Photo: FAO

Food crisis in the Sahel.

To contain and to eventually reduce the terrorists' threat, governments must always be at least one step ahead. This however is far from being the case in the Sahel where, to this day, the initiative remains in the terrorists' hands not in the governments'.

Malian parties' excessive demands, ongoing uncertainties and violence in Libya, bloody terrorist attacks against Niger as well as the tensions within and between several Sahel states have opened a daunting new chapter in the Sahel crisis.

A severe crisis

In the region, fear and suspicion are taking roots especially in the countries capitals. Once again, the Malian crisis is also a regional issue with a smoldering fire in each country.

Indeed, due to weak national governance, especially the retribalization of the states, the Sahel remains a space of deeply divided societies.

Therefore, slowly but inexorably, the deconstruction of many states is in progress and with it violence as a self-defense or to obtain a larger share in states' revenues.

As long as corruption remains pervasive and unpunished, the terrorist threat will continue to progress and with it cycles of rebellions. As a corollary, interventions of Western countries in the Sahel will be more frequent and terrorists' retaliations, especially in the West, also probably more frequent.

Actually, today situation is an excellent opportunity to strengthen domestic fronts and to manage peacefully the misunderstandings between governments through more inter-regional cooperation. The leitmotiv must be repeated calls to the two most concerned organizations, ECOWAS and the Maghreb, to pool together their efforts as the threat is common.

Acting simultaneously

Resolving the crisis in Mali remains a priority. It is crucial to remind Malians elites that the status quo, profitable to a few them, remains intolerable to the populations, to ECOWAS member states and to the international community both having invested so much in support to Mali national integrity.

The first step should be to encourage Malians Authorities to endorse and implement the Ouagadougou Agreement. Approved by the ECOWAS mediation, the UN, and the AU, the Transitional Government should not only endorse it but should also defend and submit it for information to the main candidates to the forthcoming Presidential election and to the military Junta.

Obviously this is a sensitive issue before the forthcoming presidential elections and at a time when the political and military leaderships in both the South and the North seem "to have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing." Many in Mali elite are not yet ready for the elections and prefer the advantages linked to the status quo.

France, without which anarchy would probably have engulfed Mali, has a duty to publicly support the mediation if he does not want to get bogged down in the Sahel. That scenario has support and not only among the radicals.

In case of failure, the country will be more at risks of division, and many of its people will return to their mountains or join the armed radicals, or the traffickers or the Diaspora idealist groups. Paris, not the Malians, would be blamed.

Anyhow, an Agreement in Ouagadougou would only be the first step of a long and tortuous road. But it could allow Mali to begin the process leading it to finally overcome decades of recurrent and costly crises.

It could also facilitate inclusive cooperation between the two shores of the Sahara, a cooperation without which violence in the northern area will feed armed violence in the southern one and vice versa.

Next steps

In the short term, an immediate action should be taken: supporting Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission - CDR - to help harness the energies and resources of Mali and its external partners. The International Organization of la Francophonie has just held a seminar on June 6 and 7 in Bamako in support of the CDR. the European Union and others partners are on the same track.

If it loses the initiative, the international community will be weakened and, worse, it will extend the Malian tragedy.