What to do with the jihadists in Mali, who remain active several years after the French military intervention? Yvan Guichaoua answers questions from Sahelien.com. In a recent forum* published Tuesday on The Conversation, he paints a somewhat mixed picture of the war waged against jihadists in Mali.
A specialist of the Sahel and security issues, Yvan Guichaoua, a graduate of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, is currently a researcher and lecturer at the Brussels School of International Studies, attached to the University of Kent (United Kingdom).
Sahelien.com: In 2013, France intervened in Mali at the request of the Malian authorities of the time to stop the progress of the jihadists. Today, insecurity remains in northern Mali and terrorists are increasingly extending their warrior horizon to the center of Mali and other parts of the Sahel, despite the presence of Operation Barkhane, whose mission is to fight against terrorism. Can we conclude that French military intervention is a failure?
Yvan Guichaoua: Not all the Sahel are the prey of the jihadists. Northern and central Mali are an important focus of the crisis, the other being northern Nigeria. To really judge the effectiveness of an action, one would have to know what would have happened without this action. However by definition, this information does not exist. But what can be said is that, despite Barkhane, the jihadist activity has not weakened. It has even intensified and spread geographically in 2016. And the year 2017 began in the worst possible way, by the horrible attack of the MOC in Gao. The change is not only quantitative or geographical, it is also qualitative: jihadists work under a now more unified banner, that of the Islam and Muslim support group of Iyad Ag Ghaly, (even if there is a competition incarnated by Abou Walid Al Sahraoui or Malam Dicko) and make their operation more complex. They are obliged to adapt to the opposition that Barkhane is giving them.
Sahelien.com: Should the premise « We do not negotiate with terrorists » applied so far in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere be in the Malian or even Sahelian context?
Yvan Guichaoua: If we admit that this crisis is generated from within Mali itself and that it is opposing Malians to other Malians, then counter-terrorism is not enough any more, it needs politics. All the actors in the peace process, including the French military, are aware of this. And politics means discussion. But your question raises many more. Who decides whether to discuss or not? Logically, the answer lies with the Malians but it is clear that the international tutelage of Mali does not understand it in this way. Then: Do the jihadists want to discuss? Nothing is less certain, especially since Iyad Ag Ghaly formed his new group. One strategy is probably to try to convince not the chiefs but those who follow them. It’s a bit like what Niger is doing right now by welcoming Boko Haram’s ‘repented’, but we have no hesitation in this experience. Finally, if we discuss, what are we talking about? Jihadists will not fight to become mayors or ministers. If they discuss, it is about the Sharia and the place of Islam in Malian society, which is a very broad and heated debate.
Sahelien.com: Would this position of France which is not to negotiate with the jihadists be influenced by the powerful neighbor of Mali, namely Algeria?
Yvan Guichaoua: Algeria is the godmother of the current peace process. But its doctrine in foreign policy is non-interventionism. During its own civil war with the Islamists, Algeria made compromises and offered an amnesty to the insurgents, which in fact caused the migration of those who did not want this amnesty to Mali! Algeria thus has a complicated history with jihad at home and at its Malian neighbor, made of repression and compromise. I do not know its official position on the fate that must be reserved for Iyad Ag Ghaly but it is obvious that it must be involved in the resolution of the crisis, simply because its territory offers many possibilities of logistical servicing to the jihadists. But regional cooperation is not simple.
Sahelien.com: What do you think of the position of certain political parties and the Malian civil society which, before and after the National Peace Conference, recommend negotiating with the Malian jihadists who are Iyad Ag Ghaly and Hamadoun Kouffa?
Yvan Guichaoua: These actors probably make a better diagnosis of the crisis than their government by insisting on the fact that the rebels are « children of Mali ». However, they remain very evasive, if not silent, about the content of the talks that they call for their wishes.
Sahelien.com: In a recent analysis published on The Conversation, you write that «(…) The Malian jihad swears allegiance to a struggle of global dimension but simultaneously expresses claims and a radical project of local political regulation ». What did you mean by that?
Yvan Guichaoua: This idea is not very original: it is a question of taking seriously the political offer that represents the ideology to which these people swear allegiance and at the same time to recognize that those who take up arms in Mali can have other motives than this ideology. Many analytical reports validate this perspective in a convincing manner, particularly with regard to the center of Mali and the violent engagement of some Fulani. The jihadist fight is a vehicle for multiple claims, but it also implies a particular mode of action and adherence to its political project.
Sahelien.com: You also write that it is necessary to re-qualify the Malian crisis
Yvan Guichaoua: Requalifying the crisis is precisely to make the intellectual path described above: stop invoking the threats that came from elsewhere and recognize that this crisis puts Malians in front of other Malians. Undertaking this path is a condition for resolving the crisis because it opens up possibilities for dialogue: Malian communities are not deprived to manage peacefully quarrels between neighbors. Unfortunately, the peaceful consensus-building voices have less and less space and are replaced by political-military community leaders. This race for the arming of communities, which does not seem to frighten the State, on the contrary, is one of the great problems of Mali which dangerously complicates the outcome of the crisis. The jihadists can take on the beautiful role: With them, by definition, there is no racism and community divisions.
Sahelien.com: A few weeks ago, the jihadist movements in the Sahel were recomposed under the leadership of Iyad Ag Ghaly, the chief of Ansardine. Should we see in this metamorphosis a will to create a caliphate that is the Sahel?
Yvan Guichaoua: Iyad Ag Ghaly has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, which promotes a very gradualist approach: we don’t impose the idea of a caliphate entry at the beginning, we try to seduce the populations gradually, capitalizing on the local resentments, by regulating politically the zones that are controlled but also by intimidating, sometimes by purely and simply murdering them, those which are too close to the ‘Crusaders’. This logic that mixes carrot and stick is no doubt better thought than that, brutal and unambiguous, of the Islamic state. What the outside observers often neglect is that these groups make mistakes at will. A rumor says that leaving Gao in 2013 at the time of the Serval intervention, a high-ranking jihadist leader said goodbye to the people: « We came by force without asking you your opinion but next time, you will be the ones to invite us ». They have all the time in front of them if no alternative project remobilizes the populations.
L’horizon compromise de Barkhane au Mali, The Conversation, May 10, 2017
Translated by Mahaitou Ibrahim Maiga