Mali : craintes de conflagration dans le nord, la junte appelle au dialogue
Mali: fears of a conflagration in the north, the junta calls for dialogue
The predominantly Tuareg Coordination des mouvements de l'Azawad (CMA), a signatory of the 2015 Algiers agreement, accuses the Malian army of bombing positions of the alliance.
On Monday 28 August, the Malian junta called on the armed groups in the north who are signatories to an ailing peace agreement to resume dialogue with it, amid growing fears of a resumption of hostilities in the wake of the withdrawal of the UN mission. At the same time as this appeal was launched, the spokesman for an organisation bringing together these groups accused Malian army planes of having bombed positions belonging to the Coordination des mouvements de l'Azawad (CMA), a predominantly Tuareg alliance that has signed the agreement, in the Kidal region, without causing any damage.
Tensions have been growing for months between the central government and the groups in question. They have been heightened by the start of the withdrawal of the UN mission deployed in Mali since 2013 and forced to leave by the authorities in Bamako. The armed groups are opposed to the mission's camps being transferred to the Malian army, against a backdrop of rivalry for control of the territory.
These tensions culminated in the transfer of the UN camp in Ber in mid-August, which gave rise to fighting between soldiers and jihadists, as well as hostile acts between the army and the CMA. The situation has raised fears about the future of the 2015 agreement, which is considered to be crucial to stabilising the Sahelian country that has been in turmoil since the outbreak of independence and Salafist insurgencies in the north in 2012.
"Back to the negotiating table
The so-called Algiers agreement was signed by the CMA, pro-government armed groups and the government. The jihadists, for their part, continue to fight the state under the banner of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organisation. Concerns about the future of the agreement were voiced at length on Monday during a session of the UN Security Council.
The head of the UN mission in Mali, El-Ghassim Wane, noted the "paralysis of the monitoring structures" of the agreement. US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she was "alarmed" by the clashes in Ber and by "the resumption of hostilities in the north".
"If war broke out, it would unleash unspeakable, unthinkable devastation on the people of Mali", she said. Several countries have called for a resumption of dialogue.
In a statement issued simultaneously, the Minister for Reconciliation, responsible for the peace agreement, Colonel Major Ismaël Wagué, said he "invites" the signatory movements to "return to the negotiating table". "The government remains committed to the agreement", as well as to the ceasefire agreed the previous year, he stressed.
But at the same time, Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadane, spokesman for a structure that has brought together the signatory groups since 2021, told AFP that a few bombs had been dropped on former rebel positions in Anefis, without causing any damage. The Malian army later published messages on social networks stating that it had "targeted a grouping of armed terrorist groups [GAT] in the Anéfis sector" and had "neutralised" several fighters. Malian army aircraft have flown over the Tuareg stronghold of Kidal at least twice this year.
Intensive rearmament
In a report dated August and consulted by AFP, experts mandated by the Security Council expressed their concern at such acts and said they had persistent information about "intensive rearmament" by the former rebels. They note that the implementation of the 2015 agreement, which provides for greater local autonomy and the integration of combatants into a so-called "reconstituted" army, has reached an "impasse". This weakens the signatories in the eyes of the local population and plays into the hands of the jihadists, they say.
"Many armed groups have seen their fighters change sides to join armed terrorist groups or trafficking networks", they report. Groups affiliated to the Islamic State have practically doubled the area they control in less than a year, and those affiliated to al-Qa'ida are positioning themselves "as the only player capable of protecting populations against the Islamic State", they say.
This new situation offers "terrorist groups the opportunity to repeat the scenario" of 2012, with the capture of major cities in the north, they write. Before the Security Council, Mali's representative Issa Konfourou assured the Council that the army had not violated the Algiers agreement and that the State's "determination" to take control of the camps left by the UN "certainly does not constitute an act of belligerence". He denounced the "collusion recently observed between armed groups and terrorist organisations".