Sitting in the corner of a house built of mud somewhere in the city of Mopti, this elected representative of the commune of Sah, is careful. On the phone, a few hours ago, he was clear with us: “I will speak but I do not want to be quoted. If you come to talk to me about these people [the jihadists], I’m sorry I can’t help you. We do not give any more information about them. We are afraid”. This kind of response is thrown in the face of journalists who come to the region, or on the phone, by elected officials, civil servants and populations who are afraid. The elected official has the phone taped to the left ear for a few moments. He hurriedly hang up and turned to us. “I’m looking for a way to send the students to Youwarou City so they can take the DEF (Basic Studies Diploma) exams. But there is no money”. Then, a long moment of silence ensued that he broke: “For 25 years, the commune of Sah is a center of examinations during the DEF. But, these so-called jihadists have burned all schools”.
On Wednesday, May 24, young people came to Sah, 30 km from Youwarou, and ransacked two schools with heavy weapon fire. In N’Dodjiga, a commune whose chief town is Sah, another school was burned. Alerted, according to the elected, the prefect and the governor did not react. Besides, the prefect fled to take refuge at Sevare. “They contacted me and asked where I was. They say that they are Muslims, that everyone must adhere to Jihad”, says the elected official. Events that provoked the stir in Bamako where the political opposition called on the government to “get out of the inertia that characterizes it and especially to pass from procrastination to the urgent and concrete decisions that go in the direction of the security of the people , their property and all the symbols of the State”.
Who are they ?
A. Kassambara, a cousin of the elected official who has so far forbidden to intervene in the debate, explains that these are young people “who claim to belong to the Macina Liberation Front of Hamadoun Kouffa [now Katiba Macina, this movement has melted in the Support Group for Islam and Muslims led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, ed.]”. This movement and the Fulani preacher who carries it, nevertheless remain surrounded by a certain mystery. The local official says, he does not know who they are in reality. But he knows some leaders who come from the region. A month ago, they came to Sah, armed to the teeth, the Koran in hand and brought the young people into the mosque to preach to them. “They said they were the ones who had attacked Konna in 2013. That people said they were exterminated but they are back” said the cousin of the elected official with a smile. The kind of smile you get out despite the gravity of the situation. On that day, he added, they promised that they would return to burn schools.
In Mali, schools are no longer threatened only in the North. They are also in the center of the country, including the Segou, Koulikoro and Mopti regons, where a tidal wave of violence has broken out since late March 2012, when the first killings began, notably with the rise of tensions in the area of Seno (Dogon country). Diabali, Niono, Monipé, Tenenkou, Diafarabe, Dioura, Djenne, Macina but also in some villages of the Youwarou and Mopti circles, there has been no school for nearly three or four years. Teachers fled, after mayors, gendarmes, tax collectors, water and forestry officials.
The targeted killings of local chiefs and elected officials, most of whom are suspected of collaborating with the army, have finally convinced that the Center has become the new home of the violent extremist groups which extend their control over areas abandoned by the State. “The State has abandoned Youwarou. It looks like it’s not part of Mali. All the teachers are gone”, says a teacher we met in Mopti. On April 26, Amadou Ndjoum, an agent of the National Institute for Social Welfare, was abducted near Youwarou by religious extremists who are said to be close to Hamadoun Kouffa.
The Fulani community, the majority in this part of the country, is oriented towards traditional breeding. Children, already introduced to Koranic learning before entering conventional school, are most often withdrawn at an early age and go through transhumance. This is why Bréma Ely Dicko, Head of the Socio-Anthropology Department of the Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences, who participated in the survey of young Malian jihadists for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS, Dakar) believes, “the occupation of violent extremist groups has found a breeding ground with school abandonment”. In April 2017, a report by the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinating Agency (OCHA) estimated the number of closed schools in the Mopti region to be 270.
