State, Secession, and Jihad: The Micropolitical Economy of Conflict in Northern Mali

ABSTRACT

This article explores the nexus between conflicting geopolitical imaginaries and socioeconomic tensions in northern Mali, examining microlevel processes whereby extralegal and criminal economies have reshaped political and armed mobilization, especially among Tuareg who fought to draw the borders of an independent Azawad and jihadists affiliated with the MUJAO Islamist group who sought to abolish all borders. Secessionist, jihadist, and statist political projects must be interpreted in light of the dynamics of armed protection, extraction, and clientelist connivance underlying processes of territorialization and social mobility in a hybrid regional order whose peripheral location no longer serves as a geopolitical insulator.

KEYWORDS:

• AQIM
• MNLA
• MUJAO
• nationalism
• territorialisation
• trafficking
• Tuareg

Notes

1. Judith Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

2. Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, eds. Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 169–191.

3. Simon Dalby, “Critical Geopolitics,” in The Routledge Handbook of New Security Studies, eds. Peter Burgess (London, UK: Routledge, 2010).

4. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Mille plateaux (Paris, France: Editions de Minuit, 1980).

5. Among others: Ivan Briscoe, “Crime after Jihad: Armed groups, the State, and Illicit Business in Post-conflict Mali,” Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations, May 2014, available online: http://www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/Crime%20after%20Jihad.pdf; Wolfram Lacher, “Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region,” The Carnegie Papers, September 2012, available online: http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/09/13/organized-crime-and-conflict-in-sahel-sahara-region; Wolfram Lacher, “Challenging the Myth of the Drug-Terror Nexus in the Sahel,” WACD Background Paper, August 4, 2013, available online: http://www.wacommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Challenging-the-Myth-of-the-Drug-Terror-Nexus-in-the-Sahel-2013-08-19.pdf; Pietro Musilli and Peter Smith, “The Lawless Roads, an Overview of Turbulence across the Sahel,” NOREF Report, Oslo, Norway, June 2013; Mark Shaw and Peter Tinti, “Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking in northern Mali,” Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Report, January 2014, available online: http://www.globalinitiative.net/download/global-initiative/Global%20Initiative%20-%20Organized%20Crime%20and%20Illicit%20Trafficking%20in%20Mali%20-%20Jan%202014.pdf.

6. A micropolitics perspective allows a focus on key figures exerting personal power as nodes in networks of governance in densely clientelistic and conflict-prone African systems. This is inspired by Mats Utas, African Conflict and Informal Power, Big Men and Networks (London, UK: Zed Books, 2012), 10. Fieldwork interviews were conducted in Bamako (Mali) and Niamey (Niger) in November to December 2013 and in October to November 2014.

7. See André Bourgeot, Les sociétés touarègues. Nomadisme, identité, résistances (Paris, France: Karthala, 1995) ; André Bourgeot, Horizons nomades en Afrique sahélienne. Sociétés, développement et démocratie (Paris, France: Karthala, 1999); Gerard Chaliand, Les Empires Nomades, de la Mongolie au Danube (Paris, France: Perrin, 1995). Deleuze and Guattari, Mille Plateaux; Iver Neumann and Eigen Wigen, “The Importance of the Eurasian Steppe to the Study of International Relations,” Journal of International Relations and Development 16 (2012): 311–330; Kees Van der Pijl, Nomads, Empires, States: Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2007).

8. John Keegan, A History of Warfare (London, UK: Random House, 1993).

9. The battle for Kidal on May 22, 2014, is probably an exception to this rule. An attempt by the Malian army to reconquer the town was militarily crushed by Tuareg armed groups reportedly gathering some 70 armed vehicles and taking over several others.

10. Baz Lecocq, Disputed Desert: Decolonisation, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Northern Mali (Leiden, UK: Brill, 2010), 293.

11. Deleuze and Guattari, Mille Plateaux.

12. Julien Brachet, Armelle Choplin, and Olivier Pliez, “Le Sahara entre espace de circulation et frontière migratoire de l’Europe,” Hérodote 142, no. 6 (2011): 163–183; James McDougall and Judith Scheele (eds.), Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012).

