Mali and Security issues in the Sahel Region of Africa

10 days ago, a Military Junta led by an American trained Captain in the Army ousted the president of Mali, Amadou Toumani Toure, popularly known as AT&T. The justification for the coup d'état was the incapacity of the regime to face the Tuareg rebellion in the north and corruption.

Tuaregs account for 15% of the total Mali population of 15 million. Their rebellion is making military progress day by day, and last Friday they conquered their first city: Kidal. Today, Monday April 2nd they are claiming their occupation of Timbuctu.

Mali's neighbors have a main priority: restore, at least partially, the constitutional democracy in place before the Coup d´Etat. By Monday April 2nd, the Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS), will impose financial and diplomatic sanctions and even proceed to the closure of the terrestrial borders.

This strategy is the same followed by the region in 2010 and 2011 to secure the ousting of Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo who had no intention of respecting the results of the Presidential elections.

AT&T of Mali was in no way a model president. In his years in power contraband and drug trafficking grew exponentially, fueling corruption. The northern part of the country became a sanctuary where Al Qaeda terrorists would hold their Western hostages. This has sunk tourism in the African country with the biggest archaeological heritage in Africa after Egypt. The Libyan crisis has assured a steady supply of arms to both Tuaregs and terrorists

Spain, has two social workers kidnapped in Tinduf ( Algeria) over five months ago.

Terrorism and Al Qaeda is no joke in the region. The region is very poor and development issues are extremely important. Robert Fowler, the Canadian diplomat who was UN representative for Niger and the Tuareg negotiations, was himself kidnapped for 130 days and is quoted as saying that his captors were the most focused group of young men that he has ever encountered in his life. They were relatively well educated and the officers were all Algerian. Their objective is the recreation of the grand caliphate; they hate with passion the concepts of liberty and freedom and democracy, and they look forward to expelling all Westerners, Western influence, from their land. They want to turn the Sahel into one vast, seething, chaotic Somalia.

He concludes that the Terrorists are proud of their spreading links to Boko Haram in Nigeria, they are very proud of their strikes deep into Mauritania, proud of their colleagues in al-Shabab reaching into Kenia and Uganda. Furthermore, now that they are well equipped with both sophisticated, and enormous quantities of Libyan weapons, their threat is much more present. Also a factor is the illegal drug traffic, coming from South America and going to Europe and Asia.

You also have the question of the exploitation of natural resources, which is less of a problem in Mauritania because it is in the middle of the desert, but in Mali, and Niger, the resources lie precisely where the Tuareg communities live.

A recent panel discussion at Chatham House identified three problems: one is the influx of black African refugees from Libya. Many places in northern Niger and Northern Mali are full of refugees;

Second is AQIM (Al Qaeda), which has benefited from the fall of the Kaddafi regime in Libya and the steady flow of weapons. AQIM delivers welfare, much in the same way of Hezbollah in Lebanon, or the radical Islamists in Algeria, or the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt. It brings in social welfare in regions where the state doesn't bring in anything;

The final idea refers to the need to act in support of local initiatives; the problem is that ECOWAS is not functional, and Algeria and Mauritania are not members. You also have regional tensions: Libya, Algeria and Morocco have sometimes used the region as a backyard for their own disputes.

Both for African countries and for Western anti-European countries the main problem is the possible destabilization of the Sahara region.

Two initiatives are interesting: The Joint Headquarters in Tamanrasset, established in 2009 by Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania, which, granted, has not been very efficient. And the second is the EU Strategy for Development and Security in the Sahel.

Mali’s neighbors are justifiably worried that prolonged chaos in the country could lead to the consolidation of the political rebellion and threaten the territorial integrity of the country and, also, of other neighboring States with important Tuareg communities, notably Niger.

To reestablish the constitutional order in Mali will imply handing back power to civilians and since AT&T's mandate was due to end in a few weeks, to proceed to organize free elections, and a new Constitutional government that may be in a position to negotiate some solution to the regional problem with the Tuareg community.