap- ping and multiple authorities etc., provide an ideal stage for ‘roaming’ and/or ‘mobile’ war. But this largely depends on the goals of the movement and their innate strengths. As discussed above, most of the active vio- lent groups within the Sahel are local to the region, and their use of space therein is largely confined to their ethno-regional area. This is evident even for those native groups that bear an “islamist’ mantle, such as Ansar El Din. Overall, the use of space by these groups within these territories is largely in line with typical civil war and militia pat- terns: larger attacks are directed towards towns and cites in the region (e.g. Gao, Tim- buktu and Kidal in Mali) in order to maxi- mize the benefit of fighting and holding ter- ritory. In turn, attacks on civilians are more widespread, often involving local grievances that are subsumed under the conflict’s domi- nant cleavages (see Kalyvas 2006). Hence, the vast majority of the active agents within the Sahel use this space to engage in contests over local and regional goals that motivated their initial formation, and not to coordinate, prepare and plan for larger attacks outside the region and the country. The scale of the group goals should be considered in light of their strengths and abilities to coordinate political violence outside of the locality. See Figure 5 for a review of active spaces.

Yet, there exist a small number of groups who, although native to the larger region, have relocated to neighboring spaces and localities to take advantage of space, smug- gling routes or distance from Algerian secu- rity services. AQIM and MUJAO7 are exam- ples of groups whose minimal activity, but significant financing, has supported local allied groups in the area to engage in overtly ‘islamist’ violence, and attacks on sites impor- tant to the larger region and external parties (e.g. Timbuktu libraries, In Amenas facil-

ity). We argue that the use of space by these groups in largely in keeping with an initial stage of revolution that AQIM and its affili- ates are hard pressed to graduate from. Large amounts of space, within which groups can act without recourse, is beneficial to groups who are largely coordinating against domes- tic governments and do not have significant abilities to counter formal forces, despite preparing for years. Their overall threat is diffuse, but not likely to create a more sub- stantial risk for multiple reasons: 1) they lack local community support (in part because the goals are not localized); 2) their capabili- ties are very much within the realm of hit and run attacks or violence against civilians; and 3) they are engaged in internal fissures, and an inability to broaden their appeal and mes- sage. Indeed, their inability to take on sig- nificant force was clearly shown in the 2012 attack by Malian, French and Allied African forces in northern Mali. In several cases, the combined, French led, forces did not engage with any opposition as they quickly made their way through the most ‘embattled’ ter- ritory. While this may serve as a testament to the reputation of French troops, it is perhaps more likely to be due to the poor condition of AQIM, Ansar El Dine, MUJAO and other allied groups. Their threat is far more likely to be felt in cases like In Amenas, which has been suggested as continued acts of despera- tion stemming from internal rivalry in AQIM (Burbank, 2010). These occasions, while very unfortunate, will not ‘unsettle’ entire regions, but are rare events designed to posi- tion AQIM within a global spotlight, and reinforce the Sahel ‘crisis’ narrative.

The logic behind AQIM activity in the region also suggests a poorly coordinated and ill structured group: the infrastructure and logistical problems in the Sahel, and other under populated regions are signifi- cant drawbacks and disincentives for anyone seeking a reliable base for operations (Simon & Tucker 2007: 389). If these minimally active groups could do more than roam, while attacking unarmed civilians and ran-

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dom Algerian targets, the area would have seen considerably more conflict. It is more likely that AQIM is as real and deep a threat at the Lord’s Resistance Army presently active in Central African region. They, like AQIM, left their home area not out of strength, but out of weakness. They survive by attacking marginalized, poor, peripheral communities while claiming an ongoing war with a mili- tary power they never engage with. Similar to the campaign to rid Central Africa of the LRA discounted the perpetual and very real threats of other Congolese rebel groups, the Sahelian case is reminiscent of a ‘rebel with no clothes’.

Conclusion In brief conclusion, this article argues that a range of actors extensively and effectively governs ‘ungoverned’ spaces. Further, in treating the Sahel as a monolith, analysts and those espousing a ‘crisis’ narrative mis- represent the variation in violence, the poli- tics and governance practices of states, the

risks of instability, and the political actors therein. Finally, the groups operating within the Sahel are, by and large, domestic groups operating within their own subnational con- texts, and challenging local, regional and national governance over issues of corrup- tion, marginalization, political exclusion and mismanagement. The overt focus on the few regionally foreign actors, who perpetuate a small proportion of the political violence, obscures the realities of Sahelian violence. In turn, this serves an ‘external’ interpretation of terrorism and instability largely driven by national governments seeking to re-allocate blame for poor performance and a plethora of active armed actors.