13. Danish Demining Group, “Evaluation des Risques Sécuritaires aux Frontières, régions du Liptako-Gourma,” DDG Policy Report, July 2014, available online: www.danishdemininggroup.dk/fileadmin/.../DDG_BSNA_FR_2014.pdf

14. Interview with senior UN officer in charge of security in the Sahara, Dakar, October 2014.

15. Francis Fukuyama, State-building: Governance and World Order in the 21st century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

16. Lacher, “Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region”; Andrew Lebovich, “Mali’s Bad Trip. Field Notes from the West African Drug Trade,” Foreign Affairs, September 10, 2013, available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/15/malis-bad-trip/; Musilli and Smith, “The Lawless Roads, an Overview of Turbulence across the Sahel”; Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara. Shaw and Tinti, “Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking in Northern Mali.”

17. In traditional geographic parlance “Azawad” stands for valley, basin, pastureland, and savannah. It refers to the whole territory crossed by skimpy streams of water arising in the Kel Adagh mountains and heading south to join the Niger River.

18. Michel Galy, Guerres, Nomades et Sociétés Ouest-Africaines (Paris, France: L’Harmattan, 2008).

19. Pierre Englebert, “Separatism in Africa,” in Routledge Handbook of African Security Studies, eds. James Hentz (London, UK: Routledge-Palgrave, 2014), 147–156.

20. Interview with former Tuareg fighter who joined the ARLA rebel movement, now integrated into the Malian administration. Bamako, November 2013.

21. Lecocq, Disputed Desert, 113.

22. Van der Pijl, Nomads, Empires, States.

23. Nicolas Florquin and Stéphane Pézard, “Insurgency, Disarmament and Insecurity in Northern Mali,” in Armed and Aimless: Armed Groups, Guns and Human Security in the ECOWAS Region, eds. Nicolas Florquin and Eric Berman (Geneva, Switzerland: Small Arms Survey, 2005), 46–77.

24. Lemine Ould Salem, Le Ben Laden du Sahara (Paris, France: La Martinière, 2014), 62.

25. Small Arms Survey, Yearbook 2015: Weapons and the World (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 175.

26. Anneli Botha, “Islamist Terrorism in the Maghreb: Recent Developments in Algeria,” Fundación José Ortega y Gasset 8, no. 18 (2009), available online: http://www.ortegaygasset.edu/publicaciones/circunstancia/ano-vii---n--18---enero-2009/ensayos/islamist-terrorism-in-the-maghreb--recent-developments-in-algeria

27. Francesco Strazzari, “Azawad and the Rights of Passage: The Role of Illicit Trade in the Logic of Armed Group Formation in Northern Mali,” NOREF Report, January 2015, available online: http://www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/Strazzari_NOREF_Clingendael_Mali_Azawad_Dec2014.pdf.

28. Francesco Strazzari, “Libyan Arms and Regional Instability,” International Spectator 49, no. 3 (2014): 54–68.

29. UNODC, Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa (Vienna, Austria, 2008).

30. Interview with Tuareg traditional leader native of Kidal. Bamako, November 2014.

31. Stephen Ellis, “West Africa’s International Drug Trade,” African Affairs 108, no. 431 (2009): 171–196.

32. Data from UNODC reports: Drug Trafficking as a Security Threat in West Africa; Transnational Trafficking and the Rule of Law in West Africa: A Threat Assessment (Vienna, 2009); The Transatlantic Cocaine Market (Vienna, Austria, 2011).

33. In early November 2009 the fuselage of a Boeing 727 believed to have been transporting up to 10 tons of cocaine was found in the desert north of Gao, in an area traditionally controlled by the Tilemsi Arabs. The case came to be known as “Air Cocaine.” The probe was reportedly sidetracked by Malian authorities. See Serge Daniel, Les Mafias du Mali (Paris, France: Descartes et Cie, 2014).

34. Alex Perry, “Blood Lines: How Europe’s Cocaine Habits Funds Beheadings,” Newsweek, 20/11 (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, 2014).

