Focus: MaliMali should engage separatist, Islamist groups in talks: Bamako peace conference
A peace conference meeting in Bamako, Mali, this past weekend said the Mali government should begin talks with the leaders of Islamist groups which, in 2012, led north Mali to break away from the rest of the country to create the independent Republic of Azawad and which, more recently, have launched deadly attacks on Malian and French soldiers and UN peacekeepers.
A peace conference meeting in Bamako, Mali, this past weekend said the Mali government should begin talks with the leaders of Islamist groups which, in 2012, led north Mali to break away from the rest of the country to create the independent Republic of Azawad and which, more recently, have launched deadly attacks on Malian and French soldiers and UN peacekeepers.
MedAfricaTimes reports that the week-long conference was held under the auspices of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, and participants called on the government to start peace talks with Amadou Koufa, leader of the Macina Liberation Front, a Fulani jihadist group, and Iyad Ag Ghali, leader of Islamist group Ansar Dine.
In January Ansar Dine said it would join al-Mourabitoun, which is led by Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
The conference issued a statement saying that the Mali government should: “Negotiate with the belligerents of central Mali, in this case Amadou Koufa, while preserving the secular nature of the state …. Negotiate with the religious extremists of the north, in this case Iyad Ag Ghali.”
Talks between the government and the rebel groups were held in 2014 and 2015, leading to the signing of a peace accord in 2015 – but the accord has not been implemented because different interpretations by the two sides of what it entailed.
More recently, with support from Sahel jihadists, including al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the two rebel groups have revived their violent campaign against the Mali state and international peace keepers.
The 2015 accord was supposed to separate Tuareg autonomy aspirations from Islamist interlopers – it was the combination of Tuareg and Islamist projects which led to the short-lived Azawad Republic in north Mali from April 2012 to January 2013 – and the weekend conference in Bamako again stressed the need to address Tuareg aspirations while rejecting Islamist encroachment.
Much of north Mali is patrolled by French troops and AU peacekeepers, but they see their role is fighting separatist and Islamist insurgencies, not criminal activity, thus leaving large areas of Mali subject to banditry and lawlessness.
