For the past 10 to 15 years, in the Sahel, security has yet to improve. On the contrary, it has become entrenched and has worsened. Fueled by infrastructures destructions and populations distress, anarchic migrations to cities and, beyond, to overseas countries, insecurity continues. Worse, it is spreading west, east and viciously to the south, towards the Gulfs of Benin and Guinea.
The ongoing Sudan implosion - added to Libya structural crisis, the chaos around Liptako Gourma and Lake Chad regions - is a challenge. To hold on, with or without external partners - now in rivalry - Sahel states need to go beyond day-to-day management. Complaining tirelessly against colonial past doesn't provide a solution to current problems. Increasing anticipation capacities, through a more modern conflict management, remains a better approach.
Crises anticipation capacities.
Deep-seated in the Sahel for more than a decade, terrorism continues to progress there, disrupting societies. Among its victims: 33 million people - including 11 million displaced persons and refugees - currently needing protection and humanitarian assistance. Though they cannot distract attention from the causes at its origin, undoubtedly Libya and Sudan civil wars consolidate and fuel terrorism. There are many.
One of the most important remains the marginalization or even political exclusion of national groups by their central governments. The reasons: a regional, tribal (1), or social affiliation. These abuses and other biases end up giving rise to armed rebellions. Religious shield helps to mobilize more citizens and above all it gives them an international dimension.
Playing on all that, terrorists apply the practices and slogans of their Afghan and Somali brothers: the strengthening of parallel economies: opium trafficking here, wood and various other products there and « backing » of migrants. Self-financing through lucrative activities linked to trafficking - gold, drugs, cigarettes, migrations, is widespread. Since 2011, this situation is evolving in a very busy context: global economic and financial crisis, Arab Spring, Covid 19 pandemic, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
It is at this level that to protect their countries, Sahel governments should have human capacities for anticipation. Regional and international inter-state cooperation can only support them. Seeking, despite multiple constraints, to see beyond the daily grind, becomes a necessity. The objective remains the planning of long-term actions in a region where almost everything works on a day-to-day basis. This is despite immense potential: young and dynamic populations, vast possibilities in the fields of agriculture and energy including renewables and, finally, an excess supply of manpower.
After more than a decade of violent terrorism and its consequences, time has come for the Sahel states to better organize themselves individually and collectively. First of all at the national level, in order to be able to prevent and manage conflicts when they break out. Since the use of armed force has yet to prove its effectiveness against terrorists, management approaches - traditional or modern - should be experienced.
Many conflicts are interconnected within the same country and between neighboring states as in the Liptako Gourma (Burkina Faso-Mali-Niger). Most of them break out at inter-state borders, strengthen there before spreading beyond. The weak security cooperation and the pursuit of classic military strategies against agile armed groups exhaust humanly and financially countries already facing other obstacles. Climate crises, including floods and droughts, affect millions of people. Addressing their root causes is a priority: reducing poverty and inequality, particularly against women and girls. In addition, promotion of peace and democracy, adaptation to climate change and calls on rebels to end hostilities should help. Efforts to prevent conflicts and adapt the fight against terrorism to the realities of countries should be imposed both at the level of populations on the ground and at that of elites in capitals.
Better modern conflicts prevention and management.
Terrorism rooting and expansion remain linked to poor governance and lack of solid cooperation between national and regional security forces. Noticing the signs of crises, settling them and especially preventing them and knowing how to manage them when they break out, all these are the Sahel challenges. For more than a decade, inter-community struggles, terrorism and conflicts have spread and taking root there. One of their most perverse effects remains their inter-alliances during the fighting against government forces. These have more conventional approaches than those adapted to the fight against guerrillas. In other words: individual or groups attacks and the absence of a front line.
Moreover, the longer terrorism lasts, the easier it becomes for it to recruit new fighters by conviction or constraint. Insecurity thus created encourages or even imposes corruption which by nature weakens public administration particularly security services.
In order to avoid this structural terrorism being integrated into daily life governments should first opt for a more modern management of the states. Very dangerously the 1960s single-party culture of the Cold War era continues to impose itself in offering a powerful fertilizer to terrorism. It was demagogy and impetuous flight without real attention, in particular, for countries economic interests.
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Fear, or even rejection of modernization, hinders development efforts, thus offering more spaces, political and territorial, to terrorism. In addition, easy access to electronic means of communication, now available to all and almost everywhere, facilitates the expansion of terrorism and violence. This is even truer when citizens feel frustrated and marginalized by policies that are more tribal than national. The febrile status quo in Libya and Sudan underway implosion invite particularly the Sahel states to resolve sooner than later their conflicts more linked to state management, than only to terrorism.
In fine, Sahel governments' efforts against terrorism and those from northern countries confronting migrations from the South call for the establishment of strong political alliances within and between the region states. International community support, even unfortunately back to the cold war era, remains vital despites present muddles.
(1) « retribalization » - or Tribal political return, while State power is weakening is used on purpose by centre4s as a reminder of the ongoing weakening of national unity in a few Sahel states.
