Mali and the Scramble for Africa

[Baashi]

A New Wave of Barbarism

by BEN SCHREINER

 

The French military intervention into Mali on Friday — France’s second in as many years into a former African colony — was reportedly “seconded” by the United States. This ought to come as no great surprise, given the Pentagon’s deepening penetration into Africa.

 

According to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Pentagon plans on deploying soldiers to 35 different African countries in 2013. As NPR reports, upwards of 4,000 U.S. soldiers will “take part in military exercises and train African troops on everything from logistics and marksmanship to medical care.” (The Malian army officer responsible for the country’s March coup just so happened to have received U.S. military training.)

 

Of course, the U.S. military already has a significant on-the-ground presence in Africa. For instance, the “busiest Predator drone base outside of the Afghan war zone” — with 16 drone flights a day — is located at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

 

But as the Army Times notes, “the region in many ways remains the Army’s last frontier.” And in order to satiate the U.S. appetite for global “power projection,” no frontiers are to be left unconquered.

 

Thus, as a June report in the Washington Post revealed, the preliminary tentacles of the U.S. military already extend across Africa. As the paper reported, U.S. surveillance planes are currently operating out of clandestine bases in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya, with plans afoot to open a new base in South Sudan.

 

The Post reported further that, “the Pentagon is spending $8.1 million to upgrade a forward operating base and airstrip in Mauritania, on the western edge of the Sahara. The base is near the border with strife-torn Mali.”

 

And with such assets already in place, the Pentagon was in position to not only “second” France’s intervention into Mali, but, as the New York Times reported, to weigh a “broad range of options to support the French effort, including enhanced intelligence-sharing and logistics support.”

 

Illuminating what such U.S. support may come to eventually look like in Mali, J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center in Washington and a senior strategy advisor to AFRICOM, commented: “Drone strikes or airstrikes will not restore Mali’s territorial integrity or defeat the Islamists, but they may be the least bad option.” A rather ominous sign, given that employing such a “least bad option” has already led to the slaying of hundreds of innocents in the U.S. drone campaign.

 

Of course, much the same as with the drone campaign, the Pentagon’s push into Africa has come neatly packaged as an extension of “war on terror.” As a June Army Times report notes, “Africa, in particular, has emerged as a greater priority for the U.S. government because terrorist groups there have become an increasing threat to U.S. and regional security.”

 

But what intervention hasn’t come to be justified by employing some variant of the ever handy “war on terror” refrain? As French President François Hollande declared on Friday, “The terrorists should know that France will always be there when the rights of a people, those of Mali who want to live freely and in a democracy, are at issue.”

 

“The ideology of our times, at least when it comes to legitimizing war” Jean Bricmont writes in his book Humanitarian Imperialism, “is a certain discourse on human rights and democracy.” And, we might add, a certain cynical discourse on combating terror.

 

Naturally, then, the notion that the West’s renewed interest in Africa is derived from an altruistic desire to help African states combat terrorism and establish democracy is rather absurd. It was the NATO alliance, lest one forgets, that so eagerly aligned with Salifi fighters to topple Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Moreover, it is this very same military alliance that is now simultaneously cheering Salifists in Syria, while bombing them in the AfPak region, Somalia, Yemen, and now Mali.

 

Clearly, only those practicing doublethink stand a chance of comprehending the ever shifting terrain of the Western “war on terror.”

 

Indeed, for once the veils of protecting “democracy” and combating “terror” are lifted, the imperial face is revealed.

 

Thus, the imperative driving the renewed Western interest in Africa, as Conn Hallinan helps explain, is the race to secure the continent’s vast wealth.

 

“The U.S. currently receives about 18 percent of its energy supplies from Africa, a figure that is slated to rise to 25 percent by 2015,” Hallinan writes. “Africa also provides about one-third of China’s energy needs, plus copper, platinum, timber and iron ore.”

 

What’s more, as Maximilian Forte contends in Slouching Towards Sirte, “Chinese interest are seen as competing with the West for access to resources and political influences. AFRICOM and a range of other U.S. government initiatives are meant to count this phenomenon.”

 

And this explains NATO’s 2011 foray into Libya, which removed a stubborn pan-Africanist leader threatening to frustrate AFRICOM’s expansion into the Army’s “last frontier.” And this explains the French-led, U.S. supported intervention into Mali, which serves to forcibly assert Western interests further into Africa.

 

Intervention, we see, breeds intervention. And as Nick Turse warned back in July, “Mali may only be the beginning and there’s no telling how any of it will end.”

 

All that appears certain is a renewed wave of barbarism, as the scramble for Africa accelerates.

 

Ben Schreiner is a freelance writer based in Wisconsin. He may be reached at bnschreiner@gmail.com or via his website.

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/15/a-new-wave-of-barbarism/

[Baashi]

The crisis in Mali

 

Saved for the moment

Jan 16th 2013, 23:38 by The Economist | BAMAKO

 

FOR half a year African governments in the region and various ones in the West, especially in France and the United States, had been fretting over Mali, where rebel groups tied to al-Qaeda had taken over the northern half of the country. Earlier this year things dramatically worsened, when the jihadists suddenly pushed south, threatening even Bamako, the capital.

