by Guy Arnold
Meanwhile the NATO intervention and overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in August 2011 brought no national solutions to Libya. For a brief period the General National Congress took control, then in August 2012 the GNC was forced to withdraw to Tobruk when a rival government seized control of Tripoli. By the end of 2015 much of the country was under the rule of militias, while ISIS was establishing footholds as well.
In Egypt some 900 people were killed in the violence that led to Mubarak’s overthrow. A year after his election, Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were ousted from power by the army in July 2013. The army then embarked on a campaign to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood. About 1,000 people lost their lives and many more members of the Brotherhood were imprisoned. The army then took complete control and General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi was elected as president in 2014. Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members were sentenced to death.
In colonial times France was the dominant imperial power right across the Sahel: Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and the Central African Republic were its colonies. Today these vast territories have high strategic value, but are ill-prepared either economically or structurally to play a role in the African Renaissance. Accepting that the EU faces the possibility of radical change in its make-up as a result of the impact of the British referendum, France may well decide to concentrate much of its power upon the Sahel. During 2015 there were many signs of the hardening of international attitudes: between the EU and Russia, the USA and China, and in the ever violent Middle East. Whoever controls the Sahel divide will play a major role in the war on terror and the way it should be conducted.
THE SAHEL
An overview of the Sahel reveals more problems than solutions. The Sahel region forms the link between the Sahara Desert of the north and the more fertile region between the Arab-Muslim north and the Black Africa of the south where Islam does not exercise such a hold and encompasses northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the south of Algeria, Niger, northern Nigeria, central Chad, central and southern parts of Sudan, northern South Sudan, Eritrea, Cameroon, the Central African Republic and northern Ethiopia. The Sahel acts as a divisive factor in a number of countries – Mali is an example – where the northern population is Muslim and often nomadic, while the southern population is sedentary and black. It is also one of the poorest regions of the world. It faces simultaneously the challenges of extreme poverty, the effects of climate change – desertification and periodic droughts affect 67 per cent of the people in the region – frequent food crises, rapid population growth, fragile governance, corruption, unresolved internal tensions, the risk of violent extremism and radicalization, illicit trafficking and terrorism-linked security threats. The states of the region have to face these challenges directly. The three core states are Mauritania, Mali and Niger, though the geographical conditions – and therefore challenges – also affect parts of Burkina Faso and Chad. Many of the problems impact upon neighbouring countries, including Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and even Nigeria whose engagement is necessary to help resolve them. Furthermore, this giant cleft across Africa has also become a highway for terrorists: coming from Yemen they move through the Sahel to Mali and thence, if they can, to settle and spread terror in southern Algeria.
Poverty, religious differences, ethnic divisions and tribalism all contribute to make this one of the most politically volatile regions in Africa, with at least three civil wars being fought at the time of writing. The Central African Republic (CAR) is engaged in a civil war that is related, as always, to the manipulation of the democratic process. General François Bozizé, who had twice won elections, had clearly decided that, contrary to the constitution, he should serve a third term, a decision that was opposed. According to the United Nations, 484,000 of the population faced food shortages, while 206,000 had been displaced. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, called for 6,000 peacekeeping troops to back up the AU effort at peacekeeping, while France, the former colonial power, offered 1,200 troops with an assurance that they would be quickly withdrawn. Some 7,000 people crossed the border into Chad to escape the escalating violence. At this point government forces were reported to be systematically killing men and boys they suspected of supporting the rebels. Meanwhile, the country had been placed on the agenda of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. Elections again confirmed Bozizé in power, but opponents of his rule were gathering strength, assisted by the Séléka rebels who were Muslim, though secular in their aims. The divide became more dangerous and there was civil breakdown in a country of 4.6 million people with a total police force of only 200 to maintain national law and order. The UN declared the population to be victims and the civil breakdown to be the most neglected crisis in the world.
A substantial proportion of the armed gangs – including the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – roaming the country were child soldiers. They operated in part in the Central African Republic and spread their operations over a wide area, adding their own quotient of brutal violence to the region. And yet there was little response to the chaos in the CAR from the international community. The northern town of Kaga-Bandoro (population 26,000) was surrounded by Séléka gangs (who also used child soldiers), who committed war crimes against the local population. The violence was even worse in the east of the country because of the presence of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. The UN Secretary-General called for 6,000 peacekeeping troops to join the 2,500 African troops there under the auspices of the African Union. France then deployed 650 troops to aid the peacekeeping process, increasing the number to 1,200. Speculation as to the outcome of this civil war is less important than the fact that the level of fighting and denial of human rights provides an opportunity for ISIS to move in and take control.
