Author	Bram Posthumus
Publication	Searching for Peace in Africa
Year	2000

Summary

The Tuareg are a nomadic people, about 1.5 million strong, who live in the vast semi-desert area known as the Sahel. The territory that they and their cousins have inhabited and traversed for centuries straddles various present-day states including Mali, Niger, Chad and Mauritania.
About 600,000 Tuareg live in Mali, mainly in the northern part of the country. With the advent of more centralised states in Mali, such as the Bambara empire, traditional Tuareg nomadic lifestyles began to be curtailed. When the French colonialists arrived, their movements were further restricted through the imposition of borders. Since a nomadic lifestyle is vital for the maintenance of their living standards, these subsequently started to decline. It was under French rule - in 1894 - that the Tuareg turned to armed-rebellion. Like every uprising that was to follow, it was a drought that pushed the Tuareg into action. The French colonisers resorted to force, both in the nineteenth century and again in 1916, to crush Tuareg uprisings with considerable brutality.
In fact, every Tuareg action was brutally suppressed, leaving hundreds dead. This only succeeded in fuelling resentment against central governments that used sticks and guns rather than their ears to solve the problems of the peoples in the North. It was not until the 1990s that there was a change of heart on the part of the authorities.
Under French rule, the Tuareg considered themselves thoroughly marginalised, both economically and politically. Malian independence in 1960 did not change their situation and matters were certainly not helped by the fact that Mali opted for a tightly controlled one-party political system in its efforts to build a nation. As early as 1963, the central government of Modibo Keita found itself faced with the first post-independence rebellion. The government of the day responded once again with a heavy hand. It bombed rebel positions, causing many casualties and even greater resentment among the Tuareg.
The root causes of the conflict are complex. Before borders divided West Africa into nations, the nomadic peoples of the Sahel crossed the vast territory from Mali into what is now Algeria. Confinement in a national state brought no benefits and in fact worsened their situation. There was a total lack of development, the conveniences of modern life - if the Tuareg had wanted them - were not available to them, there was a dire shortage of water and other resources in the region, which was further compounded by the devastating droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. These droughts destroyed traditional family structures. Many young men went away looking for greener pastures (quite literally). The droughts also put severe pressure on the relationships between the Tuareg and the sedentary farmers in the region, who - as Ibrahim ag Youssouf and Robin-Edward Poulton argue in their book A Peace of Timbuktu - traditionally relied on each other for economic survival. French colonial legislation that distinguished between the two groups and put legislation in place which favoured sedentary farmers over nomadic people has, however, contributed to the marginalisation of the North.
These structural tensions came to a head in 1990 when the young men who fled the drought, mainly into Libya and Algeria, came back with revolutionary ideas, acquired in Libya, about how to translate their political under-representation into a cause. The Libyans had also provided them with the guns to pursue that cause. On June 28, 1990, they attacked the town of Menaka in the east of the country, marking the start of the rebellion.

