A Tuareg man holds the flag of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MLNA) on July 28, 2024 in Kidal, northern Mali. AFP PHOTO/KENZO TRIBOUILLARD
Even as Iraq crumbles, peace may be on the horizon in another battlefield home to radical Islamists: northern Mali. On Monday, Algeria’s Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra announced that armed groups had agreed to launch peace talks with the government in an effort to restore stability in the wake of 2012’s regional uprising , which was led by Tuareg separatists, before being co-opted by al Qaeda-linked militants.
It’s no surprise the announcement comes from Lamamra. Algeria shares a long (porous) frontier with Mali, meaning it has good reason to assist its neighbor when it comes to mediation efforts with former rebels. Algiers brokered the “Algiers Declaration” that was signed on Sunday by the three leading Tuareg groups, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), the Arab Movement of Azawad, (MMA) and the High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA). But while Lamamara noted that conditions in Mali are “increasingly ripe for progress towards peace,” Bamako is facing an uphill battle.
After making slight improvements in the security situation last year, the government has failed to restore stability in the north; despite stated willingness from both camps to move forward, past peace talks have largely stalled. The past few weeks have seen a surge in violence, notably in the Tuareg stronghold of Kidal where separatists and security forces faced off in late May. (The Malian army failed to regain control of the city.) Sporadic violence continues, despite a ceasefire signed on May 23, notably a suicide bombing in June 11 that killed four U.N. peacekeepers in northern Mali. Mali’s Prime Minister Moussa Mara warns that the international community is underestimating the danger posed by Islamist militants still lurking in the northern regions controlled by Tuareg rebels, stating during a June 9 interview with Reuters that, “For the jihadists, breakfast will be the MNLA. Lunch will be Mali. And dinner will be the West.”
So whither Mali? U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon has called for the expansion of the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission. (The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to review the mandate by the end of June.) But Bamako’s strategy remains unclear. French daily Le Monde notes that Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubecar Keita “isn’t strong enough to impose his military superiority [in Kidal], nor conciliatory enough to launch a true dialogue process with these groups.” Indeed, since taking office last fall, Keita (widely known as IBK) has struggled to bridge the historic divide between Mali’s impoverished north and the ruling south. Even more so now that recent skirmishes in Kidal, which left some 50 soldiers and seven government officers dead, have hardened some in Bamako to the prospect of negotiation. Worse still, international financial aid has run dry – the IMF suspended a $46 million loan pending an investigation into the Malian government’s purchase of a $40 million jet for IBK.
Thankfully, Mali’s neighbors, notably Algeria and Burkino Faso, are still invested in mediation efforts, if not direct military aid, in order to keep the jihadist threat in check. With the ingredients ripe for a renewed conflagration, Mali needs all the help it can get.
