Jihadist in Mali Promote Quranic Schools and Persecute the Musicians, Poets and Storytellers
By
Rémi Carayol
28 July2018
Young men
in yellow jackets meet at nightfall in Konna, near Mopti in central Mali. They
divide into groups of eight or nine and, armed with sticks, machetes and
walkie-talkies, set off on motorcycles to patrol the streets until dawn. This
‘brigade’ of 500 volunteers aims to provide security in Konna, which the
gendarmerie abandoned nine months ago. The army, its nearest outpost 50km away,
visits only rarely.
Brent Stirton · Getty Images Reportage
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The brigade was formed even before the gendarmes left, because people were alarmed by rising theft and murder rates. Yaya Traoré, a brigade leader and deputy mayor of Konna said: ‘On 23 March 2016 a marabout was killed in the town centre. The next day, a shopkeeper was murdered. The gendarmes did nothing. That’s when we decided to take charge.’
He said
they were getting results: ‘When we catch a thief, we take him back to
headquarters at the youth centre, and the next day we hand him over to the
courts and tell him not to come back. The thieves are getting the message.
These days they’re few and far between.’ Islamist fighters too: ‘They’re scared
of us, so they don’t come here.’ Thanks to the brigade, Konna’s three schools
are still open, while those in neighbouring towns have closed under pressure
from the Islamists.
Konna,
population 15,000, lies on the road from Bamako to Gao. After the battle of
Konna (10-17 January 2013), at the start of Operation Serval, the French
military intervention in Mali, Konna was to be a symbol of renewal of the
state; instead, it has come to symbolise state failure. There are burned-out
cars in the sand-strewn streets, and buildings destroyed by the French bombing
have been left as they were.
After the
French and Malian armed forces, leading a coalition of African armies, retook
the north of the country, the people of Konna thought they had seen the last of
the jihadist groups. Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK), elected president with a
substantial majority in August 2013, promised to rebuild a strong state. He is
standing for re-election on 29 July, but there is no guarantee that voting can
take place nationwide: Mali is in tatters.
The big
cities of the north (Gao, Timbuktu, Kidal, Tessalit) have been recaptured from
the Tuareg and jihadist groups that had controlled them since 2012; the UN
Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (Minusma) has the
area locked down; a peace agreement was signed in Bamako in June 2015 between
the Malian government and the Coordination of Azawad Movements, which brings
together Tuareg and Arab rebels in the north (1); regional governors have been
appointed and the Malian army is getting itself together. But progress has been
mostly theoretical, like the peace agreement, which has yet to be implemented.
After some time in disarray, the Islamist armed groups have reformed. In March
2017 Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar Dine, the Macina Liberation
Front and Al-Mourabitoun announced they were merging as Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam
wal-Muslimin (Group to Support Islam and Muslims, GSIM). Led by Iyad Ag Ghaly,
a Tuareg Malian, it harasses civilians and troops daily.
‘We Must
Avoid Collapse Of The Centre’
The army
has bases in Timbuktu and Gao, but has yet to return to Kidal and many parts of
the north are beyond its reach. According to the UN, fewer than one civil
servant in three assigned to the north was in post as of December 2017, and the
number assigned actually fell last year. This worries UN secretary-general
António Guterres, who said on 30 May during a visit to Mali: ‘We must avoid the
collapse of the centre of Mali, we must restore security and normalcy.’
Insecurity
is spreading. The violence no longer centres on Kidal or Timbuktu, but on the
more isolated parts of the Mopti and Ségou regions, further south. In 2017 the
UN recorded 63 attacks against Malian, French and UN troops, most in Mopti. In
the first quarter of 2018, Minusma recorded 85 ‘major violent incidents’ in
central Mail, with at least 180 civilians dead.
Growing insecurity in Mali
Cécile Marin
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The vast
expanse of central Mali is mostly unprotected. ‘[The towns of] Mopti and Sévaré
are OK, but once you get out into the country, you’re in danger,’ said former
mayor Oumar Bathily. The towns, a haven of stability, are a dozen kilometres
apart, linked by a dyke crossing marsh that flood during the rainy season.