The country was close to chaos when the Séléka rebels seized power in March 2013, after Michel Djotodia became President of the CAR. He resigned in January 2014 and was succeeded by Catherine Samba-Panza as interim president, who had no links with either side in the civil war. She was Africa’s third female head of state after Malawi’s Joyce Banda and Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and held office until March 2016. Progress must continue even in a civil war.
Chad’s 495,000 square miles of territory make it one of the largest countries in Africa, though its vast size does not match its tiny population of less than 11.5 million. Chad is landlocked between six neighbours: Libya, Sudan, the CAR, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger, and like other Sahel countries it has suffered from the north–south divide that split the country for thirty years – from independence in 1960 to 1990 – though its head of state Idriss Déby still maintains his grip on power. Although Chad became a moderate oil-producing country in 2002, it remains one of Africa’s poorest countries. During the 1990s, refugees from the civil strife in Darfur, Sudan’s rebel province, crossed the border into Chad.
Niger, almost as large in size as Chad, has a population of 17.5 million, one of the sparsest in all Africa. The majority of the people live in the south on only 25 per cent of the land. The people of the north – the Tuareg and the Toubu – are nomads. Niger is ranked as one of the poorest countries in the UN Human Development Index at number 188 out of 188 countries ranked in 2014. Any assessment of these Sahel countries must take account of space and poverty and the divide between north and south.
Situated at the western end of the Sahel and huge in size (478,000 square miles) like Niger and Chad, Mali in medieval times was at the centre of a trading crossroads, reaching the bend of the Niger in the south and the Sahara far to the north. The focal points of its trade and culture were Djenné and Timbuktu. Mali was brought under French control during the Scramble for Africa, but became independent from France in 1960. It enjoyed a democratic period and was regarded as one of the most stable countries in Africa. However, the stability was destroyed when, in January 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA), a region of northern Mali, launched an insurgency. In March 2012 rebel troops staged a coup
which led to sanctions and an embargo by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Even so, the NMLA quickly gained control of the north and declared an independent Azawad. The NMLA was then opposed by Islamist groups that included Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). They wanted to keep Mali united but to impose Sharia law. In March 2012 President Amadou Toumani Touré was ousted and in the north an Islamist takeover led to political chaos and forced half a million people from their homes. In August the coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo appeared to be in charge of a new cabinet of thirty-one members, none of whom had any links with the deposed president. By December 2012 the democratic government had appealed to the French government to intervene and push back Islamist insurgents in the north. The French responded with a military operation starting in January 2013 and lasting until July 2014.
In January 2013, French special forces intervened with 4,500 troops to push back the Islamists and safeguard France’s political and economic interests in the country. The military operation was successful and was also backed by troops from Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo, Senegal and Benin and supported by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States. France continued to maintain a force of 3,000 troops in the region as of November 2014 to help Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, and Niger counter terrorism in the region. The fear of new extremism, including the arrival of ISIS forces, remained at the top of the occupying forces’ agenda.
Meanwhile, after more than eighteen months of upheaval and uncertainty triggered by rebels in northern Mali and the military coup that had toppled President Amadou Toumani Touré in 2012, Malians (closely watched by the international community) held a peaceful presidential election in September 2013 which was won by Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. Mali’s new president faced the daunting task of rebuilding a country reeling from a year of chaos that included a military coup and a war. But news of the smooth election was warmly received outside Africa as well as inside it, especially by France and the European Commission, which had promised reconstruction aid of 520 million euros provided free elections were held. Eventually a peace agreement was signed in June 2015 by the government and the rebels, which granted partial autonomy for the Tuareg groups in the Azawad region in the north of the country.
The fringes of the Sahel seem to attract violence. Most of Algeria, for example, lies in the Sahara but the southern extremity is within the Sahel, an area that has attracted terrorists. Algeria achieved independence after a violent struggle, but was to suffer another civil war at the turn of the century from 1992 to 2006 with the army pursuing secular aims on one side and the Islamists on the other. The war cost the country 250,000 lives and $30 billion. Sporadic attacks on government property and security forces are still being waged by rebels affiliated to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Yemen (not an African country but an Arab one) is a source of al-Qaeda-trained extremists who cross the Red Sea to join in some aspect of the Sahel turmoil. Somalia (through al-Shabaab, a jihadist terrorist group) works hard to destabilize Kenya, which has military ties with its old colonial power, Britain. Sudan has an impact through Darfur, the huge western province which was subject to what became a civil war in 2003, but escalated in 2004 to create 500,000 displaced people. Later it transpired that 1.1 billion people had become refugees, many of them fleeing into Chad or the CAR. Violence here arose out of the enmity of the settled farmer communities and the nomadic Janjaweed.