35. UNODC, The Transatlantic Cocaine Market, 55.

36. Interview with judicial investigative staff and members of the Programme Integré contre le Crime Organisé et le Trafic de Drogue (PENI), Bamako, November 2014.

37. According to UNODC senior researchers interviewed in Dakar in November 2014, data available until the Arab Spring reveal that Malian and Saharan cartels were smuggling 20 percent of the cigarettes consumed in Algeria and 70 percent of those consumed in Libya.

38. EMCDDA–EUROPOL, “EU Drug Market,” Report (Bruxelles, Belgium and Lisbon, Portugal: Europol and Emcdda. 2013).

39. Lacher, “Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region”; Daniel, Les Mafias du Mali.

40. Salem, Le Ben Laden du Sahara.

41. Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara.

42. David Lewis, “Special Report: In the Land of Gangsters-Jihadists,” Reuters, October 25, 2012, available online: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us-mali-crisis-crime-idUSBRE89O07Y20121025.

43. Ibid.

44. Shaw and Tinti, “Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking in Northern Mali,” and our interviewees in the security sector, both Malian and UN staff.

45. Daniel, Les Mafias du Mali.

46. Judith Scheele, “Tribus, Etats et Fraude: la région frontalière algéro-malienne,” Etudes Rurales 184, no. 2 (2009): 79–94.

47. Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara.

48. Mark Shaw and Fiona Mangan, Illicit Trafficking and Libya’s Transition: Profits and Losses (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2014).

49. Shaw and Tinti, “Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking in Northern Mali.”

50. Interview with the president of TUMAST, Tuareg Cultural Center, Bamako, November 2013.

51. Interview with Tuareg doctor working for an international humanitarian NGO in Kidal, Bamako, November 2013.

52. Musilli and Smith “The Lawless Roads, an Overview of turbulence across the Sahel.”

53. Ibid.

54. Deleuze and Guarrati, Mille Plateaux.

55. Daniel Bach, “Regionalism in Africa: Concepts and Context,” in Routledge Handbook of African Security, ed. James Hentz (London, UK: Routledge, 2014), 181–189.

56. Andrew Lebovich, “The Local Face of Jihadism in Northern Mali,” CTC Sentinel, 6, no. 6 (2013): 4–9.

57. Iyad ag Ghali was probably the most prominent leader of the Tuareg rebellions in the 1990s and 2000s. In October 2011, when the return of Malian Tuareg fighters from Libya was giving shape to the MNLA’s political project, ag Ghali allegedly tried to get himself appointed the movement’s leader. Failing this, he undertook to set up his own movement, Ansar Dine, by rallying Ifoghas families and religiously inspired militants.

58. Such as Yahya Abou al-Hamam’s al-Furqan brigade, Belmokhtar’s al-Moulathamin (alias: “the Veiled Ones”), Abou Zeid’s Tarek Ibn Ziyad, and the Tuareg battalions al-Ansar and Youssef Ibn Tachfin, headed by Abdelkarim al-Targui (ag Ghali’s cousin) and Abdelhakim al-Kidali, respectively.

59. See for instance Raby Ould Idoumou, “Al-Qaeda Splinter Group Reveals Internal Erosion,” in Magharebia, December 30, 2011.

60. Interviews with Gao residents, Bamako, November 2013.

61. Lacher, “Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region.”

62. In 2012–2013 Ibrahim Mohamed ag Assaleh was a member of the executive commission of the MNLA. In January 2014 he created the splinter group Coalition pour le Peuple de l’Azawad (CPA), which later allied with the MNLA within the Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad (CMA) and jointly signed the Algiers Peace Agreements in June 2015. Ould Mataly acted as intermediary for the liberation of European hostages held by AQIM in spring 2008 and early 2009, claiming to be in contact with the kidnappers. During the postconflict parliamentary elections in Mali, held in November 2013, he was reelected in the constituency of Bourem as a candidate for the RPM, the party of Mali’s newly elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

