Introduction: Rethinking Challenges to State Sovereignty in Mali and Northwest Africa

ABSTRACT

In framing its analysis around the concept of northwest Africa, this article examines not only the challenges for regional security and state authority in that region but also the processes through which regions are constructed by both local and international actors. It focuses especially on northern Mali and the various types of separatist, jihadist, and criminal networks that operate in this territory. The goal of this article, and of the special issue to which it is an introduction, is to illuminate emerging political orders in northwest Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Jihadism
• Mali
• northwest Africa
• Sahara
• Sahel
• separatism

Notes

1. See James McDougall and Judith Scheele (eds.), Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012).

2. Frederic Wehrey and Anouar Boukhars (eds.), Perilous Desert: Insecurity in the Sahara (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013). While none of the contributors to the Wehrey and Boukhars volume adopts the label “northwest Africa,” the spaces they examine all fit within that zone as defined by McDougall and Scheele, 2012 Saharan Frontiers. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 6.

3. “Regions are defined in term of speech acts,” writes Neumann in “A Region-Building Approach to Northern Europe,” Review of International Studies, vol. 20, no.1 (1994): 59.

4. Michelle Pace, The Politics of Regional Identity: Meddling with the Mediterranean (London, UK: Routledge, 2005), 43.

5. Anssi Paasi, “Region and Place: Regional Identity in Question,” Progress in Human Geography 27, no. 4 (2003): 475–485.

6. For example, in Joseph Trevithick, “American Commandos Use Niger for Training and More,” September 3, 2015, offiziere.ch.

7. Alex Thurston, “On Seku Amadu and the Movement for the Liberation of Masina,” May 8, 2015, sahelblog.wordpress.com.

8. Morten Boas and Mats Utas, “Introduction: Post-Gadaffi Repercussions in the Sahel and West Africa,” Strategic Review for Southern Africa 35, no. 2 (2013): 3–15; Baz Lecocq, Disputed Desert: Decolonisation, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Northern Mali (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 280ff.

9. Judith Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 13.

10. Baz Lecocq, “This Country Is Your Country: Territory, Borders, and Decentralisation in Tuareg Politics,” Itinerario 27, no. 1 (2003): 58–78; see also Charles Grémont, “Villages and Crossroads: Changing Territorialities among the Tuareg of Northern Mali,” in Saharan Frontiers. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 131–145.

11. James McDougall and Judith Scheele (eds.), “Garage or Caravanserail: Saharan Connectivity in Al-Khalil, Northern Mali,” in Saharan Frontiers. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012, 222–227.

12. Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 115.

13. Yvan Guichaoua, “Circumstantial Alliances and Loose Loyalties in Rebellion Making: The Case of Tuareg Insurgency in Northern Niger (2007–2009),” in Understanding Collective Political Violence, ed. Yvan Guichaoua (New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan, 2011), 246–266.

14. Baz Lecocq and Georg Klute, “Tuareg Separatism in Mali,” International Journal 68, no. 3 (2013): 424–434.

15. Baz Lecocq et al., “One Hippopotamus and Eight Blind Analysts: A Multivocal Analysis of the 2012 Political Crisis in the Divided Republic of Mali,” Review of African Political Economy 40, no. 137 (2013): 343–357.

16. As early as 2007, Malian authorities reportedly promised AQIM leaders they would leave them alone as long as they committed no hostile acts on Malian territory; see Isabelle Lasserre and Thierry Oberlé, Notre Guerre Secrète au Mali (Paris, France: Fayard, 2013), 101.

17. Jean-Christophe Notin, La Guerre de la France au Mali (Paris: Tallandier, 2013), 41.

18. Charles Grémont et al., Les liens sociaux au Nord-Mali: Entre fleuve et dunes (Paris, France: Karthala, 2004).

19. David Lewis and Emma Farge, “Hardline Mali Rebel Demands Stall Hopes for Peace,” Reuters, March 29, 2015.

20. Lecocq and Klute, “Tuareg Separatism in Mali,” International Journal 68, no. 3 (2013): 424–434.

21. The name “Azawad” was first adopted by Malian Tuareg rebel groups in the early 1990s and derived from an area of the Timbuktu region. The shortlived “state of Azawad” unilaterally declared in April 2012 claimed an area encompassing more than half of Mali’s national territory. The name “Azawad” had never before referred to any chiefdom, kingdom, or other polity in the region. See André Bourgeot, “Des Touareg en rébellion,” in La tragédie malienne, eds. Patrick Gonin et al. (Paris, France: Vendémiaire, 2013), 113–129.

22. Martin van Vliet, “The Challenges of Retaking Northern Mali,” CTC Sentinel 5, no. 11–12 (2012). See also Boisvert, this issue.

23. La Guerre de la France au Mali (Paris, France: Tallandier, 2013), 543.

24. Ricardo Larémont, “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in the Sahel,” African Security 4, no. 4 (2011): 242–268.

25. Rukmini Callimachi, “Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror,” July 30, 2014, New York Times; http://nyti.ms/1tp3KeM.

26. France 24, “Al Qaeda-linked Group Claims Mali Hotel Siege,” August 11, 2015; Thomas Joscelyn, “Mokhtar Belmokhtar Now Leads ‘Al Qaeda in West Africa,’” August 15, 2015, http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/08/mokhtar-belmokhtar-now-leads-al-qaeda-in-west-africa.php

27. Radio France International, “Niger: attaque d’éléments du Mujao venus du Mali,” November 20, 2014; Jacob Zenn, “Wilayat West Africa Reboots for the Caliphate,” CTC Sentinel, August 21, 2015, http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20141120-niger-attaque-elements-mujao-venus-mali-bani-bangou]; CTC Sentinel 8, no. 8.

28. “Islamist Group Ansar Dine Claims Multiple Attacks in Mali,” Reuters, July 6, 2015.

29. Thurston, “On Seku Amadu and the Movement for the Liberation of Masina,” https://sahelblog.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/on-seku-amadu-and-the-movement-for-the-liberation-of-masina/

30. Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 110.

31. Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 124.

32. Hussein Solomon, “The African state and the failure of US counter-terrorism initiatives in Africa: the case of Nigeria and Mali,” South African Journal of International Affairs 20, no. 3 (2013): 438.

33. Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 19.