Challenges and Consequences of the Conflict in Mali - Free Paper Example

Mali is one of the landlocked countries in West Africa found within the Sahelian and Saharan regions. The country is largely arid and flat (Gaye, 2018). The country is one of the largest in Africa even though it has a relatively small population. Most people live along the Niger River. Some of the noticeable ethnic groups in Mali are the Bambara, Dogon, Tuareg, and Fulani (Lebovich, 2017). It is important to note that Mali depends on agriculture as the dominant economic sector. The country produces cotton, cattle and camel herding, and fishing among other economic activities. Current Mali was initially part of great precolonial Sudanic empires that included Songhai, Ghana, and Mali (Lebovich, 2017). In the early stages of 1959, Senegal and the Sudanese Republic came together and formed the Federation of Mali. It then gained its independence from France on June 20, 1960, as part of the French community. As already mentioned, despite its vast area, Mali has a small population estimated to be around 19 million people. Due to the unending conflicts, the current head of state is an acting president Bah Ndaw who was appointed in September 2020 in the aftermath of the Malian coup that took place this year (Gaye, 2018). The intention of this paper is to discuss some of the challenges and consequences that have resulted from the ongoing conflicts in Mali.

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Understandably, armed conflicts in Mali have been an ongoing problem since 2012. The war broke out between the Southern and northern parts of Mali. After the country’s military was driven from the northern parts, several Islamist groups and Ansar Dine began to impose their own strict Sharia law (Solomon, 2015). Since then, the country has been in continuous wars that have greatly affected the country economically, socially, and even politically as it has led to massive instability in Mali. Mali was once a strong nation was democracy was emerging steadily in West Africa. However, with the commencement of these conflicts, the country has never recovered. The country has struggled in recent times to maintain its political, social, and economic stability but to no avail. As stated above, an occasioned coup that ensued in the year 2012 was the boing point of the silent tensions that had been in Mali in the previous years (Solomon, 2015). The coup that involved military intervention to reduce the tensions in the northern parts of Mali and involved extremists and rebels in the whole county has been difficult to contain. This has left Mali very vulnerable as the government has lost a lot in the conflicts such that it has not been able to cater to its 19 million people who have been left in extreme poverty and suffering (Solomon, 2015). In addition to the conflicts that have continued to date, Mali has been faced with severe droughts that have contributed to the challenges facing the country. In addition to the above challenges, COVID-19 has also affected the country greatly as it has spread in the whole country thereby stretching the few resources available (Solomon, 2015). This has led to a massive strain on the already ailing healthcare system thereby worsening the small economy.

Challenges and Consequences

Just this year on August 19, the president of Mali was forced to resign as a result of a military coup. The leaders of the military have pledged to install a civilian transitional government and promised to hold a timely election (Lebovich, 2017). As a result, an acting president was installed. All these factors have led to increasing tension in the current times as both the extremist and rebels and their supporters are still on the watch out on how things are going on while taking time to reorganize. All these tensions have led to uncertainty in the politics of Mali which has consequently affected the economy (Lebovich, 2017). Insecurity and conflict remain in the hot spots like the northern regions despite military intervention. Continuous attacks by rebel groups that felt left out in the various peace agreements continue to rise. It is important to note that since the outbreak of the conflicts, there have been political attempts to solve the wars through agreements that sought to bring together the warring parties to reach a compromise by aiming for peace and reconciliation. One such peace agreement that have been held in Mali in the Bamako Peace Agreement of 2017 (Lebovich, 2017). However, little or no impacts of such agreements have been felt as there are continued conflicts in the country.

Causes of Conflict

As had been mentioned earlier, Mali gained its independence as a French territory in 1960. However, since then, there have been wars and rebellions. This is traced to the first leaders of Mali where, upon assuming office, started to assert its authority on large areas including desert regions inhabited by Arab and Tuareg communities who challenged such moves (Zouandé, 2017). The already precarious situation was worsened by the northern part of the country who were also resenting the national government. As a result, most economic and political efforts were directed to the southern regions hence, the northern regions later felt marginalized. To add to this damage, the government decided to impose military rule in the northern regions of Mali. Following independence, there were already building tensions because of distrust that led to some Arab and Tuareg uprisings (Zouandé, 2017). As I had mentioned earlier, there had been some peace agreements signed to contain the situation as well as several demolition programs. However, all these peace agreements have failed to bore fruit as the tension between the northern communities and Bamako has increased.

