Mali, home to more than 1.2 million people, rarely attracts headlines in the international press. Located on a continent ravaged by AIDS and border disputes, the Malian government’s longstanding, low-intensity civil war with the Tuareg has mostly gone unnoticed.
But with the alarming infusion of Islamist radicalism into the opposition movement, the West could no longer overlook the region. As extremist control grew increasingly unnerving with the takeover of the quiet northern town of Timbuktu, French President Francois Hollande decided in early 2013 to intervene. The French forces dealt the militants a devastating blow, destroying their armory and reclaiming territory.
The insurrection began in March of 2012 with a mutiny of Malian soldiers. Exasperated by the government’s response to a rebellion by the Tuareg nomads in the north, soldiers swarmed the capital city of Bamako. The unrest — which drove the president into hiding and ultimately suspended the constitution — intensified when Islamic extremists, including al-Qaida, joined the conflict to aid the Tuaregs. Today, the drama continues: Tuareg forces remain in control of much of northern Mali, which they declared to be a separate state in April of last year.
The recapture of Timbuktu in late January marked the culmination of the unexpected French military incursion in its former imperial domain. Jonathan Wyrtzen, an assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at Yale University, said he was “surprised” that France sent troops into Mali to stabilize the region. Clearly, the French felt that they had license to police their former West African empire, though their action in Mali was not as quick or decisive as their strikes on Libya. Indeed, Hollande has announced that French troops will remain in Mali as long as they are needed.
“But holding cities over time will be harder,” noted Wyrtzen, expressing reservations about France’s engagement in the region. “Insurgents can change tactics and stay less visible by operating from the countryside.” Wyrtzen predicted that prolonged warfare would erode the military and make it more difficult to justify keeping troops in the country for an extended period of time. French intervention could peter out, leaving Mali as vulnerable to tribal warfare as it was before the French presence began.
The fragility currently characterizing Mali is due in part to how little the 2012 coup managed to actually change the ways of Mali’s government. Joseph Cumming, director of the Reconciliation Program at the Yale Divinity School’s Center for Faith and Culture called it “a stunningly failed coup.”
Frank Griffel, chair of Yale University’s Council on Middle East Studies and professor of Islamic studie, said that the conflict has been slow to resolve because of events in neighboring states. Griffel argued that many of the problems in Mali can be explained by looking north to Algeria, which has played a role in Mali’s internal strife.
“Algeria’s relationship with al-Qaida in the Maghreb [a region of northwest Africa] is hard for outsiders to understand,” he said. “They have connections with the Algerian army, which had an insidious role in the takeover of northern Mali.”
Indeed, Mali has a checkered relationship with Algeria, thanks in part to illegal cross-border trade. In 2011, the per capita GDP of Algeria was $7,400, compared to Mali’s paltry $1,100. This difference in living standards, coupled with a porous 870 mile border, encourages both human and capital flight from Mali to its richer northern counterpart. Yet, as people flee from Mali to Algeria, precious commodities traverse the opposite path. Oil, which is extremely cheap in Algeria, is smuggled across the border to Mali in tankers, unchecked and untaxed.
More worrisome is how this exchange enables the northern militants to buy weapons and ammunition. Mali serves as a transit route for the narcotics produced in southern Africa headed for European markets. By acting as a middleman in this transcontinental drug deal, the northern militants accumulate massive sums of money, which they then use to purchase arms.
Cumming recounted that when Timbuktu first fell to the militants, he was stunned to see them rolling through the city in tanks. “We think the scary al-Qaida are in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen,” he said. “But these guys had tanks.”
The worst conflict may be yet to occur. Just as Algeria has largely determined the recent events in Mali, experts said that Mali will likely influence the future of its neighboring countries. Cumming expects Malian insurgents to flee into other countries like Mauritania, potentially sparking fundamentalist Islamic strife there. This prospect does not bode well for Mauritania, a large, loosely governed state.
Until now, Griffel noted, Mauritania has been growing slowly but steadily, moving from a “godforsaken place” to a state in the early stages of development. But Islamic fundamentalism has been strong in the dense network of Mauritanian “madrasas,” seminaries common in the country. Historically, Griffel said, these institutions have been a radicalizing force. These schools may similarly galvanize Mauritanian students to incite unrest in the region.
As militants continue to flee northern Mali, fears grow in Mauritania of a potential crisis there. The worst outcome of the conflict in Mali could be the destabilization of yet another country, a major blow to Western interests in the region.
A key to fixing this problem is redressing the grievances of impoverished Arab Moors like the Tuaregs, who have been treated as second-class citizens for decades. The low-level insurgency simmering in the north may be attributable to a lack of serious engagement with Tuaregs, who are seen as a military rather than a political issue.
Getting the politicians — and more importantly, the military honchos they court — to grant more autonomy and power to the north of their country may be the ultimate solution to the problems ailing Mali. But, as Griffel and Cummins acknowledged, whether this goal proves attainable remains to be seen.