‘’Today what happens everywhere can be seen and heard everywhere’’.

More widespread, more violent and now openly assumed as at its beginnings in 2012, terrorism in the Sahel continues unabated across the region. Inexorably transformed into an increasingly ethnic war, it is now anchored beyond the center of the Sahel, its earliest base. It is expanding and now enjoys easier access to the shores of the Red Sea and therefore safer supplies of military equipment and of its gold exports.

For over two months vigorous and deadly in Sudan, armed violence is already basic in Libya, as it is on the common border of Burkina Faso and Mali. The brief respites, as much as the arbitrary violence against civilians in “lawless areas”, confirms the continued entrenchment of the Sahelian conflict. Like those of Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan. It takes root. Proven realities but still wrecked answers.

Established realities.

One of terrorism main strength is the head start it often manages to acquire over local authorities as well as over the international community. While it is still concealed and therefore ignored, even underestimated by all, it trains and places its representatives in a strategic position in the society. Thus, at the local level, it encourages religious practices that social tolerance in the Sahel has ruled out for centuries: forced wearing of the veil, including from a very young age, separation of women from men and military respect to its local political and religious leaders. From the latter, he made them personalities of the provinces, then of the country or even of the region. Faced with the one party system anchored in power, the Islamic parties have managed to find the parade allowing them to impose themselves by entering through the window. They make so-called eradication policies very costly or even impossible for law enforcement forces to implement. At the African level, with different methods of struggle but indisputable security results, only Algeria, Morocco and Uganda have succeeded to manage radicalization and terrorism.

The Sahelian band which extends from the Maghreb southern borders to the Savannah’s and from the Atlantic coasts to those of the Red Sea, is a historic land of exchanges and movements of people, ideas and goods. It is also the preferred zone of this contemporary terrorism. One that is often more a rebellion against the status quo – injustices and governmental practices – than a religiously inspired radicalism. A terrorism with informal and even illegal trade as one of its sources of financing and of money laundering. A trade that is socially accepted and politically admitted by several governments in the region.

In this fluid and often informal social and political context, the implementation of a credible deterrent against terrorism is not for tomorrow.

Living with terrorism.

Wherever it has erupted, religious terrorism has shown itself resilient to any dialogue or negotiation, particularly with national governments. It is the complete opposite of Latin America 1970’s terrorism in and even that of Europe in the same decade. After political, economic and social reforms in the region, political terrorists, the Tupamaros and other armed groups, ceased the violence except in Colombia where other realities, probably drug trafficking, prevailed. These terrorisms, essentially of the political left, like those of the Baader Band and the Red Brigades respectively in Germany and Italy, led to the democratization of Latin America. They then disappeared from public view.

On the contrary, terrorists of the Sahel, claiming a religious orientation like those of Afghanistan and Somalia, have limited interest in the economy, are social conservatives and hardly think of voluntarily laying down their arms. Neither before nor after negotiations with governments. Despite spectacular and murderous attacks in America, Asia and Europe, the great mass of their global victims is mainly made up of their co-religionists. Convinced that God is on their side, they hardly believe in dialogue or negotiation but in their final victory.

In the Sahel, this terrorism is active under at least two known organizations. The Support Group for Islam and Muslims, (GSIM), that claims to be affiliated with AQIM and that of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahel (EIGS) linked to the Islamic State or EI. Both are supported by local and regional lobbies. Powerful lobbies that organize illicit or irregular trade and are close to a number of governments in the region.

That intricate terrorism is even more dangerous because of the future it prepares for the region: an isolated Sahel left on its own. In other words like a number of countries actually of lower priority on the international agenda as are today Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Weakened states where as insecurity grows lucrative trade and trafficking prosper but only for their sole sponsors. National imports, whose actual final destinations are the neighboring states, prosper. Exports are much under their real volumes and real prices and therefore contribute with much fewer resources to the national budget. Worse, all this is done with a continual degradation of nature and the environment, particularly in coastal countries.

At the international level, the generalization of « the politically correct » forces to make little or no comment and even less condemnation of these ruinous political practices. It slows down any foreign cooperation policy that denounces or simply exposes them to public opinions. Even coming from allies, internal and external calls for transparency efforts and the fight against widespread corruption remain poorly understood and thus unsuccessful. Often resident in neighboring countries, the sponsors of these se practices finance the murderous status quo of their own compatriots and the own region.

The present combination of major international crises, hot or cold – war in Ukraine, Sudan civil conflict, USA and China rivalry, downgrades the visibility once granted to the Sahel. It thus leaves more political space open to regional terrorism. It plays, as the local regimes also do, on cheap and mobilizing patriotic slogans: the denunciation of foreign investments often seen as embarrassing witnesses.

Little room is left for international cooperation such as the one successfully carried out for decades by Singapore and more recently and as successful by the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and now by Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Ben Salman. These examples should inspire much more than the extremism and its inherent lethal uncertainties that, after many others, Sudan is the latest tragic example.

In fine, uncertainties that sustain a long lasting insecurity are the Sahel worst enemy.

 

Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, president centre4s.org