 

So France’s President François Hollande decided to act. On January 11th French aircraft swooped in, bombarding the rebels and their bases. For the moment Bamako is safe. But the French president has given himself a daunting task. No one is sure of his campaign’s precise aim, nor how or when his forces will get out.

 

Earlier this year the rebels, a mixture of Tuareg tribesmen and assorted jihadists, many of them hailing from outside Mali, suddenly captured the town of Konna, 500km or so (310 miles) from the capital, but well south of the vast Saharan terrain where the guerrillas have imposed a harsh Islamist rule along the lines of Afghanistan’s Taliban. From Konna they threatened a military airport near the town of Sevaré and were in range of a bridge over the Niger river at Markala. If they had captured it, they could have headed for Bamako.

 

Though Mr Hollande’s decisive action has halted them, the conflict is far from over. The rebels may number fewer than a thousand men, but they are well-armed and bold. Bolstered by ransoms paid for kidnapped Europeans, sometimes worth millions of dollars each, they have plenty of weapons captured from Malian bases they overran in the north or smuggled from Libya since Muammar Qaddafi’s fall. Some of the guerrillas are veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Most know the desert far better than the French forces or those expected to be sent from countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the region’s 15-member club.

 

After France’s counter-attack on Konna, a separate column of rebels responded on January 14th by capturing the town of Diabaly, about 320km north of Bamako. It was unclear whether the rebels had fled are were merely biding their time and lying low. Residents in Timbuktu, one of the three biggest northern towns, along with Gao and Kidal, all held by the rebels since April, said that some of the jihadists had left but others remained. People were still too nervous to smoke in the street or let women go out unveiled. Nor have the rebels all been chased out of Konna. A rebel spokesman issued hellfire threats against France and its citizens. In the far south-east of Algeria, near the border with Libya, jihadists acting in sympathy for their brethren in Mali killed a Frenchman and a Briton working at a gasfield and took another 41 hostage, including seven Americans.

 

Though French officials say they are working closely with Malian troops and are keen to welcome ECOWAS forces as soon as possible, the French seem sure to carry the burden of the battle for some time. By January 16th, the number of French troops in Mali had risen to more than 750; another 2,000 or so were expected imminently. British aircraft have ferried in French supplies. The Americans may also provide intelligence and logistics, perhaps including drones. But neither country is likely to put boots on the ground.

 

Though ECOWAS plainly supports the French venture, some countries in the region need persuading. Tunisia’s Islamist foreign minister has condemned the French intervention. The 57-country Organisation of Islamic Co-operation called France’s action premature. A key country is Algeria. Though it has allowed French aircraft to use its airspace, it has sounded wary. But the hostage-taking on its soil may prod it into joining the anti-jihadist fray in Mali more ethusiastically.

 

The Malian army, estimated last year at 7,700 men, is feeble. It has been plagued with defections and divisions since a coup led by Captain (now General) Amadou Sanogo in March last year. It is in no state to tackle the rebels on its own.

 

In any event, most Malians seem happy with Mr Hollande. “Vive La France!” cried a newspaper headline, dropping its usual anti-French tone. People who had previously fled from the northern trio of cities, where smoking, music and football had been banned and amputations imposed on criminals, expressed delight.

 

In one of Bamako’s crowded streets, where women hitch up their bright dresses to ride scooters to work and shops blare out hypnotic Malian melodies, Seyba Keita, owner of Bar Bla Bla, explained that Malians were secular, humane and easy-going. “The whole population is against the Islamists,” he said, as he poured himself another beer.

 

But few Malians have much confidence in their own government. Last month General Sanogo summarily sacked the civilian prime minister. The acting president, Dioncounda Traoré, is too weak to force the country’s squabbling politicians and soldiers to accept a timetable leading to an election. There were demonstrations earlier this month in Bamako, just as the rebels were about to make their push, calling for Mr Traoré to be replaced by a military man. Mr Hollande may be keeping the jihadists at bay. But rescuing Mali from the political mess in Bamako is quite another issue, which he will avoid trying to solve.

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2013/01/crisis-mali

[Baashi]

Poor Africa! History repeating itself again. Neo-colonialism is in full force. The old masters want to keep the riches of resourceful Africa for themselves. With convenient terrorist card on hand, they found a way to invoke the bogeyman when things don't go their way. The first domino has fallen in Libya, now Mali is in play. The domino-effect is in place.

 

The old masters know how to play on both sides of the equation (Just like tactics employed in The Promised Land -- the movie by Matt Demon). They create ghosts of their own making, take a u-turn and then declare a war against the very enemy they themselves helped create! In Somalia, they pushed Ethiopia to invade Somalia in order to preempt Islamic Courts in Mogadishu and when Islamists formed AS and declared a war against Ethiopia, powers-that-be labeled AS as a terrorist group and went after them.