Over 1,000, according to Issa Kansaye, mayor of the urban commune of Mopti, which deplores the plethora that this situation of insecurity creates in schools in the unaffected areas of the region. He adds that teachers are fleeing even areas that are not yet affected, aware that they are not at risk of being punished by the state.
New phase in violent extremism
With schools being closed, some parents send their children to the safe areas from insecurity in the south to continue their schooling. But this is only a congruent part. Bréma Ely Dicko, an expert of the region, adds that the closure of the schools in the Center by the jihadists proves to the point that another phase has been taken in violent extremist action. “We’re in a kind of ideological competition, he says. “The ideology of the jihadists is Salafism, the conventional school carries the image of the West where people are turned towards the world. If this conventional school is closed, only the Koranic school will remain. Children often have only a ‘recitative’ knowledge of the Qur’an, and do not even know how to pray. It is easy to manipulate them. These religious extremists are doing everything to ensure that the two schools don’t cohabit”.
The idea of ideological competition is shared by many observers in the region. For this coordinator of an NGO present in Sevare, having requested anonymity, some parents, especially the Fulani of the region, think that “the conventional school teaches the world, while the Koran teaches paradise, hell. For them, the conventional school distorts man”. In a recent study “Center of Mali: Challenges and Dangers of a Neglected Crisis”, published in March 2017, Adam Thiam found that while conventional schools are closed, Koranic schools are exploding. He writes that the reform of the Koranic school curriculum is a “question which has become pressing with the rise of religious extremism … It is therefore the whole question of the professional future of those who followed this curriculum which is an acute issue”.
The security situation in the Center is such that the UN has decided to deploy a reactive force soon, consisting mainly of Senegalese peacekeepers. In the region, the attitude of the State to the actions of religious extremists has given it a bad reputation. Religious extremists also gain the confidence of the people, who feel abandoned by the State. In Dialloube, 50 km from Mopti and in other surrounding villages, they have checkpoints. “They stop the public transport cars, take the passengers down and preach to them for one or two hours, said this teacher who fled Tenenkou to return to Mopti. They tell the drivers not to mix men and women. They burn personal cars. In Mopti, it is enough to cross the river to be in front of insecurity”.
Hypothecated future
“If the State does nothing, everyone will join. The young people leave to train with them every day”, said Hamadi, who had to go with the extremist groups in Toguerekoumbe on the day when 4 Red Cross workers were abducted and for the release of which he said he intervened . In Dogo, 60 kilometers from Mopti in the Youwarou circle, where he originates, the school is closed since 2012, long before the assassination of the village chief, Amadou Issa Dicko in 2015. “They say that the school of the whites is haram, they prefer the Koranic school. Every Thursday, they preach to Dogo, apply sharia in particular to settle disputes between the populations. Even on Thursday, May 25, they were in Dogo”, he adds, displaying the mood of someone who is surpassed in his understanding. Yet he thinks like many others in the region that the authorities know where religious extremists are located.
Those who have ransacked the schools in Sah are entrenched in a forest on the road that leads to Youwarou, according to the elected official, who explains that in order to return to his commune, he would have to do like many other elected officials: negotiate with representatives of violent extremists throughout the region, especially in flooded areas. He adds that in this period, when there is water recession, is ideal for military intervention. “If the State does not intervene, let it train young people in the villages and they will do the job.” he says. “It’s not like that. The difficulty is that these groups are made up of young people from these same villages. You see how difficult it is!”, answers a Malian military source.
According to many observers, the (deplorable) situation of schools in the Center is proof that the State is weak despite the efforts made. Education, a right for every person, is flouted. The future of children is hypothecated. For Brema Ely Dicko, the government had to create temporary schools in the safe zones and give “zone bonuses” to teachers who remained on site. “These deprived children from education can’t aspire to social mobility. They will practice the same profession as their parents and risk falling into fanaticism and conveying ideology when they grow up”.
Boubacar Sangaré, Correspondent