On 25 May 2021 Mali saw its second coup within less than a year. The developments in May presented an interruption in Mali’s transitional process that makes a successful transition less likely than ever. Mali is again at a crossroads.
Somali leaders signed a landmark election agreement on 27 May 2021 in Mogadishu. Almost immediately afterwards a number of friends and constituents called me to ask why it had taken this long; why we had to go to the brink of armed conflict for them to sign, what, essentially, is a recycled version of the 17 September 2020 Agreement and the Baidoa Technical Team recommendations. How, they asked, could we be sure this agreement would not unravel, like so many agreements before it.
On the afternoon of 24 May 2021, the Malian Transitional President, Bah N’Daw, and his Prime Minister Moctar Ouane were arrested by elements of the Malian Armed Forces and taken to the Soundiata Keïta military camp in Kati. Wild rumours circulated in Bamako. Finally, the Malians were informed of the events that they have become used to for some time. They were wondering about this umpteenth coup d’état.
The coup d’état in Mali which occurred on 24 May 2021, the second in nine months, marks another critical juncture for the country. Mali continues to face a multi-faceted crisis: a resilient jihadist insurgency which is highly active in northern, central and increasingly southern parts of the country, communal violence and the rising prominence of self-defence militias.
This month, the United Nations Security Council will renew the mandate of the 8-year-old United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) at a time of multiple transitions and great uncertainties, which we have analysed in this recent EPON report.
Since May 2020, violent conflict has killed 2,070 people in Mali. Insecurity has forcibly displaced more than 300,000 people, of whom 56 per cent are women. The drivers of Mali’s multiple conflicts are not arcane. Meaningful dialogues around poverty, marginalisation, limited livelihood opportunities, weak governance, political instability and more, can open doors to engaging with the community militias and armed groups that operate in the country. More reason, then, to ensure that the turbulent winds of climate change do not blow those doors shut.
On 24th May 2021, news broke of yet another coup d’état in Mali, the third in the last decade following the 2012 and 2020 military takeovers. The ‘palace’ coup sees Col Assimi Goïta, yet again, seizing power in Mali and detaining transitional President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, after accusing them of failing in their duties and trying to sabotage Mali’s transition to democracy.
Thursday, 27 May 2021 marked a watershed moment for Somalia. It was the day Somali leaders met under the auspices of the National Consultative Council and announced a breakthrough in dialogue to resolve the impasse over the holding of federal elections. The deal provided an important implementation framework for the famous 17th September Agreement on parliamentary and presidential elections.
Following months of political impasse and rising tensions over the holding of elections in Somalia, the leaders of the Federal Government of Somalia and of the country’s Federal Member States signed a key agreement on 27 May that paves the way for elections. This was the culmination of several weeks of consensus-building efforts led by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble.
Since February, a series of rash political decisions took place that threw the country into chaos. Although the election deadlock has now been resolved and a new agreement reached on 27 May, the repercussions of the recent political drama are wide reaching.
On 27 May 2021, the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) and Federal Member States (FMS) signed a major agreement that would put the country back on an electoral pathway after months of intense political standoff over the type and process of elections. In late April, armed clashes broke out in the capital after the lower house of the bicameral parliament passed a controversial resolution extending its own mandate and that of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo by two years. The decision was rejected by almost all domestic political stakeholders in the country, as well as the overwhelming majority of the international community.
The expression “African Solutions for African problems” has become something of a cliché. It is frequently invoked when trying to develop effective solutions to address peace and security challenges on the continent. It is a phrase that has also been misused by some leaders to advance their interests while trying to avoid scrutiny of their actions in handling their own domestic peace and security challenges and invoking the phrase in an effort to engage the African Union (AU) to provide a face-saving mechanism which perhaps they hope to influence.
The key to a more stable and peaceful Africa lies in conflict prevention! Unfortunately, there is still reluctance, both by the international community and governments to invest in prevention. If we could focus more on prevention, much more could be achieved.
At the UN Security Council and in other forums in Africa and Europe, diplomats are debating different options for increasing international support to the G5 Sahel Force. The aim is to enhance its operational capacity and effectiveness to restore stability in the Sahel. Despite the presence of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the Group of Five Sahel (G5 Sahel) Force, as well as French and European Union missions, the security situation in the Sahel has significantly deteriorated over the last few years.
The conflict in the North of Cabo Delgado has been presented in international media as a phenomenon of terrorism and Islamic radicalization. This kind of analysis does not pay due attention to the political economy of the region, nor does it capture the complex internal and external causes of the phenomenon.
Indeed, in 2020, as we were planning to celebrate major instruments for the advancement of women’s rights to peace and development, namely the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action and the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic erupted, causing deaths and disruptions all over the world. The pandemic demonstrated once more that in times of crisis, women and girls bear the brunt of the impact and are the ones at the front of the risk.
We live in a peculiar moment in history in which prevailing threats to peace and stability have collided with a pandemic that occurs once in a century. For the African continent, it is rather a precarious moment in which our realities and limitations have come to the fore, more than in previous decades.
The changing conflict contexts have refocused our attention on the theory and practice of conflict management and the need for transforming the ways in which we seek to Silence the Guns in Africa. In the 1990s the conflict contexts demanded that peace be sought internally between identifiable warring parties with the ability to do harm, usually government and one or two rebel groups seeking access to political power; that mediation went beyond ceasefire agreements to deliver more comprehensive peace accords; and peacekeeping broadened to encompass multidimensional peace support operations.