It's a debate with Wathi

In Mali: the urgency of de-escalation for the greater interest of the region

Audio 04:06

Gilles Yabi, head of the Think tank Wathi © Samuelle Banga

By: Gilles Yabi Follow

4 mins

Two Malian news grab the attention this week.

Decryption with Gilles Yabi from Wathi. 

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Starting with the withdrawal of Mali from the G5 Sahel which is not a huge surprise given the affirmation of the search for a sovereign Malian way to resolve the security and political crisis that the team in power would like to embody in Bamako.

This new path differs markedly from that taken for ten years by the countries of the Sahel, characterized by the military and political involvement of Western countries, under the primary impetus of France.

The G5 Sahel created in 2014 was part of this approach.

Even if the institution formally brings together 5 countries of the Sahel (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Chad), the involvement of France in its genesis, its operation and its strategic orientations, is obvious.

French advisers work with the G5 country holding the rotating presidency of the organization and one can imagine that the prospect of collaborative work between the current Malian authorities and French diplomats and soldiers seemed unlikely in the current context of mistrust.

With his usual frankness, Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum declared that the G5 Sahel was dead.

You were among the analysts who doubted the very usefulness of the G5 Sahel as a new regional organization...

While no one could question the need for strong cooperation between the States of the Sahel faced with the challenge posed by the activity of armed terrorist groups, there were many reasons to doubt the usefulness of creating a new organization with all that this involves heaviness.

In July 2017, I deplored in a forum the fact that West African heads of state were multiplying initiatives in competing institutional frameworks instead of advancing in a process of rationalizing regional organizations.

I also warned that

The G5 Sahel, conceived as a new organization and not as an ad hoc framework for cooperation between States with clear and limited objectives, will not have succeeded either in putting an end to the deterioration of the security situation in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, nor to prevent the spread of armed violence to coastal countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Togo and Benin.

Second Malian news of the week, the announcement by the government of a foiled coup which would have been fomented by officers and non-commissioned officers

Yes and it's not a big surprise.

On the one hand, a coup, which is by definition outlawed, creates the conditions for other coup attempts.

It is for this reason, moreover, that the condemnation of coups d'etat as a mode of accession to power is legitimate and that a distinction must be made between the justification of coups d'etat and the explanation of the conditions which make them prosper.

Exceptional regimes are by construction vulnerable: other soldiers dissatisfied with the group that has taken power, whether they are progressive or anti-progressive, patriots or anti-patriots sold to an external power, can also try their luck at the first opportunity.

And one can also think that soldiers who have succeeded in a coup d'etat keep a very close watch on all their brothers in arms who could represent threats.

And the expression of dissatisfaction or a difference of opinion can quickly be considered as the start of a plot.

One of the major risks of the prolonged absence of an agreement between Mali and ECOWAS on the modalities of the transition lies in the tipping over into violent settling of scores involving clans within the armed forces, radicalized civilians and, not let's not forget, Russian armed fighters.

Let's take the risk of saying it clearly: another coup in Mali has every chance of being violent and of dragging the country into an even more dramatic spiral.

The researcher in International Relations and Security Studies, Oswald Padonou, says it with the right words in an op-ed published in

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► Useful links

: “

”, Gilles Olakounlé Yabi, July 21, 2017.

«

», Oswald Padonou, May 17, 2022.

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• mali

• G5 Sahel

• ECOWAS

• France