What next for the conflict zones of North Africa?
West Africa, and the Sahel region in particular, represent serious security concerns in a global context. France is withdrawing from French-speaking Africa, and the vacuum this leaves is being filled by a variety of new and old players seeking influence.
What is interesting is that the US position on Africa is very similar to that of France, which means that the continent will not be at the forefront of French/Western foreign policy in the future.
In November 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron formally ended France’s decade-long operation to fight Islamist insurgents in the Sahel, which is the transition area that crosses the continent from east to west between the Sahara to the north. and the Sudanese savannah to the south. The United Kingdom also announced the withdrawal of its troops from Mali. France’s new defense budget has no real application or impact on these African issues.
The policy changes mean that the African continent is wide open for others, including European states, Turkey, Russia, China and, of course, Middle Eastern countries, to help “rescue” key parts of Africa through the implementation of some innovative “carrot” incentive. programs, but also wielding some more forceful “sticks”.
It looks like the European and Gulf states are going to have to work together on this issue in West Africa, especially with China and Russia turning the continent around through their plans for port access and infrastructure projects.
Recent efforts to defuse hostilities between state actors and encourage them to focus instead on the threat of terrorists remain an important part of the security landscape in Africa. Words versus actions are important; The optics play one role, the action taken plays another.
Deliveries of Russian weapons systems to Mali, for example, and the presence of the Russian private military company Wagner Group are growing, not diminishing, due to the security gap that exists.
Two security issues, one apparently resolved and the other not, revolve around conflicts: one between Mali and the Ivory Coast, the other between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda.
Both confrontations have their roots in local competition for natural resources, power politics, and anti-terrorism policies.
When the Ivorian president this month welcomed home 46 soldiers who had been detained in Mali for about six months, there was hope that the two countries could return to a more normal and cooperative stance. A Mali court had sentenced the soldiers to 20 years in prison for undermining state security. Ivorian authorities denied the allegation, saying the troops were sent to Mali as part of a UN mission to combat terrorists. They were pardoned by Mali’s leader, Colonel Assimi Goita, on the basis of a last minute appeal by Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe.
With France withdrawing from French-speaking Africa, the vacuum is being filled by a variety of new and old players seeking influence.
Dr. Teodoro Karasik
His arrest, in July of last year, sparked a diplomatic dispute between the two nations. Relations between Mali and the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, have been strained since the military carried out a coup in the country and ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020, adding to to the drama surrounding the French withdrawal from the region.
A new program, the Accra Initiative (named after the capital of Ghana), could help. It is a cooperative and collaborative security mechanism among seven West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Togo) to combat emerging threats such as extremism, terrorism, and organized crime. Nigeria also joined the initiative during a summit of the heads of state and government of the participating countries in Accra on November 22 last year.
Meanwhile, the conflict between Rwanda and the DRC is heating up. The latter has repeatedly accused the former of backing the M23, a local militia that came out of its torpor late last year and has since seized swaths of territory in eastern DRC.
The escalating nature of the conflict has attracted the attention of several countries that are trying to help ease tensions.
The dispute between Rwanda and the DRC is considerably different from the situation with Mali and the Sahel.
In general, these two clashes are examples of the effects of the withdrawal of French and other international forces and of anti-terrorism activity, which has paved the way for the current political landscape.
This year, we are likely to see some very interesting strategic moves by European and Middle Eastern powers to help defuse these confrontations.
• Dr. Theodore Karasik is a Senior Consultant with Gulf State Analytics in Washington.
Twitter: @KarasikTheodore
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Arab News.