Of the four giants that make up the centre of the Sahel – Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad – three are landlocked, while Mauritania has an Atlantic coast. Between them they cover 4,749,700 square kilometres, but only support a population of 30 to 40 million. They have structures of government yet lack any economic base. Given the impact of the Arab Spring and its geographic position, Mali is the most strategically placed for the time being. The continued presence of French troops in the north of the country could act either as a deterrent to ISIS or an attraction, depending upon what forces they can muster in the region. Given the history of the Sahel countries since independence, civil wars or civil disturbances appear to be accepted as a normal aspect of statehood and as such are likely to attract the attention of ISIS or be open to the incursions of other threatening groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army. The French troops in northern Mali may act as a barrier to ISIS advance, but for how long? Their presence there could be a goad to extremists: the old colonial power looking after its own.
The problems facing the Sahel not only affect the local populations, but increasingly impact directly on the interests of European citizens. Poverty creates inherent instability that can affect uncontrolled migratory flows. The security threat from terrorist activity by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has found a sanctuary in northern Mali, is focused upon Western targets and has evolved from taking money to taking life, discouraging investment in the region. AQIM resources and operational capacities are significant and growing. Deteriorating security conditions pose a challenge to development co-operation and restrict the delivery of humanitarian assistance and aid, which in turn exacerbates the vulnerability of the region and its population. The European Union, and especially France, regards chaos and collapse in the western Sahel as a threat to its interests in the region. The EU’s development policy in the Sahel, drawn up in partnership with the countries concerned, is geared to tackling the root causes of the extreme poverty and towards creating the grass-root conditions for economic opportunity and human development to flourish. But it will be hard for this policy to achieve any real success unless security challenges are also faced. The assumption that this EU regional development plan will work is more of an aspiration rather than a practical goal.
The troubles in the Sahel are cross-border and closely intertwined, as we have seen. Thus only a regional, integrated and all-embracing strategy has any chance of success. A reinforced security capacity must go hand in hand with more robust institutions and more accountable governments, capable of providing basic development services to the populations and appeasing internal tensions. Development processes, promotion of good governance and improvement of the security situation need to be carried out in the appropriate sequence and in a coordinated manner in order to create sustainable stability in the region. The EU has been advocating such a response to the complexity of the challenges in the Sahel since 2008, yet this strategy, if it is ever imposed on the region, could only work with massive aid from the EU. That option raises huge questions of trust, and in effect would mean the imposition of a neo-colonialist regime on this vast area of the African continent. The EU’s strategy proposes a framework for the coordination of the EU’s current and future engagement in the region with the common objective of reinforcing security and development, thereby also strengthening the EU’s own security. Such a strategy points to a number of specific actions that could be taken, drawing upon all the instruments the EU has at its disposal. It is also intended to encourage other Member States and other partners with similar interests in the region to play an integrated part.
Do the EU and AU want to work together as though Africa and the EU are a single entity? The single continent proposal was advanced at the EU–Africa Summit of 2–3 April 2014. Is this a pipedream or is such a development either practical or desirable? At least it offers a basis for discussion. The obvious and immediate test lies with the European reaction to the movement northwards of African migrants.
The EU and Africa are both formally and informally joined together by long contact – human, economic and political ties – and in many ways Africa has come to rely upon the EU for a range of assistance and aid. As a French politician put it years ago, ‘Africa was a natural extension of Europe’, a judgement that also demonstrates how the two can take one another for granted. The framework that covers EU–Africa relations also encompasses Caribbean and Pacific territories that were beneficiaries of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) arrangement as well. ACP was the oldest post-independence aid organiz
ation dating from the Lomé Convention of 1975 and was updated in 2000 by the Cotonou Agreement. In 2007, the Joint Africa–EU Strategy (JAES) of the European Commission brought together eighty African and European heads of state under a new concept that was to treat Europe and Africa as a single continent. The fourth EU–Africa Summit took place in Brussels in April 2014, in which both African and EU leaders participated, as well as leaders of the African Union. The theme of this summit was ‘Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace’. Discussions covered further co-operation to expand opportunities and political, economic, investment and trade ties. The disparity in wealth and political organization ensured that the EU was the leading partner and had at its disposal the means of making decisions that favoured the EU rather than its African partner. However, the EU emphasized the inclusive nature of the two-way partnership. In 2015 it was ironic that, as a consequence of the migration crisis, the EU was considering creating border controls encompassing the whole EU while at the same time large numbers of African migrants were seeking access to the countries of the EU. What is a two-way partnership for if it cannot find a solution to the migration problem? A one-continent approach to a settlement of the migration problem cannot be achieved if the EU barricades itself into an exclusive fortress. The EU is prepared to provide finance for the AU to establish holding camps in Africa to train would-be migrants and persuade them to remain in Africa. It won’t work. Africans determined to migrate will do so regardless of such solutions. This is surely a one-sided arrangement.