Imperialist
Evil
Eye on Mali
R Arun
Kumar
IMPERIALISM has once
again bared its fangs in Africa.
After Libya,
now it is the turn of Mali.
On January 11, France
had launched an aerial attack on the country and had moved
2500 of its ground
troops for action. The purported motive is to save the
country from the
Islamist fundamentalists. Already reports of civilian
casualties are pouring
out. According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, nearly
230,000 Malians were
displaced internally and an additional 144,500 were
already refugees in
neighbouring countries. This is not all. The recent
hostage crisis which led to
the death of citizens of many countries in Algeria
shows that the crisis in Mali
is going to have repercussions on the entire Sahel-Sahara
region.
GENESIS OF
THE CRISIS
The
recent crisis in Mali
started
with the army coup in March 2012, just a month before the
elections were to
take place in the country. The events that had
subsequently followed, rapidly
plunged the country into a deep crisis – political,
economic and military. In
April, the Tuareg-led NMLA (National Movement for the
Liberation of Azawad)
declared independence to the northern part of the country.
Within a few months,
they had lost control to three groups of Isalmic
fundamentalists – Ansar
ed-Dine (Defenders of the Faith); the Movement for Unity
and Jihad in West Africa
(MUJAO) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM). It is to 'prevent' the 'takeover' of the entire
country by these
Islamist groupings that France
had moved now. Or, so they claim.
French
President
Hollande said the threat of a radical Islamic takeover was
so imminent that he
had no choice but to intervene – to save not just Mali,
but all of Western Africa, and the French now imply, Europe
as well. The public relations machinery of the Western
countries was once again
put to service to dish out the usual reasons for military
intervention –
'jihadists', 'threat to the values of democracy', both to
the Malians and the
people of the entire world and to 'wipe off terrorism from
the surface of the
earth and make it a better place to live'. Of course, only
by digging beneath
this surface can we know the true reality.
Mali was always an
important country in the French scheme
of things – Françafrique. Historically, French
used its control of Mali
to ensure its hegemony over other colonial
possessions in Africa, particularly in the North, Western
and Central Africa. The
statement made by 'Socialist' president Hollande, in
the current background of military intervention: “The age
of what was once called 'Françafrique'
is over”, hence reeks of hypocrisy.
Mali is crucial to
AFRICOM, created in 2008 and to the
Pentagon's overall MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa)
outlook. Mali
borders Algeria,
Mauritania,
Burkina Faso,
Senegal,
the Ivory Coast
and Guinea.
And Mali
is rich in
natural resources with gold, uranium, bauxite, iron,
manganese, tin and copper.
Studies point to plenty of unexplored oil in northern Mali.
The US
is
militarily involved through the training of the Malian
army since 2001. In
2005, the US
had established
the Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership
comprising eleven
‘partner’ African countries – Algeria,
Burkina Faso,
Libya,
Morocco,
Tunisia,
Chad, Mali,
Mauritania,
Niger,
Nigeria
and Senegal.
Every year it conducts joint-military exercises in the
region. Incidentally,
the army Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, who led the coup was
trained by the US and was
closely associated with the AFRICOM.
More recently, the US
had come out with a National Security Strategy in
Africa, in June 2012
with an objective to 'strengthen democratic institutions';
encourage 'economic
growth, trade and investment'; 'advance peace and
security'; and 'promote
opportunity and development'.
Not to
be left behind,
the European Union and more importantly France, the past
colonial master of
many of these lands too has an active interest in this
region. The uranium
deposits in Mali
and the
uranium mines in neighbouring Niger
are of particular interest to France,
which generates 78 per cent of its electricity from
nuclear energy. The EU had
come out with its version of 'Strategy for Security and
Development in the
Sahel', in September 2011. The strategy concluded
that “Improving security
and development in Sahel
has an obvious and
direct impact on protecting European citizens and
interests and on the EU
internal security situation”. This shows the active
involvement of both the
imperialist blocs in the region.