Conflict Dynamics

At first, the response of the military government of general Moussa Traoré, who ousted Keita in 1968, was identical to the repressive actions the previous colonial and independent governments. The activities of the MPLA (Popular Liberation Movement of Azaouad, established in 1988 in Libya and receiving help from Tripoli), were met with the usual iron-fisted response. Most of the scores of casualties were civilians. It was the political situation in the capital, Bamako, which changed this. Widespread demonstrations put the Traoré government under great pressure and in March 1991, a coup swept colonel Amadou Toumani Touré to power. 'ATT,' as he is affectionately known in Mali, held a National Conference to map out the country's political future with a great variety of stakeholders, negotiated a peace agreement with the rebels and prepared the way for democratic elections. Following these elections, Alpha Oumar Konaré became president of the country, in 1992.
Interestingly, the military within general Traoré's government may have already laid some of the foundations for a lasting peace, by negotiating the Tamanrasset Peace Agreement just before he was ousted. Although nobody respected the terms of the agreement, it did contain some of the building blocks for Touré's subsequent efforts. Touré began from the premise that neither the French nor the previous independent governments had found real answers to the Tuareg issue. He directed his efforts towards concluding a National Reconciliation Pact, which was signed by government and rebel representatives on April 11 1992. It provided for a certain degree of autonomy for the North, a special development fund for the region, the reintegration of the fighters and repatriation of the tens of thousands of refugees.
However, the Pact failed to break the cycle of violence, for three reasons. Firstly, lack of financial support sank its implementation in the course of 1993. Secondly, the original MPLA started to show signs of fragmentation along regional, hierarchical, religious and Tuareg-Arab lines, and in 1994 these splinters began fighting among each other. This fighting became so severe that when negotiations finally re-started in the southern Algerian town of Tamanrasset in the same year, the Malian government found itself mediating among the various factions before national peace could actually begin to be discussed. And thirdly, whatever their differences, the Tuareg and Moorish groups continued to feel short-changed in terms of security and representation. They increased the intensity of their rebellion in the course of 1994.
The conflict went through its last phase of escalation before peace could finally prevail. Killings by the rebel groups and revenge killings committed by the armed forces became more widespread. This presented the greatest challenge yet to both Malian and regional stability. Countries like Niger, grappling with a similar problem, were particularly concerned about the escalation. A final complication was brought about by a new vigilante group, called Ganda Koy, meaning Masters of the Land. This was the armed manifestation of the concern of citizens, including non-rebel Tuareg, who simply had enough of the violence and lawlessness around them. Consequently, a peace process needed to be set in motion as a matter of urgency.
The apparent success of that process is largely due to the collaborative efforts of all major players in the conflict: fighters, the military, traditional leaders, the president of the country, local, African and international NGOs, donor countries and the UN.
In the course of 1995, the violence receded. A series of locally mediated agreements feeding into the national process of reducing violence and building peace resulted in the actual cantonment of the fighters and the simultaneous closure of their bases. The exercise began in November 1995 and ended in February 1996 with close to 2,700 combatants being encamped. Of those, over 1,600 have since found jobs in one of the branches of the public security sector or followed courses to diversify into business or agriculture.
As a crowning ceremony of these achievements and a symbolic lesson for the future, it was decided to bring together all the players in the former conflict and burn the weapons of war in their presence. This was done on March 27, 1996, in the northern town of Timbuktu. The 'Flamme de la Paix', as the bonfire became known, was attended by representatives from the former rebel factions, Ganda Koy, Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings in his capacity as chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, and a host of international observers. Three thousand weapons were burnt. In a meeting between thirteen West African states and 23 arms exporting nations, held in Oslo in April 1998, president Konaré mentioned the instructive character of the Flame of Peace, and its importance for impressing upon people the necessity of having a pluralist, tolerant, just and democratic Mali, in which violence as a means to settle differences would be looked upon as a thing of the past.

