Members
\nof a Senegalese Formed Police Unit (FPU) of the UN Multidimensional Integrated
\nStabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) participate in training on maintaining
\nand restoring public order at the Police Academy in Bamako. Credit: Flickr\/UN Mission in
\nMali. CC BY-NC-SA
\n2.0.<\/p>\n
A recent spate of extremist attacks in
\nMali has once again underlined the need to rethink the hard security approach that
\ndominates the response to terrorism in the Sahel. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The end of June saw attacks in Mali on
\nFrench forces as well as the headquarters of the G5 Sahel Joint Force, a security
\nforce made up of five regional countries to combat jihadist insurgents and
\ncriminal groups. The attacks overshadowed the African Union (AU) summit in Mauritania,
\nwhich also hosted French President Emmanuel Macron keen to discuss the region\u2019s
\nburning security problems. <\/p>\n
Over the first four months of this year,
\nmore
\npeople were killed in terrorist attacks in Mali than the whole of last
\nyear. The country has been plagued by violence since 2012, when an armed
\nrebellion by Tuareg-led jihadists with links to al-Qaeda broke out in the north.
\nA peace agreement negotiated in 2015 remains extremely difficult to implement.
\nThe UN\u2019s peacekeeping mission established in 2013, known as MINUSMA, has the highest
\nrate of casualties of such missions in the world. <\/p>\n
So we desperately need to talk about
\nsecurity in Mali. But equally urgently, and indeed to get successfully to
\nstability, we need to talk about why people join armed groups in the first
\nplace. Efforts to build peace in Mali will not be possible without addressing
\nthe root causes of conflict.<\/p>\n
Mali has long struggled with weak
\ngovernance, poverty, youth unemployment, droughts and food insecurity. Ethnic
\ntensions have been exacerbated through lawlessness and marginalisation. With more
\nand more schools being shut in some areas by Jihadis, children face an
\nuncertain future. Porous borders over which arms, drugs and people are
\ntrafficked create a major security headache that is felt not just in the region
\nbut globally. <\/p>\n
In an effort to understand what is
\nhappening and why, International Alert went to a number of communities that are
\nstruggling with violent extremism in the Sahel region, and asked
\nyoung people from Fulani (herder) communities \u00a0why they may or may not choose to join armed
\ngroups. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The answers had little to do with
\nreligious ideology. A great majority of those we interviewed in Mali, Niger and
\nBurkina Faso strongly blamed
\nthe state\u2019s inability to provide security and services. <\/p>\n
They said state abuse and corruption
\nwith impunity drives some young people to join armed groups. Last week, the
\nUN mission in Mali said that Malian troops from the G5 Sahel had \u201cexecuted
\n12 civilians\u201d at a market after a soldier was killed in May. <\/p>\n
Such incidents provoke grievances which violent
\nextremist groups use to incite communities to embrace an alternative political
\nand social model inspired by the Sharia. <\/p>\n
Our research also found a complete lack
\nof trust in the defence and security forces among the communities we work with.
\nThis lack of trust runs across all sections of society, both feeding off and
\nexacerbating ethnic tensions. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Therefore it
\nis important to rebuild trust between communities and security forces. Dialogue
\nis one way to achieve this. Over the past few years, International Alert has established and supported community-based
\nforums that for the first time, bring together women, men and young people
\nwith some of those they fear the most: the Malian military. <\/p>\n
I attended one of these forums
\nduring a recent visit to Mali. Around the table were representatives of farmers
\nand foresters, and different religious communities. One participant told me
\nthat after his Fulani friend was killed by the security forces, he was so angry
\nthat he went to join the armed groups. He didn\u2019t, in the
\nend, as he felt their vision did not represent the Islam he believed in. He is
\nnow one of a brave group of community leaders that regularly discuss local
\nissues with the security forces. <\/p>\n
A female participant told me
\nshe had never sat in a room with the military before. \u201cThis has transformed my
\nopinion of them and their role in protecting us. I now understand that they
\nhave problems too,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
This initiative is
\nsuccessful locally, but as the participants told me, such trust building needs
\nto be undertaken more widely. International military support in Mali is driven
\nby a desire to stabilise the region, push back the armed groups, re-open
\nschools and restore the State. But to succeed in any of these areas in the
\nlong-term these forces need to win the trust and support of the communities
\nthey wish to serve. <\/p>\n
The G5 Sahel
\nJoint Force is without a doubt a core pillar of stabilisation in the region, but
\nit has to be accountable or risk undermining its aim to reduce violence, and
\ncould instead weaken regional stability. The European Union and the UK
\ngovernment need to ensure that their support for the Force goes beyond
\nproviding funds and training, to insist on assurances that it interacts with
\nthe local population in non-abusive ways that can build trust over time. <\/p>\n
There
\nalso needs to be much more investment in addressing the root causes of the
\nconflict. The international community needs to support Mali\u2019s government to
\nimprove access to justice, reduce inequality and create job opportunities for
\nyoung people. Without these long-term solutions peace will prove elusive.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
International Alert\u2019s latest report "If victims become perpetrators"\u00a0is available to download\u00a0here.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Members of a Senegalese Formed Police Unit (FPU) of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) participate in training on maintaining and restoring public order at the Police Academy in Bamako. Credit: Flickr\/UN Mission in Mali. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. A recent spate of extremist attacks in Mali has once again underlined the need…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}