Our argument presented here is relevant to policy and humanitarian decisions as it advocates two new perspectives on Sahel state violence. The first is that political vio- lence within states can only be understood in terms of the capacity, quality, reach and character of governments. Analyses of the Sahel which presumes ‘an inability to govern’

Figure 5: Overlapping Territories of Action in the Sahel

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and state failure as starting points obscures these features of political power, and leads directly to arguments which priorities dis- cussions of global terrorism in the Sahel, at the expense of more contextualized under- standings and solutions. The second is that the trigger mechanisms often advocated in academic and popular narratives of Sahelian violence obscure the daily political dynamics that shape civilian violence risks, program effectiveness and the adoption of long term stability solution. Public analysis connect- ing Africa’s poverty, large Muslim popula- tions, and weak governments to the rise of loosely defined ‘terrorism’ exaggerate, dis- tort and ignore the continent’s pressing con- cerns while leading to policy outcomes of negligible worth (Berschinski, 2007). These discourses serve the interests of the inter- national community, who often ‘aggregate’ threats to simplify the politics in complex area, justify interventions, and engage in regime change.

Notes 1 For the purposes of this article, we define

the Sahel as including Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Northern Nigeria. On occasion, if discussing the Sahel with Su- dan, we will make an acknowledgement of its inclusion.

2 The Armed Conflict Location & Event Dataset (ACLED) project codes reported information on the location, date and other characteristics of politically violent events in unstable and warring states. ACLED’s mission is to provide standard- ized, disaggregated data on violent po- litical conflict in developing countries for academic, policy and public use. ACLED defines political violence as the use of force by a group with a political purpose or motivation. ACLED defines political violence through its constituent events, the intent of which is to produce a com- prehensive overview of all forms of po- litical conflict within and across states. A politically violent event is a single alterca-

tion where (often) force is used by one or more groups for a political end; although some non-violent events – including pro- tests and broader non-violent activity – are included in the dataset to capture the potential precursors or critical junctures of a conflict. The fundamental unit of ob- servation in ACLED is the interaction of actors in an event. Events occur between designated actors – for example, a rebel group, a militia or a government force – at a specific, geo-referenced location, on a specific day.

3 While these states are considered some of the poorest in the world, Africa Con- fidential reported in 2012 “The threat of rebellion which troubled Chad for five years has faded and the peace that has reigned since the defeat of the rebels in May 2009” (AC Vol 53 No 10, 2012); “In May 2011, President Déby won a fourth presidential term, with 83per cent of the vote (AC Vol 52 No 9, 2011) and finally “Chad has so far escaped the chaos expe- rienced in neighboring countries follow- ing the collapse of Colonel Moammer el Gadaffi’s regime in Libya (AC Vol 53 No 10, 2012). At the same time that Niger was regarded as the 19th unstable state, it was praised for the smoothness of the 2011 presidential poll, which returned the country to democracy after a year un- der the military junta that had deposed President Tandja (AC Vol 53 no 8, 2012). In Mauritania, the president demanded a more effective antiterrorist campaign; his stance towards AQIM is more aggressive than Niger’s or Mali’s (AC Vol 51, no. 19. 2010). Finally, Mali was regarded as hav- ing “a relatively weak military and an es- tablished culture of democracy and con- sensus problem solving…it is a less hostile environment for roving AQIM bands than neighboring Algeria and Mauritania (AC Vol 53 no 8, 2012).

4 Of course, these alternative rulers may be informal and just as, if not more, illegiti- mate as a discredited state (Mallet 2010).

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5 ACLED Data 6 ACLED Data 7 It would be a mistake to assume that

AQIM used Mali as a staging ground for the ‘lack’ of governance in the region. The Malian government had made a con- certed effort to limit the presence of local Tuareg troops and state security troops within the region. The logic behind these decisions are unclear, although some have posited that the Malian government profited from AQIM’s presence and domi- nation of the smuggling trade. Menkhaus (2010) argues that there is a strategy in- volved in chequered governance, failure, aid and personal enrichment where lead- ers de-institutionalize their governments as part of a strategy of political survival- ism and personal rule. This is particularly true in cases where illegal activity (e.g. smuggling and crime) is allowed to occur without recourse in order for rulers to benefit from the practice.

