The recent decision by Mali’s military government to withdraw from a key peace deal with northern separatist rebels has raised concerns about prospects for peace in the country.
The 2015 Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, concluded with several mainly Tuareg rebel groups, was supported by the United Nations and signed in the Algerian capital, Algiers.
The Algiers agreement has long been seen as the best hope for ending years of violence in the West African country.
But things have changed since August 2020, when the military overthrew the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and took power.
In July 2022, the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), formed by semi-nomadic Tuaregs, accused the transitional government of having turned away from the agreement.
Last August, the north of the country experienced an upsurge in hostilities after eight years of calm, when the Malian army ordered the UN peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, to leave the territory, which played an essential role as guarantor of the Algiers agreement.
Announcing the end of the agreement in January, government spokesperson Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga said it was due to “the change in posture of certain signatory groups”, while accusing Algeria of “acts hostile”.
On February 5, Colonel Assimi Goïta, President of the Transition of the Republic of Mali, affirmed that the agreement had become a lucrative activity, or a business “for certain actors”. The CMA considered, for its part, that the transitional government’s decision to terminate the agreement was not surprising.
Algeria for its part “deplored” Mali’s decision, declaring that the reasons given by the Malian government “in no way corresponded to the truth or reality”.
According to Rwandan political analyst Ladislas Ngendahimana, this decision undermines peace efforts in Mali and the entire region.
The deal may not have been perfect, but it was better than no deal, he said.
“The breakdown of a peace agreement effectively amounts to starting a new war… The end of any peace agreement is synonymous with the resumption of war, which is likely to encourage the rise of terrorism in the region,” a- he declared to the media.
The main objective of this peace agreement was to integrate the rebels into the national army and to decentralize governance in this country of around 22 million inhabitants.
Its implementation, however, raised concerns from the start.
The Carter Center, founded by former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife, was appointed as an independent observer of the 2015 peace agreement.
The Center warned in 2022 that there was an “unprecedented impasse” in the implementation process, saying that dialogue between the Malian government and the CMA had become increasingly difficult, since October 2021.
According to Ngendahimana, the two parties did not fully trust the terms of the agreement, seen as “France’s instrument to perpetuate its influence in the Sahel region”.
**The deal was doomed to failure
Freddie David Egesa, a security analyst based in Kampala, capital of Uganda, believes that the agreement was doomed to failure from the start.
“Mali, like several African countries, with the exception of those in southern Africa, is under siege by rebel groups supported by Al-Qaeda and their affiliates. This is one of the reasons why peace agreements do not work in Mali, Sudan, Somalia and other countries,” he told the media.
And continues: “All African countries should realize that, if it is not analyzed and managed at the continental level, this wave will affect everyone.”
Some observers are urging both sides to identify sticking points and work to revive the deal.
After the latter was broken, Goïta set up a “Steering Committee for Inter-Malian Dialogue for Peace and National Reconciliation”, but the Tuareg rebels rejected this new initiative, calling it “staged” involving groups already won over to the government.
Ladislas Ngendahimana believes, for his part, that the benefit of the doubt should be given to the approach of the power in place in Bamako.
He added that the military had demonstrated a “revolutionary ideology”, putting an end to everything associated or linked to the former colonial power, France.
“Mali is experimenting with other options, perhaps they will work. Let’s give them credit and the benefit of the doubt. If only the great powers could support a new approach and make it work,” he continued.
And added: “They could develop internal means to contain the situation, with the help of regional allies. This could turn out to be positive. The risk would be to terminate the agreement… without any viable alternative”.
The analyst, however, asserted that all nations must understand that “Africa’s peace and security will never come from outside” the continent.
2024-02-19 14:31:21
#Mali #breakdown #peace #agreement #jeopardize #prospects #peace #country
