Sahel and desert region
After the conclusion of the Arab Summit Conference in Jeddah, it may not be customary to talk about the Sahel region and its problems. But I heard an interview with experts on a Western satellite channel, in which they agreed, and they were talking about Mali and Darfur, that the problems of the Sahel region will increase until they become a preoccupation of the world. Conventionally, the Sahel region begins in Mali and ends in Darfur, and perhaps with the exception of Mauritania, all the countries of the Sahel are surrounded by turmoil or permeated by it.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, when international competition focused on the Arab world and spread turmoil in it, hopes were high for Africa and its emerging democracy and its discovered and proliferating natural resources. And as soon as a decade had passed since the American disappointment in Afghanistan and Iraq, talk began about the French and American disappointment in Africa, and the retreat in favor of China.
Although China does not usually spread militarily, but commercially, the United States has created a new military command for Africa. And this did not benefit a lot, as with the growing phenomenon of violence and terrorism and its spread across the Sahel countries and beyond and around them, there was a lot of talk about the Russian presence in the Sahel countries. In practice, with the exception of Mauritania, the national armies in the Sahel countries are no longer what they were. The armies formed by the French, the British, and finally the Americans were weakened by coups, and by tribal and ethnic factions. Therefore, with the army, alongside it, or against it, militias established by other tribes are established to defend the interests of the tribe in the face of the national army present in the capital, or in coordination with it if it accepts the new force.
The origins of the issues go back to the 1960s, when the retreating colonialists left behind in every country a defense force. Then, when the tribal unrest began, they returned to support the existing authorities. At some point, many imagined that stability would come, so they talked about democracy and development.
The current unrest, which began in Mali and then Burkina Faso and continued in Niger and Nigeria, has to do with tribal organizations, organized crime, and international and regional interventions. And every time a militia appears, its goal is either to seize power in the country, or to occupy its own region, or to cooperate with the outside in order to form the organization, in which there is a bet that it can work against another party inside if necessary! As previously said, this increases the complexity of the scene due to the multiplicity of organizations, the large number of weapons, and the abundance of forged targets.
Let us give an example with which we conclude this haste: Malian President Toumani Toure was insisting on renewing himself, and perhaps he succeeded in that.. but a young officer in the army rebelled against him, overthrew him, and forced him to flee.
And the matter extended to both Burkina Faso and Niger. And if foreign armies leave, this does not end the problem of “colonialism”, because there are many militias that continue to carry the same claim, or declare an Islamic state, or democracy, and re-elections, all of which are empty slogans, in which the interventions of the African Union or others do not benefit.
A Sudanese official went to South Sudan to ask him to mediate in the crisis. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice commented and said: If Kiir becomes a mediator in Sudan, then something must be wrong! As for the war itself, it is more than a mistake!
* Professor of Islamic Studies – Mohamed bin Zayed University for Human Sciences
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