The
active participation
of China
in this region also
is a matter of growing concern to both the US
and the EU. Chinese presence in
the continent is increasing by the day and Africa provides
for one-third of the
energy needs of China.
During this period of global crisis, naturally the control
of regions rich in
natural resources and markets assumes enhanced
significance.
DOMESTIC
SITUATION
The
domestic situation
in Mali
provided a fertile ground for fundamentalist forces to
take root. The global
economic crisis too had impacted the country. Employment
fell with many
companies in the services sector closing or laying off
workers. Tourism and
hospitality sector were badly hit. Except the mining
industry, all other
sectors of the economy are in a bad shape due to the
crisis. The growing
numbers of unemployed, falling wages and increasing prices
of food grains and
essentials had created discontent among the people. The
fundamentalists took
advantage of this situation. It is a known fact that the
Salafist Group for
Call and Combat (GSPC), as it was known until it was
renamed AQIM in 2007, grew
out of Algeria’s
GIA (Armed
Islamic Group) and it is controlled by Algeria’s
security and intelligence
services. The collapse of the Libyan government and the
defeat of Gadaffi led
to a widespread availability of arms. This is the ultimate
creaming on the
pudding, the ingredients for which are supplied by the US
and the EU.
There is
one another
important factor that moved the French into action. In
recent elections in Senegal, a
president from the centre-left was elected defeating the
French stooge. France
is losing ground in many of the Western
African countries and the only consolation for it is Ivory Coast,
where it had
militarily intervened two years back. In Mali
too, the progressive forces
are gaining ground, which is disconcerting to the local
elites and their
international masters. There were a series of protests and
strikes organised by
the working class and students in capital city Bomako.
Considering all these
developments as a real threat to the French hegemony in
this region, it had
acted to take the situation into control before it spirals
out of its hands.
With the
pretext of
Islamic fundamentalists now available, France
had moved first to assume
control over this resource rich region. The US,
Canada
and the major
countries in Europe are
helping the French
with financial assistance, in training the Malian army and
in the
transportation of troops. The actual fighting at the
ground level, it seems
would be done largely by the troops from the West African
countries – Economic
Community of Western African States (ECOWAS). What these
troops will be
fighting is not only the Islamic fundamentalists, but also
the Tuareg
nationalists (though NMLN had welcomed the French troops),
who have been
consistently fighting for their right to national
self-determination. Already
reports indicate that widespread atrocities were being
committed on Tuareg
people and people of other minority ethnicities. Moreover,
majority of the
Malians are wary of the foreign troop presence, given the
experience in next
door Libya.
Mali is nearly twice the
size of France
or Afghanistan.
Its terrain is also
varied and the troops will be fighting a guerilla war in
the region. All these
mean that it is going to be another prolonged war in the
region with
devastating effects on both the people and the resources.
The impact is not
going to be confined to Mali
alone as was witnessed recently in Algeria.
The entire Sahel-Sahara
region will be effected and many fear that this might lead
to the Balkanisation
of the region.
It was
only after the
Second World War that many countries in the African
continent secured freedom
from colonial yoke. Colonialists left these lands drawing
boundaries without
any concern for the nationalities inhabiting them. Even
before these wounds
have completely healed, imperialism is once again trying
to re-enter the region
using the conflicts arising from them. It is back with its
dirty tricks, this
time more cannily. Unfortunately, according to some of the
surveys done in France,
63-75
per cent of the population are supporting the move of the
French government.
Even after the imperialist invasion of Iraq,
Afghanistan
and more
recently Libya,
a section of the 'left' has not opposed the government's
move.
But
people in the
occupied lands who are directly and daily experiencing the
trauma of imperialist
'projects' are wary. Let us hope that learning from their
rich experience of
anti-colonial struggle, the people of these lands will
once again stand up to
resist and fightback imperialism.
People's Democracy