It cannot be denied that these failed attempts are a result of the strategies used by the government to tame the northern regions (Benjaminsen & Ba, 2019). An example of the failed strategy was when the government sought to tame the warring sides, it decided to decide the region into fonts so that it could exploit the sectarian and interethnic tensions to be able to stamp its authority. The strategy used electoral zonal in a bid to favor some communities over others. Also, the government regularly employed vigilantes that were viewed as ethnic-based so that it could counter the Arab and Tuareg tensions (Zouandé, 2017). All these attempts by the government failed hence giving the fighting communities an advantage.

Notably, the continued conflicts have left the country with social, political, as well as economic problems that will take a very long time to heal (Benjaminsen & Ba, 2019). The conflicts observed today in Mali broke in the year 2012 and it has caught the attention of international communities who have come in to help solve the problems that have prevented the country from achieving peace. As I had mentioned earlier, there are several causes of conflict in Mali ranging from security, social, political, and economic issues. In a nutshell, I must mention that the first cause of conflict is the increasing activities of the rebel and extremist groups. Another cause is the poor economic conditions that people are exposed to due to government activities (Folarin, 2015). Also, another cause is the increasing political corruption in Mali that has ripped the country of its resources through corrupt government officials.

It cannot be denied that the citizens of Mali have felt betrayed by their government because of the lack of reasonable economic activities in the country. The government is blamed for the poor economic situation in the country because of its lack of investment in the domestic economy and lack of cooperation with the international community to improve the gross domestic product of the country (Fang et al., 2020). The government has not been able to invest in its most important sector which is agriculture and this has irked communities that also depend on this sector like Tuaregs. As stated earlier, most of the northern communities that comprise Arabs and Tuaregs were neglected by the government. Their economic activities could no longer be supported hence such moves angered them leading to the outbreak of wars (Fang et al., 2020). The fact that these communities contributed a lot to the economy through their agricultural and livestock activities, and the lack of support from the government meant that they could no longer produce at a large scale to support themselves and to make any contribution to the economy. This generally affected national revenues because the communities contributed a lot to the Malian economy. Also, the neglect of such activities meant that these communities could not provide for their families as they struggled. The people became angry and resented the government leading to conflicts (Fang et al., 2020).

Considering the southern favored regions that primarily produced cotton and gold, the fact that the government failed to support agricultural activities also affected them. As a result, the production of cotton which was the major cash crop, and gold for export dwindled hence slowing down the export level (Fang et al., 2020). With no exports, incomes were reduced and therefore so many people struggled to survive because their source of livelihood had been affected. Also, the Malian government could not be able to get enough revenues from these important economic sectors thereby not able to budget for the needs of its people. This irked the Malian people in both regions and demanded answers from the government hence leading to conflicts among their rebel leaders (Fang et al., 2020). It should also be mentioned that with the abolition of tourism activities in Mali, many people especially the Tuaregs who depended on this activity as a source of income were angered because they could no longer survive. As I have mentioned above, many people from these communities decided to join rebel and extremist groups so that they could have a voice to challenge the government. As a result, the outlawed activities of these rebel groups lead to conflicts with the government and other opposing groups (Fang et al., 2020). This became one of the important factors that caused conflict in Mali.

Another cause of conflict in Mali that I mentioned is the increased political corruption in the country (Folarin, 2015). It cannot be denied that Mali is one of the most corrupt countries in Africa coupled with poor leadership, resources that are meant for public activities end up in the pockets of corrupt government officials hence stifling service delivery in the country. The orchestrated and systematic corruption by the public officials has led to growing hostility between the government and its citizens who have felt that their taxes are not being used in the right way because service delivery is at its low, not only poor healthcare provision but also poor education system among others (Folarin, 2015). Also, there has been resentment from the rebel groups who are acting as watchdogs to the economic activities of the government. All these sections have come up to condemn the corruption that has plagued the government of Mali. The conflicts break out because the government has refused to listen to their economic demands of equality in resource distribution, regional balance, and reduced corruption levels (Benjaminsen & Ba, 2019).

Despite the high levels of economic corruption in Mali, political corruption has been at its worst. Mali indeed became a democratic nation in the earlier years. However, this democracy has not been reflected in various political activities of the country (Gaye, 2018). Therefore, since obtaining its democracy, the country has failed terribly.