Professor Henry Srebrnik

Professor Henry Srebrnik

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Algerian Hostage Drama Highlights Crisis in Sahel Region

Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

The Algerian hostage crisis is now over – though at great cost. At least 38 foreign workers were killed at the Tiguentourine natural gas complex in the Sahara Desert that was overrun by Islamic militants last week, before Algerian troops managed to retake the plant.

The mastermind behind the attack was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian with links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

This well-armed group originated with Algerian Islamists who fought against their government during the bloody civil conflict of the 1990s. At least 150,000 people were killed in that war.
The recent events in Algeria are connected to the situation in Mali, to its south, because al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is now active in Mali, as well as in neighbouring Mauritania, Niger and Chad.

Following a coup in Mali’s capital, Bamako, last year, Islamists took control of its vast Saharan north. They imposed a reign of terror and have destroyed priceless treasures in the fabled city of Timbuktu and other towns.

As well, the nomadic Tuaregs in Mali’s north – at first allied with the Islamists – want to create their own state, Azawad, which would comprise more than half of the country’s territory.

The French army is now engaged in a full-scale effort to regain northern Mali from these groups, who acquired large amounts of military hardware from Libya in the chaos that ensued after the collapse of the Gadhafi regime.

But Mali is just one of a number of fragile states across the vast semi-arid belt of Africa known as the Sahel region, which extends from Mauritania in the west to Sudan in the east. Most were part of the colonial holdings of France until the 1960s.

They are all extremely poor, and subject to recurring drought and famine – a perfect recipe for extremism.

In Mauritania, south of Algeria and west of Mali, President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz survived an apparent assassination attempt last October.

He came to power in a military coup in 2008 – the third since 2002. The military has been involved in nearly every government since the country became independent from France in 1960.

The country’s Arabized rulers have long discriminated against its Black African population – indeed, slavery was only abolished in the early 1980s. Human rights abuses are the norm.

East of Mali and also south of Algeria lies Niger, one of the world’s poorest countries, where a Tuareg insurgency in the country’s north has been ongoing since 2007. Their Niger Movement for Justice demands a greater share of power.

In turn, President Mahamadou Issoufou, who came to power in 2011 after a coup ousted his predecessor in 2010, has turned the northern half of the country into a closed military zone under curfew and military law.

Chad, east of Niger and directly south of Libya, has long been plagued by various rebellions, coups, and attempts by Moammar Gadhafi to turn the country into a Libyan satellite.

The current leader, Idriss Déby, formed an insurgent group supported by Libya and Sudan, which started operations against the Chadian government in 1989. A year later, they marched into the capital, N'Djamena.

But newer armed groups, often operating from Sudan, continue operations in Chad, and have been thwarted only by the efforts of European Union and United Nations peacekeeping troops.

In 2009 eight rebel groups united to form a new rebel alliance, the Union of Resistance Forces. Without the military support of France, Chad would quickly collapse.

These are not simply failed, but “fake,” states, with no economic, ethnic or political cohesion. Any one of them could become the next Mali.

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