<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19394">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV style="PADDING-LEFT: 100px; PADDING-TOP: 35px"><STRONG><FONT size=4>"
Northern Mali is a wake-up call that makes the blood run cold : Behold, a
people that mistakes a new form of enslavement and economic suffocation for
political liberation ; behold, African and Arab politicians and
intellectuals who grin and applaud. The hypocrisy and cowardice of the latter is
the mirror image of the hypocrisy and manipulations of the former. Nothing new
under the colonial sun ! "</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV style="PADDING-LEFT: 100px; PADDING-TOP: 35px"><STRONG><FONT size=4>The
above pretty much sums up the article.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV style="PADDING-LEFT: 100px; PADDING-TOP: 35px" class=cartouche>
<DIV class=surlignable>
<H1 class=entry-title>Mali, France and the extremists</H1>
<P class=soustitre><FONT size=4><STRONG>Nothing new under the colonial sun
</STRONG></FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 380px" align=right>
<DIV
style="TEXT-TRANSFORM: uppercase; PADDING-LEFT: 50px; FLOAT: left; COLOR: #bfb99f"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>mardi, 22 janvier 2013</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV id=socialtags align=right><FONT
size=4><STRONG></STRONG></FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=blocGaucheWhiteSpace><FONT
size=4><STRONG></STRONG></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class=blocGauche2>
<DIV class=surlignable>
<DIV class=chapo>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>French involvement in Mali is ostensibly for the good of
the people, to protect a ‘friendly’ country from extremists, but the accuracy of
this claim is not beyond question</STRONG></FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV class="texte entry-content">
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>While the world looks on, France’s political class has
come to an agreement on the principle of military intervention in northern Mali
against a coalition of “Islamists,” “jihadists” and extremists. Those critical
of the French government for going it alone concede that the decision to take
action is “just”. French President Francois Hollande, who appeared lost at the
head of a rudderless government, has gained new prestige and refurbished his
image as a statesman — and as a military leader dedicated to “destroying the
enemy,” to “putting him out of action”. Thus northern Mali seems fated to become
the mirror in which France admires the image of its strong and determined
president.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>First things first, though : The ideology and
methods of the Salafists and jihadist armed groups merit only condemnation.
Their interpretation of Islam and their exploitation of religion by imposing the
most degrading corporal punishment are utterly unacceptable. Once more, the
contemporary international conscience of the Muslims must make itself heard loud
and clear : Such an interpretation and such an application of Islam is a
betrayal, a horror and a disgrace. The first to raise their voices must be the
Muslims themselves and the Muslim-majority countries. Politically,
intellectually and with all the strength their conscience and their heart can
muster — a position that can brook no compromise.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>To this principled position must be added a powerful
dose of geopolitical analysis — all the while avoiding confusion between an
imperative moral stance on the one hand, and a simple-minded binary political
position on the other. To oppose the jihadist extremists does not mean accepting
French policy in the region. George W. Bush’s “you are with us or with the
terrorists” is as fundamentally false as it is perilous, both in terms of
substance and consequences. Behind France’s “noble” commitment to the endangered
people of Africa, several very explicit questions remain unaddressed. The West
in general, and France in particular, had for decades forgotten the people’s
suffering under dictatorship in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya before changing their
tune and singing the praises of “revolution” and the Arab spring, of liberty
regained. In Libya, humanitarian intervention revealed its ugly face beneath a
crude disguise or as open affirmation of interest in oil and economic
advantage.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>Several months later, France has intervened in Mali
ostensibly for the good of its people, its only intention being to protect a
“friendly” country from the danger of extremists now allied with Tawareq rebels.
The accuracy of this version remains to be seen. The total absence of economics
and geopolitics from the political and media presentation of the French
intervention raises serious doubts. Even less is said about the lengthy history
of France’s connections with a succession of Malian governments. Events are
unfolding as though France were suddenly expressing its solidarity with grace,
generosity and selflessness. However, the raw truth is that behind the recent
political upheavals in Mali, France has never stopped meddling, pressuring,
removing Malian political or military leaders seen as uncooperative, and
creating alliances at the highest levels of government and among the country’s
tribal, military and civilian figures, weakened and isolated after the fall of
Muammar Gaddafi. President Amadou Toumani Toure was overthrown by a military
coup on March 22 last year. Toure paid for his policies towards the northern
part of the country and for his preferences in the future distribution of oil
exploration permits.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>France’s ties — often strained — with the secessionist
Azawad National Liberation Movement (Mouvement national de liberation d’Azawad —
MNLA) are an open secret, the aim being to split the country into two zones to
facilitate future exploration of promising mineral resources. The presence of Al
Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI) and its alliance with the Tawareq tribes of
the north has been for no less than three years — another factor justifying
France’s military presence in the region. It finally became official with the
recent opening of hostilities.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>The French government and the executives of the oil and
gas multinationals have attempted to downplay recent discoveries in the Sahel, a
region including Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Algeria (there has even been talk
of a “Malian mirage”). However, the data is much better known and established
than most people are willing to admit. Jean-Francois Arrighi de Casanova,
Total’s director for North African operations, was more forthcoming when he
described it as “a new Eldorado,” with its vast oil and gas potential. The
region possesses no fewer than five promising deposits. The resource potential
of the Touadenni basin, on the Mauritanian border, has already been confirmed.