Acknowledgements This material is based upon work supported by, or in part by, the U.S. Army Research Office, contract/grant number W911NF-09-1-0077, under the Minerva Initiative of the U.S. Department of Defense.

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How to cite this article: Raleigh, C and Dowd, C 2013 Governance and Conflict in the Sahel’s ‘Ungoverned Space’. Stability: International Journal of Security & Development, 2(2): 32, pp. 1-17, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.bs

Published: 5 July 2013

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On 17 January 2012, a separatist group in northern Mali, the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA), launched a rebellion against the government of President Amadou Toumani Touré. Led by Tuaregs, a politically disenfranchised ethnic group that had organized previous uprisings in Mali and neighboring Niger, the MNLA quickly scored a string of victories. Observers watched to see how Touré – a former general and a supposed symbol of African democ- racy – would respond. They wondered how the country’s next president, the winner of elections scheduled for April 2012, would attempt to placate the Tuaregs, as previous administrations had done. Instead, Mali unraveled, with a coup in March 2012 and the emergence of armed Islamists in the north. As political instability wracked the south, French forces intervened in January 2013 to halt Islamist advances into the Mopti region. The French rapidly reconquered major north-

ern cities. Yet as the Malian government and its partners move to reunify and rebuild the country, flawed assumptions and imported models risk undermining reconstruction and sowing seeds of future conflict.

Mali’s rebellion began with the MNLA’s uprising against Touré, but neither the MNLA nor Touré remained a central player in it for long. Disgruntled Malian soldiers, embarrassed by their losses to the MNLA, charged that the government had failed to properly equip and fund them. A mutiny in March 2012 escalated into a successful coup against Touré (Schneider 2012). As it turned out, the image of Touré as a great statesman – an image not wholly undeserved, given that he relinquished power after leading a coup in 1991, and seemed willing to respect term limits and do so again before the March 2012 coup – had blinded outsiders to rot in his administration. Systemic corruption and broken promises had weakened the military, hollowed out government institutions, and left northern communities bristling with resentment (Whitehouse 2012).

The mutineers-turned-putschists spoke of retaking the north, but once in power

Thurston, A 2013 Mali: The Disintegration of a “Model African  Democracy”. Stability, 2(1): 2, pp. 1-7, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.aq

COMMENTARY

Mali: The Disintegration of a “Model African Democracy” Alex Thurston*

This commentary examines how Mali entered its current crisis, tracing the fall of the regime of President Amadou Toumani Touré and the rise of armed Islamist groups in northern Mali, as well as the events that led to an armed intervention by France. The piece then discusses some of the conceptual frameworks that could impede effective policy formation in post-conflict Mali. The piece argues that Somalia does not offer a compelling model for Mali. The commentary closes by recommending that the Malian government and its partners should prioritize addressing humanitarian and security concerns in northern Mali over staging elections.

* Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University, USA [email protected]

stability

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Thurston: Mali: The Disintegration of a “Model African  Democracy”

they made no immediate move to do so. The MNLA, left with a freer hand, declared independence for the north. But the osten- sibly secular rebels soon found themselves sidelined by a coalition of armed Islamists. This coalition includes the Tuareg-led Ansar al Din (Arabic for “Defenders of the Faith”), an Al Qa’ida franchise called Al Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and an AQIM splin- ter group called the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA). The MNLA had robbed and raped civilians, creating political space for Islamists to offer northern com- munities a version of law and order. Islamist justice horrified some, including thousands who fled into southern Mali and neighbor- ing countries. But others were grateful for Islamists’ efforts to distribute aid and pun- ish crime. Islamists outmaneuvered the MNLA politically and militarily. By summer 2012, the Islamist coalition controlled the northern provincial capitals of Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu.

In the capital Bamako, with soldiers in charge, presidential elections were cancelled. Facing sanctions from the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo ceded official power in April 2012 to a transitional civilian administration headed by President Dioncounda Traoré and Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra. But Sanogo continued to influence politics. Sanogo loyal- ists obtained key cabinet posts (Dicko 2012). Sanogo’s supporters proved willing to intimi- date civilian leaders who displeased the Cap- tain. In May, pro-Sanogo demonstrators beat Traoré so badly that he was flown to France for extended treatment. On 10–11 Decem- ber, soldiers arrested Diarra and forced him to resign.

