Essay on Conflict and Instability
In recent decades, Africa has got a firmly established reputation of the conflict-risky region of the planet. Therefore, it has increasingly become known as a continent of conflict, or, more literally, boiling continent (Griffiths, 2011, p.84). Indeed, in the post-colonial period, there were 35 armed conflicts recorded, in which about 10 million people were killed with over 90% civilians. Only from 1970 to 2000, Africa experienced 78 coups that cost the lives of 25 presidents (Williams, 2011, p. 35-37). For many years and even decades the pain points on the continent have been Angola, Somalia, Sudan, Zaire (presently the Democratic Republic of Congo), Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Western Sahara, Uganda, Chad, Mauritania and some other countries. Africa is the only region in the world where the number of conflicts not only does not decrease, but even increases each year (Griffiths, 2011, p.85).
The emergence of such conflict-risky situation in Africa is explained by a complex of reasons including ethnic, religious, political, and geopolitical, social and economic ones. Sometimes these reasons are divided into internal and external (interstate and intrastate), although in the case of Africa it is probably not that simple to make a clear distinction between them. Further we will explore the correlation of poverty, deprivation, terrorism, insurgency, violence and conflict on the example of instability in Mali.
Conflict and instability in Mali
In January 2012, insurgent Tuareg groups reported on uniting into the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, and started the full-scale war in the north of Mali. Small and demoralized garrisons were unable to resist the Tuaregs, and in two months the latter captured almost two-thirds of the country’s territory, having eventually declared the sovereignty of the self-proclaimed state (Goodman, 2012). This was followed by the responsive coup d’etat on March 22, 2012, organized by a group of military leaders, who were dissatisfied with the government’s response to the armed rebellion of Tuareg tribes in northern Mali. In addition, shortly after the declaration of Azawad independence, the contradictions between Tuareg nationalists and Islamists got sharpened and grew into armed clashes by June, leading to the destruction of ancient tombs and even mosques, while the army of coupists, in its turn, got soon engaged into looting and pillaging in Bamako and other cities (Nossiter, 2012). In general, contemporary Mali has faced the threat of a large-scale and prolonged political and military crisis.
The current conflict situation in Mali has a long history and is conditioned by various reasons. In fact, it goes about several conflicts which have different nature, but now have fatally overlapped each other.
Firstly, there are different coexisting socio-linguistic communities with different sustainment cultures on the territory of Mali. Sedentary farmers and fishermen (tribes speaking the languages of the Mande and Songhay) making the majority of population in Mali live in the south-east. Tribes speaking the Fulani language are engaged in cattle breeding in the south-western outskirts of the country. The sands of the Sahara are occupied by nomadic Berber-speaking tribes of Tuaregs, as well as Arabs and Moors known in the Sahel as warriors, traders and cattle farmers (Williams, 2011). Such a complex composition of languages, cultures, and traditions in itself is fraught with conflict.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that the historical memory of Malians keeps the images of an enemy (Williams, 2011, p. 47). Throughout the whole history of the country farmers have suffered from attacks of nomads. Historical memory of Malians remains a serious conflict generating factor. Thus, presently the relatively peaceful farmers continue to suffer from attacks of aggressive nomads – Tuaregs and Moors, a kind of “pirates of the desert”; the latter are still robbing caravans on the trans-Saharan routes, take hostages, and trade in weapons and drugs. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the very community of Tuaregs is not uniform. Separate tribes and their chiefs are constantly at war with one another, pursue their own totally mercantile interests, and to varying degrees are influenced by radical Islam (Emerson, 2011). Hence, certainly there is no unity in the self-proclaimed Azawad, and there never will be.