Mopti, at
the confluence of the Niger and the Bani, used to attract thousands of tourists
every year; today, there are hardly any. The port, from which cruise ships used
to go north to Timbuktu, is deserted. Local boatmen are out of work and the
staff of the Kanaga Hotel, which faces the river, stand idle. ‘We have 80
rooms, seven suites and no guests. It’s a disaster,’ said the manager, Amassome
Dolo. ‘The other hotels have closed. We’ve survived, because we are part of a
group.’ After the north was retaken in 2013, Dolo hoped business would pick up,
but it has only worsened. ‘Nobody goes to Timbuktu any more, or to Dogon
Country or Djenné. It’s too dangerous. But they could come here, at least.
There’s no danger of Mopti being attacked.’ That’s debatable: there are
jihadist groups on the other side of the dry riverbed, and you can cross it on
foot.
‘What about me?’: a small girl in the house of one of the few female
marabouts, Houssa Nientao, in Bamako earlier this year
Michele Cattani · AFP · Getty
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Sévaré,
which has a strategic airport, looks safer. It has become one of the best
defended villages in Mali, with a huge army presence, a command post, a 400-man
Minusma rapid response force, and the headquarters of G5 Sahel (see Barkhane
bunkers down, in this issue). The hotels are full of soldiers in combat
fatigues, ‘consultants’ with bulging muscles, and diplomats in transit. The
only travel agency with a local office is Echo Flight, the EU service that
organises airlifts in war zones. Most buildings have been rented out to the
military and fortified. ‘Local shopkeepers and property owners are rubbing
their hands with glee. We are making a living from a crisis economy. But people
outside the village have been abandoned,’ said Bathily.
The
outbreak of war in this region surprised many. On 5 January 2015, men on
motorcycles carrying the black flag of jihad attacked the military base at
Nampala, killing 11 soldiers. For a few hours, they took control of the town,
which is close to the Mauritanian border. The history of Nampala, as told by
its mayor Sekou Bah, a chemist by trade and elected in 2016, is typical of a
region neglected for years. ‘In 2012, when the jihadists took control of the
north, they didn’t come here, but nor did the government. The civil servants
had run away. In 2013, when the French recaptured the north, the Malian army
came back. But when cattle rustling increased, they wouldn’t help. Some of the
farmers decided they would defend themselves. Things eventually calmed down,
but after the attack on 5 January the army and the civil servants ran away
again.’ After that, all disputes were settled with guns.
‘The Men
on Motorbikes’
After
Nampala was retaken, other towns were attacked, civil servants killed and
politicians threatened. For the first few months, the government failed to
react, being unable to identify the attackers. In Macina, a region flooded
during the rainy season, they are popularly known as ‘the men on motorbikes’;
they call themselves ‘the men of the bush’ (yimbe ladde in the Fula language).
Some claim to follow Hamadoun Koufa, head of the Macina Liberation Front, and
say they want to impose sharia. ‘There are only a few hundred of them,’ said a
Malian army officer. ‘They hide in the forests, disguise themselves as
shepherds and infiltrate villages. They are not motivated by religion.’ Others
claim to be defending Fula cattle herders from abuse by the army and sedentary
farming communities. But these political claims often hide less honourable
motives: robbery or score-settling against a backdrop of inter-community
rivalry.
The
situation in central Mali is confused. The area received little attention from
the French colonial authorities, or from the Malian government after
independence in 1960. ‘There were no rebellions, so it was ignored, unlike the
north,’ said a European diplomat in Bamako. ‘All you can say is that it’s not a
single conflict in the centre, but a host of micro-conflicts, which terrorists
exploit.’ Malian journalist Adam Thiam said:‘In the 19th century, the Mopti
region was an El Dorado, very prosperous because of its agriculture. After
independence, it was regarded as Mali’s economic powerhouse, and it accounted
for more than 30% of export revenue. But droughts in the 1970s hit the local
economy hard, and in 1985 the region was classified as food insecure. A report
published in 1986 suggested there was a risk of rebellion if the authorities
failed to act.’
