To stem the spiral of insecurity in
Mali’s central regions, President Keïta is calling for an “inclusive political
dialogue”. For more than two years, these regions have been plagued by inter
and intra-community conflicts, terrorism …
During the Council of Ministers which he presided on Friday, January 5, the
President of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, addressed his ministers with
instructions on several sectors. “The
security situation in the central regions remains a major challenge for which
adequate responses are expected by the populations”, said President Keïta,
who asked the government to accelerate “without
delay the effective operationalization of the Integrated Regional Security Plan
of the Center (PSIRC)”.
This plan, adopted in February 2017, defined security, development, governance
and communication measures to address the growing insecurity. But the security
environment has continued to deteriorate in the central regions, where the men
of the jihadist Hamadoun Koufa sow terror. The worrying escalation of terrorist attacks
in early November, during a visit by a government delegation led by Prime
Minister Abdoulaye Idrissa Maïga to “comfort
the terrorized population” testifies this.
“500 closed schools half of which are in
the center”
For President Keïta, it is the responsibility of the Malian government “to guarantee the return of tranquility in
this part of the country to allow the effective return of the administration,
allow children to go to school in all peace and people to go about their
business with serenity”. In a report, the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that by the end of 2016-17, about 500
schools were closed in Mali, half
of them in central regions.
A situation that would be related to the climate of insecurity, “but also to the hostility of
terrorist armed groups vis-à-vis the so-called “formal educational offer”
according to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), which in an analysis
published in October 2017 on the situation of schools in the center, said that “the importance for the Malian government to
regain control is no longer to be demonstrated, because there is a need for the
State in the center of Mali. This is a prerequisite for stability, which in
turn is crucial for the proper functioning of schools”.
Beyond that, the 2016 communal elections could not be held in several
localities of the center, because of the growing insecurity. The government
plans to organize partial communal elections in April 2018, while according to
many observers, the same reasons that prevailed at the last postponement still
remain.
“Inclusive political dialogue”
Faced with this precarious security situation in these regions, where the
headquarters of the new G5 Sahel joint force (in Sevare) is based, the
president said that an “inclusive
political dialogue must be conducted without delay”. He also pointed out
the need to focus on the implementation of the Peace and Reconciliation
Agreement, the fight against terrorism, the implementation of the Military
Orientation and Programming Law (LOPM) and the Security Orientation and
Programming Law (LOPS) to, mainly, “contribute
to strengthening the national and international structures and mechanisms put
in place, including the G5 Sahel …”
Since 2015, the security situation has deteriorated considerably in the
central regions. The dignitaries, threatened, fled at the same time as the
local elected officials and the State agents. Some village chiefs and elected
officials have been murdered there.
Sahelien.com