63. Scheele, “Tribus, Etats et Fraude: la région frontalière algéro-malienne.”

64. Ibid.

65. The “Lahda fraud” is a reference to the smuggling of subsidized products from Algeria to Mali.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. Peter Tinti, “The Jihadi from the Block,” Foreign Policy, March 19, 2013, available online: http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/19/the-jihadi-from-the-block/. Throughout the whole period in which North Mali was under the control of jihadist groups, AQIM was responsible for a single case of amputation, whereas MUJAO performed approximately 15, with increasing brutality, in Gao and its surroundings. See also Hannah Armstrong, “Winning the War, Losing the Peace in Mali,” New Republic, February 28, 2013, available online: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112539/malis-ethnic-tensions-fester-after-fighting.

69. This weakens the hypothesis that MUJAO, supposedly like other jihadist movements in the region (e.g., Ansar Dine and AQIM), is maneuvered or controlled by a “deep state structure” in/from Algeria. See François Gèze, “Le jeu troublé du régime Algérien au Sahel,” in La Guerre au Mali, ed. Michel Galy (Paris, France: La Découverte, 2013).

70. Daniele Cristiani, “West-Africa MUJAO’s Militants: Competition for AQIM?” Terrorism Monitor 10, no. 7 (2012), available online: http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?cHash=b9b7813821af7b3da2fa786837feca84&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=39234#.Vit7eisfg-M

71. Interviews with Gao residents and IDPs, Bamako, November 2013. Local interviewees say that Belmokhtar’s 10-year-old son joined the clashes, handling a Kalashnikov against MNLA fighters in Gao and thereby showing Belmokhtar’s closeness to MUJAO.

72. Interviews with Gao residents, Bamako, November 2013.

73. Interviews with Timbuktu residents, Bamako, November 2013.

74. Video available at http://jihadology.net/2012/08/page/8/, accessed September 2014.

75. Armstrong, “Winning the War, Losing the Peace in Mali.” However, as the shari’a enforcement grew harsher and interference with private life more unbearable, including the seizure of cell phones by “security agents,” the destruction of video games, and the public beatings of individuals with cigarettes, local youth protested more vehemently. In some cases, mass protest forced MUJAO to change course.

76. Interviews with Gao residents, Bamako, November 2013.

77. Ibid.

78. This was the case, for instance, of Alioune Touré, a local Songhai from Gao, whom Western media described as a “leader of Islamic police and responsible for the overall security of the city.” In fact, as our interviewees indicated, Touré was simply the owner of a small restaurant, well into his 40s, who rode the wave of the moment, abandoned his family, and enlisted in MUJAO. Apparently he had a hard time persuading his friends of the sincerity of his conversion.

79. Rémi Carayol, “Planète Peul, rencontre avec un peuple sans-frontières,” Jeune Afrique, March 18, 2013, available online: http://www.jeuneafrique.com/138138/societe/plan-te-peule-rencontre-avec-un-peuple-sans-fronti-res/.

80. Armstrong, “Winning the War, Losing the Peace in Mali.”

81. Interview with officers from the Joint Mission Analysis Center (JMAC) of MINUSMA. Bamako, October 2014.

82. Danish Demining Group, “Evaluation des Risques Sécuritaires aux Frontières, régions du Liptako-Gourma,” 16.

83. The CMA (Coalition des Mouvements de l’Azawad) is an alliance of armed groups in favor of Azawad’s independence that includes: MNLA, HCUA (Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad), part of the MAA (Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad), CPA (Coalition pour le Peuple de l’Azawad), and CM-FPR2 (Coordination des Mouvements et Front Patriotique de Résistence).

84. Daniel, Les Mafias du Mali.

85. Dorothée Thiénot, “Mali—Yero Ould Daha: ‘Le Mujao nous protégeait du MNLA,’” Jeune Afrique, August 11, 2014, Paris, France.

86. Ibid.

87. RFI, “Mali: qui tient la localité de Ménaka?” Radio France International, May 17, 2015, available online: http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20150517-mali-tient-localite-menaka-yoro-azawad-casques-bleus-groupes-armes-cma.