Policies
focusing on the development of sedentary agriculture, adopted in Bamako by what
Thiam calls ‘the Mandinka authorities’, who treat nomads with contempt, and the
enclosure of common grazing land, have upset the fragile balance between
herders (mostly Fula and Tuareg), farmers (Bambara and Dogon) and fishermen
(Bozo). To coexist on this fertile but disputed land, all submitted for decades
(though sometimes with difficulty) to customary rules and to the decisions of
‘masters’ of pasture, water and land; even violent conflicts were quickly
settled by local notables. But the state dismantled this system of cohabitation
in the name of modernity, disrupting traditional hierarchies. By 1995, even
before the north became insecure, the Mopti region was Mali’s poorest. In 2015
it had the lowest rates of access to electricity (7.1% compared with 22.9%
nationally) and school enrolment (41.9% at primary level, 72.3% nationally).
Army
Abuses
When war
broke out in the north, Mopti was further neglected. And when the government
was restored in 2013, it acted as if nothing had happened. The army committed
abuses against the local people, which ‘exacerbated the distrust between
people, especially some [Fula], and the security forces’ according to a report
by International Crisis Group. Several NGOs have reported serious human rights
abuses.
Army and
government are accused of playing on inter-community rivalries in the war on
terror. In a report published this April, the Simon-Skjodt Centre for the
Prevention of Genocide even raises the possibility that these inter-community
conflicts will lead to ‘mass atrocities’ (2). A number of people close to IBK
and the army general staff are suspected of arming militias formed of dozo
(traditional hunters) in central Mali to hunt ‘jihadists’. In March about 30
people were killed in Dogon Country during clashes between Fula and a Dogon
self-defence group armed with military weapons. Many, including members of
Minusma, believe the weapons came from army stocks. Fula villages have been
burned, men killed, livestock stolen; Dogon villages have been attacked in
reprisals. In the Koro area there are daily clashes. A local politician said:
‘It’s a vicious circle of revenge with an ethnic dimension. The problem is that
jihadism has come on top of old existing conflicts.’
Prime
Minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga, appointed in December 2017, chose Mopti for
his first official trip; while there he announced a development plan and the
restoration of the Malian state. To reassure the local population, there would
be a huge offensive in the remotest parts of Mopti and Ségou, involving nearly
3,000 troops. General Ismaïla Cissé, former Malian ambassador to Equatorial
Guinea, criticised errors of judgment: ‘To the military, all Fula are
jihadists. That’s a dangerous mistake.’ He said banning motorcycles because the
jihadists use them would make things worse. (The ban was introduced in Mopti
and Ségou this year.) ‘Everyone rides a motorbike in these parts. Banning them
effectively prevents herdsmen and market traders from moving around. Markets
can’t function if this ban isn’t revoked. If the government kills the economy,
law-abiding people will turn to the jihadists.’ A study of 63 young former
members of jihadist groups reveals that many joined not because of religious
indoctrination, but ‘because they needed to protect their families, their
communities and their income-generating activities’ (3).
The
administrative vacuum has allowed extremist organisations to grow. NGO Delta
Survie, based in Sévaré, which promotes education in the most dangerous areas
of central Mali, sees this every day. Its president Ibrahima Sankaré said:
‘It’s harder and harder to get around. The jihadists are in every village, and
they are running things. They raise taxes and deal out justice. They ban women
from bathing outdoors or leaving home without a veil. They ban public
celebration of christenings and weddings. They persecute the griots
[traditional musicians, poets and storytellers].’ And it’s working: ‘Given the
choice of making their women wear the full veil or losing their cattle, the
herdsmen didn’t hesitate for long.’ The jihadists provide order and security
that the state did not. Sankaré described his efforts, over the years, to
persuade the state to take account of the needs of nomadic peoples. Delta
Survie set up schools that follow the herders on their migrations. ‘I got
funding from abroad, but not from the Malian government. In 2012 there were a
hundred schools; now there are only five.’