To it must be added the Tamesna and Lullemeden basins along the border with
Niger, the Nara basin close to Mopti and the Gao Graben. France’s Autorite pour
la recherche petroliere (AUREP) has confirmed the potential of Mali’s
subterranean resources (primarily oil and gas). Mali, Mauritania, Algeria and
Niger now find themselves directly involved and, following the fall of Gaddafi,
the way is now open for the oil companies of France (with Total in the lead),
Italy (ENI) and Algeria (Sipex), which have invested more than an estimated $100
million (Dh367.8 million) in surveying and prospecting despite the prevailing
insecurity and arid climate.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>The blood, the liberty and the dignity of the friendly
people of Mali are certainly all the more worth defending when, at the same
time, enormous oil and gas deposits lie hidden beneath its sands. Northern
Mali’s mineral riches are far from a mirage ; the only mirage is the
reality of decolonisation.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>How can any of these questions be considered
illegitimate ?</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>No one can deny the existence of violent, extremist and
radicalised groups that profess a faulty and unacceptable understanding of
Islam. They must, to repeat, be condemned. But it must be recognised that these
groups have conflicting political strategies and a dismaying tendency to set up
shop in precisely those places where mineral resources are a key economic
factor. The same was true in Afghanistan (at the heart of a region immensely
rich in oil, gas, lithium, etc.) and suddenly — it is difficult to understand
exactly how or why — extremist “crazies” have now chosen the Malian sector of
the Sahel, one of the world’s most arid and lifeless regions, to apply their
inhuman writ. There can be no doubt whatsoever about the existence of extremist
groups, but there are legitimate questions about how they reached their current
destination. Their areas of operation and their methods may well be encouraged
and directed : What was clear under George W. Bush is no less clear in
Mali, where “terrorists” can be used to advantage. On my most recent visit to
Mali, a retired military man confided his misgivings : “We are under orders
to exterminate them, to ‘destroy’ them even if they are disarmed. Take no
prisoners ! We do everything we can to drive them crazy, to radicalise
them.” Not a bad military strategy. More recently, the satirical Parisian daily
Le Canard Enchaine revealed that France’s ally Qatar has signed an agreement
with Total for exploration in the Sahel while at the same time it provides
logistic and financial backing to radical groups such as the rebels “of the MNLA
(secular nationalists) and movements such as Ansar Dine, AQMI and MUJAO (Jihad
in West Africa)”. Should these allegations prove accurate, would it be a
contradiction — or perhaps an encouragement — to the extremists by goading them
into action in order to justify French military intervention as practical,
necessary and ultimately imperative ? A convenient distribution of roles
that is as effective as it is cynical.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>Today, the world looks on as the latest hostage drama
unfolded in Algeria, promising to inflame national feelings in support of
further military action. American, British, Norwegian and other European
hostages are being held on Algerian soil. Suddenly, more than just France’s
interests are at stake. A majority of Malians are delighted, but far from
fooled : France the friendly power is, above all, the friend of its
interests. There is nothing new about its policy of selective intervention (in
Libya and Mali, but not Syria or Palestine). We are told that the bias inherent
in France’s African policy has ended ; that the era of political and
economic colonialism is no more ; that a new day of freedom, of national
dignity and of democracy has dawned. And we are supposed to swallow this
hypocrisy !</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>The extremists, their actions and their exploitation of
religion and culture, must be denounced. However, time has come to face up to
our responsibilities. For the African and Arab states that have forgotten the
basic precepts of political autonomy and responsibility ; for the African
and Arab elites, and for all of us, who have proved to be unable to put forth a
clear vision of political, economic and cultural independence ; for the
peoples that allow themselves to be carried away by mass emotion and the chimera
of “friendly powers” ... for all of us, politicians, intellectuals and simple
citizens concerned above all by dignity and justice in the countries of the
global south, we must now assume ultimate responsibility for what is happening
in front us. The “destruction” of the northern Malian jihadists is far from a
promise of freedom for the people of Mali. Instead, in the long term, it will
prove to be a new and more sophisticated form of alienation. And yet, never have
the forces of resistance in the countries of the global south had as many
opportunities to open new horizons, new pathways towards
freedom.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>All we see today is euphoria, celebration or silence in
the face of France’s “liberating action” and of the “International Community’s”
unanimous support for it. It is as though the Middle East and Africa had once
more agreed to submit as the West, wounded, dying of its doubts and wracked with
economic, political and identity crises, fires its last salvos. Africa’s
greatest service to itself, and to the West, is not to bend before the West’s
nostalgia for power and its fevered illusions, but to resist with dignity and
coherence in the name of the values that the West and France claim to hold dear
and yet every day betray by their hypocritical and lying policies in South
America, Africa and Asia. Northern Mali is a wake-up call that makes the blood
run cold : Behold, a people that mistakes a new form of enslavement and
economic suffocation for political liberation ; behold, African and Arab
politicians and intellectuals who grin and applaud. The hypocrisy and cowardice
of the latter is the mirror image of the hypocrisy and manipulations of the
former. Nothing new under the colonial
sun !</STRONG></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>