Outside forces strove to stabilize Bamako politics while searching for a way to reinte- grate northern Mali. As ECOWAS negotia- tors met with Ansar al Din representatives in Burkina Faso, attempting to convince Ansar al Din to renounce links with AQIM and make peace with Bamako, ECOWAS com-

manders sketched plans for war. ECOWAS’s efforts in 2012 overcame initial skepticism from Washington, DC and Paris about the group’s capacity to organize an interven- tion. Plans to deploy an external force were ratified first by ECOWAS, then by the African Union, and, finally, in December 2012 by the United Nations Security Council.

In the latter half of 2012, a de facto parti- tion of Mali held. Islamist forces conducted sporadic attacks, capturing Douentza from a local garrison in September, and tak- ing the towns of Lere and Menaka from the MNLA in November. But at year’s end clashes were limited.

In early January 2013, planning for an external intervention was overtaken by events. Islamist fighters attacked towns in the central region of Mopti, perhaps hop- ing to capture key infrastructure, like an air- port in Sevaré, which outside commanders hoped to use in staging their coming inter- vention. The Islamist advance evoked a swift response from Mali’s former colonial ruler France, which retains a strong political and security role in Francophone Africa. Within days, French planes were bombing northern targets. By January 30, French and Malian soldiers recaptured Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal. Troops from ECOWAS and Chad moved to join the French, with the idea that after securing the north militarily, France would leave West African governments and Bamako to reassert political order.

The battle for Mopti and the resulting French intervention underscored a key les- son of the Malian crisis: the rapid, unpredict- able nature of events. Every twist of Mali’s tragedy can be explained with the benefit of hindsight, from the way regime corruption weakened and angered the army to the way that the MNLA’s brutality created political opportunity for Islamists. But the thread of continuity in events in Mali in 2012–2013 has been the way that each new status quo frag- ments and shifts, rendering figures like Diarra powerful one month and irrelevant the next, and raising hopes of progress only to dash

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them soon after. In December, Ansar al Din delegates in Burkina Faso signed a ceasefire deal with the Malian government. In early January 2013, further talks were delayed, the ceasefire in shambles. Policymaking has sometimes moved too slowly to help Mali’s allies in addressing the country’s crises.

By the end of January 2013, French and Malian advances had dealt powerful blows to Islamist forces. Yet a key question remained unaddressed: Who will rule Mali both dur- ing and after the intervention? Eyeing a model that supposedly succeeded in Soma- lia – involving African peacekeepers and Western funds – French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and other senior French offi- cials have expressed their intention to head for the exits once Mali’s territorial integrity is re-established. Even then, Western gov- ernments will likely continue to influence efforts at political reconstruction in Mali. Yet two of the main tools the Western powers have in their toolkit for dealing with rebel- lions against weak states – elections and military might – seem insufficient for solving Mali’s problems.

Shoot and vote In the last decade, a number of countries in the greater Middle East and Africa have experienced versions of a model that might be called, in plain English, “shoot and vote.” Outside policymakers assert that outfight- ing rebel groups will create security, while elections will produce governments with the legitimacy to consolidate military gains. Outside powers have prodded destabilized countries to hold elections in the midst of wartime or immediately after major hostili- ties. Throughout 2012, the US government favored such an approach in Mali, urging the country to stage “national elections” as soon as possible.

Outside policymakers have touted Soma- lia in particular as a model for Mali. Once the French intervention in Mali began, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson told journalists on

16 January, “The kind of support we would give to the ECOWAS states and others in the African theater [in Mali] is very, very similar to what we have done in support of the [Afri- can Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM] effort in Somalia” (Shinkman 2013).

One problem with using Somalia as a model for Mali is that the trajectory of exter- nal military interventions – plural – in Soma- lia bears little resemblance to the present and expected experience of Mali. Somalia has seen occupation by its neighbor Ethio- pia from 2006 to 2009, the deployment of primarily Ugandan and Burundian soldiers as part of AMISOM from December 2007 to the present, and an invasion by Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) in October 2011 (KDF units in Somalia officially joined AMISOM in July 2012). Since 2009, Ethiopian soldiers have continued making periodic incursions into Somali territory. Unlike in Mali, where outside policymakers hope African troops will maintain French gains, in Somalia Afri- can troops have retaken territory at different paces. Ethiopian and Kenyan troops have largely acted on their own countries’ behalf rather than as part of a unified mission.

