Mali is facing a severe escalation of its long-running security and humanitarian crisis. After large-scale, coordinated offensives by Islamist and separatist armed groups, the military junta is struggling to maintain control nationwide. Civilians face dire conditions amid intensified violence, widespread human rights abuses, and blockades. Russian mercenaries, who had backed the junta and expelled French forces, have withdrawn from the country as the situation spins out of control, multiplying opportunities for criminal activities and population flights to rich Europe.
Between 2010 and 2012, I had the opportunity to spend over two years trying to deal with the progressive transformation of the Sahelian state of Mali.
It was a country long regarded as an oasis of peaceful coexistence among the most diverse and multi-confessional ethnic groups. All were equally committed to harmonious cohabitation, which over the centuries had produced multicultural miracles such as the Quranic School of Timbuktu.
We were a composite group, held together by the leadership of former EU President Romano Prodi — a political figure extremely well known in Africa. On that occasion, he served as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Mali, at the time the South Korean diplomat Ban Ki-moon.
Our group was not only composite but also very poorly composed. Entirely ignorant of the internal power struggles tearing the UN apart, we had allowed members of the two factions — the political one and the one answering to the peacekeeping department — to compete ferociously for leadership within the organization. The result was a body we absolutely could not trust. We discovered to our cost that our successes were regularly attributed to one of the two warring factions, while we retained full ownership only of the failures. And as with all difficult tasks, failures, unfortunately, came in uninterrupted abundance.
In Bamako, the country’s capital, we found from the outset a situation of extreme tension, initially triggered by one of the periodic anti-government explosions among the Arab, Islamic, and traditionally warlike ethnic groups of the north. This phenomenon repeats itself with impressive regularity, approximately every 20 years. It is sparked by the way the southern majority — Black, Christian, and almost entirely non-combatant — regards the northern territories, where the Muslim warlike minority lives, as a land to plunder. The Christian majority perpetually showers the Muslim minority with clouds of promises while harboring the deep-seated intention of never keeping any of them.
Compared with previous episodes — all resolved through compromise, however laboriously reached — this time there were a couple of additional elements that aggravated the situation. On the one hand, the northern rebels had found in the Islamic terrorism nestled in the southern reaches of neighboring Algeria a force multiplier for their own strength. On the other hand, the picture in Bamako itself had been worsened by a military uprising that accused the government of excessive accommodation toward the rebels and had its epicenter at the Kati base, close to the capital and home to the special forces.
From that base had come junior officers who, in the days before our arrival, had beaten the country’s Prime Minister so severely that he was forced to seek hospital treatment in Paris. The episode, incidentally, had earned the captains responsible something of a national-hero aura — which says a great deal about the mood of local public opinion at the time.
At that point, there were two possible paths to calming the waters.
One was the use of force, and, as unfortunately happens in Africa in most cases, it was pursued immediately. It did not involve Malian troops, who, in all good faith, could at best be considered suitable for logistical tasks, but instead relied on a special operation conducted by French legionnaires, heavily reinforced by a contingent of Toubous — the finest warrior ethnic group in all of Africa — from Chad.
The second path was that of negotiation. We ventured into it, along with other players, fully aware that for a negotiation to reach a successful conclusion, it is not enough merely to ask — one must also be in a position to offer.
To that end, looking around us, we immediately set off in two directions.
On one side, we sought potential donor countries and, to our considerable surprise, discovered a collective willingness we had never expected. Even the largest countries — the colossi of international politics, such as the United States, China, and Russia — were prepared to donate. Their only condition, learned from previous negative experiences, was to retain a level of oversight over their contributions sufficient to prevent them from dissolving rapidly into the murky cloud of African corruption.
On the other hand, we turned to the best local universities — not only Malian ones, but from the entire Sahelian region — and asked them to draw up an agreed, detailed list of everything to be done to achieve prosperity and serve as a shock absorber for any future tensions.
I no longer remember the full list. There were dozens of items, but only the first three requests have stayed with me — above all, the first, which called for the supply of small photovoltaic installations to all isolated centers and villages, capable of providing all the electrical energy they needed. Then came the rectification and management of the entire course of the Niger River, as well as the request to complete the 200 kilometers still missing from the only road that would have made it possible to travel the length of the entire African continent, from north to south or vice versa.
How much of what was planned at the time has been done? Of what might have translated into a development capable of bringing peace and stability to the entire area? Absolutely nothing. When our mandate ended, our group dissolved, and the report silently disappeared into the innermost recesses of the United Nations, leaving no regrets in either of the two factions then contending for the organization’s leadership. I doubt that, even today, it would still be possible to find a copy of it, even if one wanted to.
In the meantime, the military action had proceeded, producing the usual temporary solution and creating an equilibrium that both sides were simply waiting to violate, which duly occurred.
In the rush of subsequent events, France was eventually expelled from almost all of l’Afrique francophone; Russia temporarily took its place through the Wagner Group, only to quickly discover how difficult it is to maintain positions in Africa. And now the warrior ethnic groups of the north are once again marching on the hapless south — not only in Mali but across the entire Sahel.
Advancing alongside them, with increasing force, is the Islamic fundamentalism we had repeatedly pledged to halt.
Wouldn’t it have been better to have tried in good time to give substance to the African academics’ suggestions? It certainly would not have made things worse — and would surely have improved them considerably.