So-called
French schools are a particular target. According to the UN, in March this year
715 were closed because of a lack of security, depriving nearly 215,000
children of education. Every day, Daouda Doumbia, deputy head of the Mopti
Academy (regional education board), meets teachers who have been laid off and
have fled after receiving threats. Some transfer to other schools; most go into
hiding. Ibrahim has lived with family in Sévaré since the school where he was
headmaster closed. Last November, ten ‘bandits’ arrived on motorcycles, armed
with Kalashnikovs. ‘They made all the pupils gather in the playground, and
fired their guns into the air. The children were in tears, they were terrified.
Then the bandits took all our belongings, shot the windows out and said “If we
come back and you’re still here, there’ll be trouble”.’ The school is only a
few metres from a road that military convoys use every day.
Honest
Jihadist Justice?
As their
influence grows, the jihadist groups are trying to undermine the legitimacy of
the state by attacking its representatives, while offering an alternative, with
inducements or threats. They promote Quranic schools when closing state
schools. They attack civil servants, whom they believe to be corrupt. The
Macina Liberation Front scored a major success last November by abducting a
senior judge in Niono, only an hour’s drive from Ségou.
‘In the
past,’ said Thiam, ‘a civil servant, a judge for example, in central Mali would
get himself appointed with the aim of getting rich. We had more and more
lawsuits, locally, and you had to pay if you wanted to win.’ But in the areas
they control, the jihadists make a point of dealing out justice that many
people perceive as honest if not impartial, and it’s free of charge. ‘More and
more people are turning to them rather than the state to settle disputes,’ said
Sékou Bah, mayor of Nampala. Some even refer to the jihadist justice system as
a court of appeal.
Militants of the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad patrol the
Mali-Niger border in the Ménaka region in search of jihadists this February
Souleymane Ag Anara · AFP · Getty
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The
government in Bamako is far more concerned by these developments than by the
continuing war in the north. That’s partly because ‘the centre is the keystone
of Mali,’ said Ali Nouhoum Diallo, former president of the national assembly
and now unofficial spokesman for the Fula community, but also because what is
happening in central Mali is not so much a power struggle as social rebellion
against a government seen as evasive, a sign of the huge deficiencies of the
Malian state. On 20 June the defence minister launched an inquiry after the
Malian armed forces were implicated in the deaths of 25 people in Nantaka and
Kobaka, in the Mopti region. IBK said: ‘We are not going to rebuild our armed
forces just to have an army that is ignorant of the law of armed conflict. That
would be a huge step backwards’ (4).
‘The
president has lost all legitimacy,’ said Cheikh Oumar Diarrah, briefly minister
for national reconciliation and development of the northern regions in 2013.
The government failed to grasp the seriousness of the crisis of 2012.’ Diarrah,
a former diplomat and close advisor to IBK, believes it should have ‘drawn up a
social contract. People are rejecting injustice and lack of solidarity. It’s
easy to call them jihadists: that way we don’t have to think about what they
really are, or about the evil that is corrupting our country.’ He said Mali is
still suffering from the mixture of bureaucracy and profiteering that emerged
during the political democratisation of Mali in the early 1990s and reached a
peak under the presidency of Amadou Toumani Touré (2002-12).
Holding an
election under these conditions seems like political theatre. The opposition is
all the more worried because local elections, which should have taken place
last December, and were rescheduled for this April, have been postponed
indefinitely. ‘How can you aim to organise elections when you only control half
the country’s territory?’ said Marxist opposition leader Oumar Mariko. ‘The
government says that, in the Kidal region, security during the voting will be
provided by the rebels. Isn’t that proof of its own failure?’
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Rémi
Carayol is a journalist.
Translated
by Charles Goulden
Original
Headline: Mali disintegrates
Source: Le Monde Diplomatique
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/jihadist-mali-promote-quranic-schools/d/122738