It is, moreover, premature and reductive to call Somalia a success. First, the Ethiopian occupation from 2006–2009, which aimed to break the power of an Islamist group called the Union of Islamic Courts, was bru- tal (Hassan and Lefkow 2007). This brutality appears to have driven recruits to Al Shabab, the youth militia of the Courts and a domi- nant force in southern Somalia after Ethio- pia’s withdrawal (Bruton 2009). Outside intervention, in other words, played a role in intensifying the conflict in Somalia.

Second, despite military gains by AMISOM and other actors, reconquered areas lack credible, effective governance. The central government, which has yet to fully secure the capital Mogadishu, has frequently been distracted by its own internal struggles. Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government conducted a multi-stage political transition in summer and fall 2012 to produce a new

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parliament and president. The transition fell months behind schedule. More impor- tantly, it left core political questions, such as how the central government will share power with local communities, unresolved. The destabilizing effects of political confu- sion have become apparent in Kismayo, a port city and former al Shabab stronghold captured by the KDF in September 2012. In reconquered Kismayo, groups aspiring to influence politics include the central govern- ment, the Ras Kamboni militia, the Kenyan government, the Ethiopian government, clans, and local politicians who support the idea of creating a semi-autonomous territory called “Jubaland” (Thomas III 2013). Before invoking Somalia as a model for Mali, it is appropriate to ask how well Somalia’s politi- cal class is able to resolve conflicts between localities and the center. As analyst Kate Mrkvicka writes, “Somalia will only thrive if, and when, a permanent and legitimate polit- ical solution can be reached, which requires either a government capable of integrating all clan- and religious-based entities, or a government powerful enough to tamp down future extremism. Any solution that stops short of these objectives will leave the door open for insurgency and violence to return” (Mrkvicka 2012).

Third, security has not yet returned to Somalia. Assassination attempts against President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on 12 September 2012 and against Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon on 29 January 2013 have underscored how fragile electoral legitimacy can be in conflict zones. As Mali plans for elections in July 2013, its partners should bear in mind that elections – events meant to build national unity or at least resolve political contestation – can produce difficult questions about representation and inclusiv- ity. Somalia’s political transition in 2012 had its roots in antidemocratic processes – agree- ments brokered between different factions rather than voted on by a plebiscite, meetings of “clan elders,” (RBC Radio 2012) and a com- promise between the outgoing president and

prime minister to delay presidential elections from August 2011 to August 2012 (Ahmed and Sheikh 2011). The antidemocratic deals that paved the way for an ostensibly demo- cratic transition call the new government’s representativeness into question.

Returning to Mali, there are reasons policy- makers want to “shoot and vote.” The political chaos in Bamako and the military challenge in the north are undeniably interrelated: confusion about who has the legal authority and the political power to rule the country hinders efforts to organize a credible effort to reintegrate the north. But “shoot and vote” seems unlikely to solve Mali’s problems, especially in the long term. If Mali holds elec- tions as soon as July 2013, how will election organizers enfranchise northern communi- ties emerging from Islamist control? Will elections include the more than 400,000 Malians who have been displaced from their homes, and the 300,000 more who may be displaced in the coming months (Reuters 2013)? Could the resulting government earn legitimacy and exercise power without inter- ference from the military or other potential spoilers? Elections could do more political harm than good. Yet without political clar- ity in Bamako, military efforts to retake the north could stumble, either in the execution or in the aftermath of the fight, as the center attempts to re-establish governance. Either outcome could increase the dangers of pro- tracted conflict in the region.

The cyclical nature of conflict in Mali fur- ther challenges the idea that an election and a war will stabilize the country. The rebellion of 2012–2013 reflects grievances that went unresolved after the end of the 2006–2009 rebellion, which in turn drew on grievances unaddressed after a series of rebellions from 1990 to 1996 and memories of the Malian government’s repression of a rebellion in the early 1960s. The MNLA invoked a century of discontent with administrations in Bamako, whom they accuse of discriminating against Tuaregs and abandoning nomads to drought and poverty. Some northerners may welcome

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the chance to vote for a new government in the south, but Mali’s next government must make a long-term commitment to the full economic and political integration of the north if it hopes to avoid another war in five, ten, or twenty years.