Religious reasons also bear considerable importance. World religions, Islam and Christianity, in many areas intertwine with various local religions (Williams, 2011). All this, particularly taking into account the recently intensified Islamic fundamentalism and extremism, even exacerbates the arising conflicts turning some of them into ethnic and religious. In particular, recent cataclysms in Mali have become a direct result of the “Arab Spring” and NATO aggression against Libya (Goodman, 2012; Nossiter, 2012). It is known that Gaddafi was driven by the idea of forming special military units of Tuaregs seeking to create The United States of Africa, and after the Gaddafi-supporters defeat, the situation in northern Mali became explosive.
The central authorities of Mali are mostly represented by the tribes speaking the Mande and Songhay dialects, and partly the Fulani dialect, and the Government ignores the fundamental interests of the nomads. State funding actually barely reaches the northern territories, social programs (already very scarce) and humanitarian aid from Western countries do not apply to the Tuareg tribes, Moors and Arabs. For many years, the situation has been constantly escalating and turning into armed rebellions in dry years when the mass loss of cattle dooms the nomads to starvation (Emerson, 2011). The central government only responds by army expeditions to the north. At the same time, the army totals only about five thousand poorly armed soldiers and officers who are simply unable to control enormous territories of the Sahara and Sahel (Emerson, 2011, p. 675). Therefore, almost all of the post-colonial period, the central government of Mali has attempted to negotiate with the Tuaregs and even win them over to side. But the meager state budget combined with corruption has been simply unable to meet the requirements of the obstinate nomads, and short periods of conflict-free coexistence have been quickly replaced by new armed clashes.
Overall, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. It takes 127th place in the world by GDP per capita, and 168th place out of 179 in the world in terms of human development (Williams, 2011, p. 111). Thus, conflicts occur in the context of extreme socio-economic backwardness, prevalence of the poor and the poorest in the population, lack of financial and material resources, and a huge foreign debt. The special flavor of this collision is created by the rich deposits of uranium which have been discovered in Sahel, and are already being developed by the French and Chinese companies (Williams, 2011; Nossiter, 2012). There is reason to believe that the chiefs of the Tuareg tribes will not be willing to stay away from the fabulous profits from the trade in this strategic raw material, and this is largely explains their recent combat activity.
Furthermore, chaos and anarchy threaten the availability of the dangerous raw materials for the Islamic fundamentalists, as it has been considered as an alternate springboard for Al Qaeda since the start of Americans’ intervention in Afghanistan. Along with uranium, there are other reasons explaining the interest of the Al Qaeda to Mali: proximity of potential terrorist targets in Europe, the inaccessibility of the northern regions of Mali, conflicting relations between the Malian government and the Tuaregs (Nossiter, 2012). Such a dangerous scenario should certainly be prevented by the actions of the world conflict resolving community.
Conclusion
A paradoxical situation has emerged in Mali: organization and conduction of legitimate presidential election is almost impossible; most of the country is controlled by no one at all, or is controlled by groups hostile to each other; and holding elections in the controlled territory means to recognize de facto the sovereignty of Azawad.
In our opinion, first of all, the international community should be concerned with the need to restore constitutional order in the country. It may also make sense to send the units of U.S. Special Forces in the Sahel only in order to take control of the uranium mines. It is also necessary to remember about the measures of the Pan Sahel Initiative, a regional program providing security in Africa launched by the Pentagon after September 11, 2001, which was designed to prevent Al-Qaeda terrorists fleeing from Afghanistan after the American military action to establish well armed and trained groups of Islamic militants on the territory of these countries. In addition, to combat the threat of terrorism in the region, Algeria together with Mali, Niger and Mauritania have created the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre. It is vital now to mobilize this agency to fight the Islamists, while NATO forces, as well as in Libya, will provide air support of military actions against separatists.
After the territorial integrity of the country is conditionally reinstated, presidential and parliamentary elections postponed for an indefinite period should be held: this should be a more or less stable political regime, driven from the outside to a large extent. In order to prevent the recurrence of the separatist war, establish control over the uranium production and counteract the growing influence of fundamentalist Islamic militant groups in the region, it is important to generously sponsor modernization, upgrading and training of the Malian army.
