International Crisis Group
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Mali: Last Chance in Algiers
Dakar/Brussels | 18 Nov 2014
As the last phase of negotiations resumes on 20 November, the Algeria-led talks between the Malian government and the armed groups in the north should not be rushed as they offer a unique opportunity for a sustainable peace agreement.
As northern Mali experiences renewed violence, with influential radical groups absent from the negotiations trying to spoil the process, the Malian government and participating armed groups have struggled to find common ground. In its latest briefing, Mali: Last Chance in Algiers, the International Crisis Group builds on its January 2014 report, draws lessons from past mistakes and provides parameters for achieving a sustainable peace agreement.
The briefing’s major findings and recommendations are:
- Actors involved in the negotiations must learn from the failures of previous agreements, notably the lack of funds to ensure quick implementation; weak international guarantee mechanisms that did not fulfil their early warning role; and the excessive focus on relations between the state and the northern regions that neglected the local balance of power in the north.
- The international mediation team – Algeria, the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union, Mauritania, Niger and Chad – must provide guarantees to ensure funding and implementation of the agreement, and establish a mechanism to manage donor funds with the relevant local authorities.
- The longer public administration remains absent from the north, the more difficult it will be to fully restore the state’s presence. Any peace agreement must provide the different communities in the north fair access to political representation and public services, as well as participation in the security apparatus. The peace process must also be accompanied by popular consultations and provide for formal endorsement by the Malian parliament and/or the regions concerned.
- Algeria and France must overcome their so far ambiguous relationship of partnership and rivalry, and unify their efforts around a solid peace agreement. Once the negotiations are completed, the mediation team should serve as a contact group responsible for implementation of the agreement.
“It is important to maintain the current momentum rather than hastening an agreement with minimalist security guarantees”, says Jean-Hervé Jezequel, West Africa Senior Analyst. “Signing a peace agreement is not the end game but a milestone in the process of building lasting peace”.
“The resurgence of violence in the north and the difficulties encountered by the Malian political elites to undertake profound reforms make the success of the Algiers peace process all the more necessary”, says Rinaldo Depagne, West Africa Project Director. “This should lead to the signing of a peace agreement that is both realistic and ambitious”.
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Tunisia’s borders open ground for smuggling | Mat Nashed
KASSERINE, Tunisia — Waiting until sundown, Bazz drove onto an empty desert road just beyond Farianna, a Tunisian village on the Algerian border. While making his way back hours later, he saw an unmarked truck signaling him from the opposite direction.
“These are the roads where we do business,” the 24-year-old smuggler with short black hair, a faint mustache and short beard told Al-Monitor with a smile. “If a truck signals left that means there aren’t any officers ahead. If it signal’s right, then we need to drive off the main road immediately.”
Bazz, who wouldn’t disclose his last name, is one of hundreds of people smuggling goods on the border towns of Tunisia. A graduate of computer engineering, he says that crippling unemployment and high taxes on imported goods have pushed entire communities to work in the contraband market.
FULL ARTICLE (Al Monitor)
Photo: yelacis/flickr
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Tunisia’s Border Dilemma | Adel Al-Nouqti
Tunis, Asharq Al-Awsat—Like all border zones across the world, Tunisia’s borders have never been completely secured. But the nature of problems along Tunisia’s southern border with Libya and western border with Algeria have seen radical shifts in recent years, mainly due to the political developments that have taken place both in Tunisia and its neighboring states.
Tunisia itself witnessed massive political changes after the fall of former President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011 while turmoil also ripped through Libya in the aftermath of the ouster of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, also in 2011. In the western part of Tunisia, fierce clashes with armed militias positioned in the mountainous area along the border with Algeria have resulted in the deaths of more than 50 Tunisian military and security officers. As for its southern border with Libya, the flow of smuggled weapons has increased, bringing increased concerns over security.
Tunisia’s national economy has been a major casualty of its porous borders. Smuggling from Libya and Algeria costs Tunisia over one billion US dollars every year, a study prepared by the International Monetary Fund revealed.
FULL ARTICLE (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Photo: Richard Mortel/flickr
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Libya faces growing Islamist threat | The Guardian
By Chris Stephen and Afua Hirsch
France sent troops to Mali in January after an uprising in the north started by the ethnic Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA), named for the independent state it hopes to create.
The impetus for this uprising came from ethnic Tuareg soldiers who had fought alongside Muammar Gaddafi and fled south when his regime fell. They were later augmented by jihadists from Libya and across north Africa, who triggered international condemnation for their destruction of ancient Sufi Muslim shrines in Timbuktu. The fear across the Maghreb is that the French operation that has pushed them out of the northern cities has inadvertently compounded problems elsewhere in north Africa as jihadist units disperse.
