“European strategies for securing the Sahel have all failed,” Spanish Sahel Specialist and Researcher at the Center for Global Studies at the International University of Rabat (UIR), Beatriz Mesa, asserted on Thursday in Rabat during a conference themed “the European Dilemma in the Sahel.”
“France has been there for over ten years, but insecurity has only increased in the region, particularly in the trio of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, ” the Spanish expert asserted.
Mesa, whose academic career has been spent focusing on the Sahel, argued that both “soft and hard-powered strategies” pursued by European powers in the region were “disconnected from the local population, the elite, and even the politicians,” especially with respect to their definition of “threat.” They did not conform to the situation, nor to the population, who were not even consulted about strategy. Instead, the strategies were mainly focused on “European-style development aid.”
The great crisis in the Sahel began in 2012 after a coup d’état in Mali, which prompted France to send its troops to the country, first with Operation Serval, then with Barkhane, which, she asserted, only made the situation worse because their aim was not to “combat the jihadist-separatists, but to neutralize them.”
The professor explained that the security sector reform imposed on Mali (RSS), that included changing certain laws and reinforcing human rights, failed because it did not integrate the locals, nor those advocating separation, and especially because the security forces involved had almost no field experience.
After the arrival of France, secession efforts in northern Mali (Azawad) grew stronger, as did the number of terrorist groups in the area.
The failure to include local institutions in “counter-terrorism” strategies undermined any resolution because it caused frustration between the “locals” and the European institutions, mainly the French operations.
The professor asserted that this failure was also one of the main reasons why a vast majority of the population in these countries were supporting putschists and coups d’état against governments which, in their view, were complicit in the perennial insecurity in the region.
What is now hastening the end of the European presence in the Sahel, especially that of France, she asserted, is Russia, which is coming back to the region in force with interesting projects and promises.
For example, Russia has promised two nuclear power plants in Mali and Niger and a tramway in Burkina Faso, and has proposed a transition to green energy in these countries, with a transfer of know-how, through education and training. Russia also helped Mali calm the tense situation in the north and regain its sovereignty, but that didn’t last very long, she asserted.
Mesa argued that the problem in the region is not a lack of democracy, but a lack of governance, explaining that the area is very badly governed, due to corruption, illiteracy, and other factors.
She warned that international events can take a turn for the worse at any time. While the new European Union plan for security in the Sahel has not been released, she argued that it is already too late for Europe to intervene once again because the populations and local actors have lost confidence—not to mention a lot of time—hoping that Europe, and especially France, would “save them.”
“But,” she concluded, “they have wasted more than 10 years without concrete results.”