Perhaps an election and an occupation could initiate a long-term shift in relations between Bamako and the north. But policy- makers often confuse elections with democ- racy, and ceasefires with peace. Libya’s July 2012 elections, held a mere ten months after the death of ousted leader Colonel Muam- mar Qadhafi, were greeted with optimism and praise. Yet by the start of 2013, such optimism already seemed inflated, as militias refused to disarm, assassins targeted politi- cians, and areas like Benghazi continued to challenge central government control. Put differently, war and elections are political processes that address macro-level questions about who will wield formal power. But the solutions to instability lie more in addressing micro-level political questions: Who gets a job? Who gets a gun? Who gets a say?

Rigid categories obscure complexity Beyond the limitations of “shoot and vote,” devising policy solutions to Mali’s crises faces another challenge: policymakers’ tendency to rely on simplified and unhelpful catego- ries for understanding the conflict.

How we describe actors and events in Mali has consequences. With the eclipse of the MNLA by an Islamist coalition includ- ing Arabs, Fulani, and others, speaking of a “Tuareg rebellion” already seems antiquated. Equating northern Mali with Tuaregs, and Tuaregs with rebellion, is dangerous. For one thing, this equation encourages policymak- ers to conclude that the MNLA are the “right kind” of Tuaregs. Policymakers then con- clude that with outside support, the MNLA could provide a workable military and politi- cal alternative to the Islamists. This line of thinking presumes that the MNLA can speak for the north. But the MNLA already lost control of the situation once, partly due to

its brutality against civilians. Can they pro- vide credible political leadership if given a second chance?

The equation of Tuaregs with rebels also ignores undercurrents of ethnic tension. As communities in the north and south come to blame Tuaregs for the country’s problems, and as current conflicts awaken memories of earlier ethnic violence, incidents of ethnic violence have broken out in reconquered areas like Timbuktu and Gao (IRIN 2013). The Songhai militia Ganda Koy, which the gov- ernment has attempted to mobilize against northern rebels, targeted Tuaregs in the 1990s, and could do so again (Tinti 2012). It will be a grim irony if Western policymakers, who initially categorized the northern rebel- lion as ethnic, now ignore ethnicity while concentrating on Islamism.

Another unhelpful category is local- ity. Keen to separate “local” from “foreign” fighters, policymakers – including officials at dialogues with Ansar al Din in Burkina Faso – have often treated Ansar al Din as a group with genuine local roots, while treat- ing its Islamist partners as foreign to Mali. Such categorizations ignore the seemingly fluid nature of membership between Ansar al Din, AQIM, and MUJWA. When and if it comes time to demobilize or reintegrate Islamist fighters, rigid ideas of who is local or foreign may hinder dialogue and reconcil- iation. In sum, policymakers who put north- ern Malian movements into sharply defined categories may find that the borders blur again and again.

Conclusion and recommendations Mali fell apart quickly, but it cannot be reas- sembled quickly. Hundreds of thousands of displaced northerners cannot return home overnight; some will never return to their homes. Ethnic tensions, economic griev- ances, political anger, and religious fervor will not fade immediately once battlefields are cleared, deals are inked, or election results are announced. Mali needs outside help. But it needs a kind of help that practices patience

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and engages complexity. Rather than rushing to pick political winners and go through the motions of democracy, Mali’s partners should think carefully and inclusively about how to lay the foundations for long-term reconcilia- tion and participatory politics.

Going beyond “shoot and vote” will require investment and imagination. Providing secu- rity, feeding people, and resettling refugees should take precedence over staging elec- tions. Policymakers should devise a recon- struction and employment program for northern Malian communities on the scale of neighboring Niger’s $2.5 billion, five- year Security and Development Strategy, launched in 2012. Rather than seeking one partner or proxy to rule the north, diplomats should talk with all willing parties and craft inclusive political frameworks. In the south, Mali’s partners should acknowledge Captain Sanogo’s influence in Malian politics and include his faction in political consultations. And the would-be midwives of Mali’s rebirth should, above all, study the country’s past, in order to avoid nurturing future grievances and conflicts.

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How to cite this article: Thurston, A 2013 Mali: The Disintegration of a “Model African Democracy”. Stability, 2(1): 2, pp. 1-7, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.aq

Published: 22 February 2013

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