[Baashi]

Mali and the Geo-Politics of Africa

John Glaser, January 15, 2013

 

Ben Schreiner points out at CounterPunch that the US involvement in the French-led war in Mali is more about the geo-politics of imperial grand strategy and competing with China in Africa than it is about eliminating serious terrorist threats:

 

According to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Pentagon plans on deploying soldiers to 35 different African countries in 2013. As NPRreports, upwards of 4,000 U.S. soldiers will “take part in military exercises and train African troops on everything from logistics and marksmanship to medical care.” (The Malian army officer responsible for the country’s March coup just so happened to have received U.S. military training.)

 

…as the Army Times notes, “the region in many ways remains the Army’s last frontier.” And in order to satiate the U.S. appetite for global “power projection,” no frontiers are to be left unconquered.

 

…“The U.S. currently receives about 18 percent of its energy supplies from Africa, a figure that is slated to rise to 25 percent by 2015,” Hallinan writes. “Africa also provides about one-third of China’s energy needs, plus copper, platinum, timber and iron ore.”

 

What’s more, as Maximilian Forte contends in Slouching Towards Sirte, “Chinese interest are seen as competing with the West for access to resources and political influences. AFRICOM and a range of other U.S. government initiatives are meant to count this phenomenon.”

 

The Obama administration has waged several military interventions in Africa – from regime change in Libya, to a drone/proxy war in Somalia, boots on the ground in and around Uganda, covert special operations in Nigeria, and now Mali.

 

Through the Pentagon’s Africa Command, the US is now training and equipping militaries in countries including Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Tunisia in the name of preventing “terrorists from establishing sanctuaries.” The strategy appears irreconcilable with recent history, however, given how the US-sponsored invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia in 2006 gave rise to the militant group al-Shabaab – now ironically justifying current interventions; and the action in Libya, the consequences of which led to this latest intervention in Mali.

 

“China-Africa trade grew 1000% from $10 billion in 2000 to $107 billion in 2008,” a trend Washington apparently intends to counter with persistent efforts to produce client military states throughout Africa and extend economic influence over the continent. In the context of Obama’s Asia-Pivot – which amounts to a desperate economic and military offensive aimed at containing China’s rise – this shift in focus to Africa makes a lot more sense.

 

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/01/15/mali-and-the-geo-politics-of-africa/

[Baashi]

Analysis: The murky motives behind Mali's crisis

 

The small Islamist groups would find it near impossible to take the whole of Mali

 

France's intervention to stop the advance of Islamic Jihadi in Mali has similarities with French action to protect the people of Benghazi from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya two years ago. In both cases the motives of all players in the crisis are more complicated than they publicly pretend.

 

Al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim) is demonised as threat to France and Europe because it might establish a Taliban type regime in Mali.

 

But Aqim has never launched a single attack in France or Europe since it was established in 1998. Its activities in the vast wastelands of the Sahel have been confined almost entirely to smuggling cigarettes and cocaine and kidnapping foreigners.

 

Aqim may hold the official al-Qa'ida franchise but the movement, founded in Algeria as a breakaway from an even more ferocious Islamic revolutionary group, has always been suspected of links with Algerian intelligence.

 

It still has some hardcore bastions in the Kabylia in northern Algeria, but its nucleus migrated south more than 10 years ago. It was previously under pressure from Colonel Gaddafi, who maintained a sort of order on Libya's southern flank, but this disappeared with his fall. It has money and has probably recruited some foreign Jihadi wishing to wage a holy war.

 

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the al-Qa'ida-linked Ansar Dine are the two Tuareg groups that took over northern Mali – an area the size of France – in April 2012. The MNLA, the more secular and nationalist of the groups, wants independence for a homeland for the Tuareg ethnic group.

 

Ansar Dine, led by a famous Tuareg rebel, Ag Ghaly, joined hands with the smaller Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao) to brush aside the MNLA. The Islamist parties achieved notoriety by banning music, for which Mali is famous, and destroying ancient Sufi shrines in Timbuktu. These movements have their sponsors, open and covert.

 

Morocco has been enthusiastic for foreign intervention in Mali, probably as part of its rivalry with Algeria for influence in the region.

 

Algeria has opposed intervention by France in the past and has always been more concerned by ethnic separatists, like the MNLA, than it is by fundamentalist Islam.

 

Many of the MNLA fighters were previously with Colonel Gaddafi, who opposed Tuareg separatism, but offered opportunities for Tuareg in his security forces. For all the rapid advances and retreats in this war, the two Islamist groups have only an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 fighters and the MNLA about the same numbers. The great majority of Mali's 15 million people live in the south far from the empty lands of the north.

 

The small Islamist groups would find it near impossible to take the whole of Mali, which is the size of South Africa, despite French protestations to the contrary. But the vastness of the country also means that the central government, even with French air support, will have difficulty in eliminating the Islamists.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/analysis-the-murky-motives-behind-malis-crisis-8451562.html

[Baashi]

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/538e9550-b3e1-11e2-ace9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2TKgMPsPO

 

The sun is shining and when the sun shines and the curtains are lifted folks will see the true colors of the ne-colonialists for what they truly about.

 

President Hassan should hold the line. He shouldn't mess with federalism though. If he does that he could win big for Somalia.

[xabad]

Malians and Africans supported the french intervention in Mali overwhelmingly. They clearly understood what is at stake better than these clueless writers.