“If you squeeze a balloon in one part, it bulges out in another,” said Bill Lawrence, of International Crisis Group, a political consultancy. “There’s no question that the French actions in Mali had the effect of squeezing that balloon towards Algeria and Libya.”
Photo: Ammar Abd Rabbo/Flickr
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Hostage crisis shatters Algeria’s image as a safe place to do business | Agence France-Presse via The National
Last week’s hostage-taking has rocked the image of Algeria’s powerful security apparatus, raising questions about how gunmen could have overrun the key Ain Amenas gasfield, with alarming implications for the energy sector.
As foreign governments continued to count the human cost of the attack, in which 37 foreign workers were killed, Algiers has scrambled to contain the fallout from its inability to stop the world’s deadliest hostage crisis in almost a decade.
FULL ARTICLE (AFP via The National)
Photo: looking4poetry/Flickr
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“The country has a huge economic cushion with its oil and gas reserves. But that gets into the fact that the money doesn’t trickle down to the people. There is an extra layer of frustration when you know your government is rich.” — William Lawrence, Crisis Group’s North Africa Project Director, on economic grievances in Algeria, in “New Algeria govt faces ‘massive’ challenges”, AFP -
New Algeria govt faces ‘massive’ challenges | AFP
ALGIERS — After months of political inertia, Algeria’s newly appointed cabinet faces a raft of social problems, including joblessness, poor housing and ongoing water cuts, which threaten to aggravate simmering discontent.
Photo: Magharebia/Flickr
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AFP: Mali kidnappings highlight poor regional cooperation
By Stephane Barbier
DAKAR — After the kidnapping of five Europeans and the murder of one other in just 48 hours in Mali, military cooperation in the vast Sahel strip south of the Sahara desert shows it is in need of strengthening.
Incidents involving armed gangs are on the rise in the region, which is home to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
On Thursday, two Frenchmen were snatched from their hotel in the northern Malian town of Hombori, followed by the abduction of four Europeans – one of whom was killed as he tried to resist – the next day from the ancient city of Timbuktu, a popular tourist haunt.
AQIM has bases in the northern Mali desert from which it organises raids and kidnappings and traffics weapons and drugs.
It also operates in Niger, Mauritania and Algeria.
In April 2010, the four countries where the highest number of AQIM-related incidents have occurred – Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania – formed a Committee of Joint Chiefs (CEMOC), based in the Algerian town of Tamanrasset, to try and combat extremism in the region by coordinating their military operations.
But nearly 18 months later, kidnappings, trafficking and attacks by AQIM are becoming commonplace in the Sahel as CEMOC struggles to create a united force.
The recent arrival of thousands of Moamer Kadhafi loyalists who have fled Libya for Mali and Niger has only added to CEMOC’s problems.
In this wild desert region which stretches for thousands of kilometres right across Africa from west to east, it is not hard for gangs and their hostages to remain elusive.
The kidnappers of the two Frenchmen abducted on Thursday are thought to have split into two groups, one heading in the direction of the Burkina Faso border to the south and the other moving north towards Mali’s border with Algeria.
But the whereabouts of the Dutchman and Swede abducted Friday along with a man of British-South African nationality remain unknown.
A total of nine hostages are now being held in the Sahel region and the pressure is on from European governments for local authorities to play their part in securing their release.
CEMOC army chiefs meet every six months but have never yet organised joint patrols.
Internal disagreements within the committee have also impacted on its effectiveness, according to a delegate from Niger at CEMOC’s last meeting in the Malian capital of Bamako on November 21 who accused Algeria of not helping its neighbours enough.
“Algeria’s army, by itself, has greater means that the armies of Niger, Mauritania and Mali” put together, he said.
“I can’t understand why its army isn’t deployed to help us fight AQIM.”
But Algeria is rattled by any suggestion of including Morocco in the committee’s fight against terrorism, a diplomatic source told AFP, and is also annoyed at intervention from its former colonial power France, with whom it maintains a touchy relationship.
“In not fighting together against AQIM, the Sahel countries are giving free reign to terrorists,” said a Mauritanian official speaking in Bamako.
But the events of last week could bring about change, said Gilles Yabi, International Crisis Group director in Dakar.
“Everyone realises that this cooperation is needed to tackle these groups”, he said.
Mali, now the scene of multiple kidnappings, at least will “act more clearly” henceforth, he added.