Official Conflict Management

The Malian peace efforts seem to have been successful because the local, regional, national and international initiatives somehow managed to interlock successfully and on time. Key elements identified by observers and participants like the UN Resident Coordinator in Mali, Mr. Tore Rose, include the fact that the peace process was essentially home-grown and born out of a genuine desire to end the conflict, that UN support was adequate and timely, and that the government's 'Security First' programme (which will be explained below) was taken seriously and regarded as absolutely crucial - and supported accordingly.
United Nations support for the demobilisation was crucial at a time when none of the donors were ready to provide the required facilitating funds. The UN paid almost half the cost of the cantonment exercise (US$ 2 million) through the creation of a trust fund; significantly, the Malian government paid the other half. A fixed amount was set aside for each gun brought in.
The programme for the reintegration of the ex-fighters (also partly financed from trust fund money) was another joint effort between the government of Mali and the UN. It was part of the government's 'Security First' policy. Essentially, the idea behind 'Security First' is that there can be no development if there is no functional and enforceable system of law and order in a given country. Given the history of banditry in the northern part of the country, the fact that security was foremost in the government's mind was not surprising. But this particular concept is more comprehensive than the presence of large numbers of security personnel on the streets and in the countryside. 'Security First' interlocks good governance, good economic performance with the rule of law, which is enforceable by reliable security personnel. All this is to be realised both nationally and regionally. The arguments put forward by both the Malian government and the UN were convincing enough to persuade the donor community - especially NGOs - to think about ways of supporting the police, customs services and other security personnel in Mali, and indeed elsewhere.
The reintegration programme of ex-combatants was begun in 1995. Essentially, it encompassed first the cantonment and disarmament and then the integration of the 11,500 fighters into either the national army or civilian society. They received pocket money and US$ 100 for each gun handed in. They would then undergo military training or social and economic education. Some 1,600 former combatants have thus been integrated in the security forces while 9,000 benefited from the civilian integration programme.
Another aspect of removing large-scale violence from Malian society is the reform of the military, which was responsible for some of the worst human rights violations. Training and improved communication skills are intended to contribute to a better security force which will earn the trust of the public. It is hoped that people will then also surrender the guns they still possess. Thus far, the funds for this integrated double-edged programme, widely regarded as crucial, have been insufficient to carry it out in its entirety. Funding until recently came from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), three EU member states, the USA and Japan.
Because the feeling of political marginalisation was so strong among those who rebelled against the central government in Bamako, the Malian government has also decided to embark on a policy of decentralisation. The aim is to give more discretionary powers to the local authorities. The Konaré government has always stressed the importance of local decision-making bodies and local elections. After all, the peace process itself was started at the local level. If successful, decentralisation will free up local resources for local development and diminish dependence on a distant central government.
In 1994, President Konaré asked UN secretary-general Boutros Ghali to organise a mission to his country, to study the proliferation of small arms in and outside Mali. The presence of large amounts of small arms wreaks havoc on the region of West Africa, where there is war in Casamance, a shaky cease-fire in Sierra Leone, instability in Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria and Niger and where guns circulate from Freetown (Sierra Leone) to Faya (Chad). Konaré, who has described the flow of arms as 'anarchic', therefore wanted UN recommendations relating to their removal. The UN complied and sent two missions to Mali and other countries in the region were also visited. Its recommendations included national committees for disarmament, upgraded legislation, weapons registers and regional exchange of information on flows of arms.
The Malian president has since proposed a three to five-year moratorium on the import, manufacture and sale of light weapons in the region. A three-year moratorium was signed on behalf of or by all heads of ECOWAS member states on October 31, 1998 in the Nigerian capital Abuja. It is the first agreement of this kind in the world and has since been receiving widespread international support from the UN, the Nordic countries and the Chair of the Wassenaar Arrangement, which is a grouping of 33 arms exporting nations that wishes to exercise control on the exports of - among others - conventional weapons. (The Wassenaar Arrangement has grown out of COCOM, which was a Cold War instrument to keep sensitive technology out of the hands of the Soviet Union.) The Malian government is looking for financial support for a regional centre which will be tasked with implementing and monitoring the moratorium. Funding has, unfortunately, proved problematic.

The UN has also helped organise several Dutch government-funded seminars on the security situation in the country and the region. These included a Malian seminar on civil-military relationships, which has greatly helped in the redefinition of the role of the military in Mali. It brought generals, members of the civil society and political leaders together in an unprecedented discussion of these topics. The seminar took place in Bamako in November 1996 and has since been followed up by another, in November 1997. A preliminary code of conduct was drafted, in order to define more precisely the role of the Malian military. The other important event was the meeting, in New York, of all sixteen members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on post-violence peace building.
Throughout the peace negotiations, discreet but extremely helpful mediation was carried out by the governments of Algeria and France. Especially Algeria helped to bring about some unity among the rebels as early as 1991 (they had already started to factionalise by then). There were also briefings by observers at the various series of talks in 1995 and 1996 who briefed the governments of both countries about progress. Together with the UN, France and Algeria were important supporters of the 'Security First' programme.

Multi Track Diplomacy

Domestic
The foundations for the peace in Mali are local. Tuareg chiefs, religious and community leaders, civil society organisations started convening an impressive series of meetings at the local level from early 1994. When one talks about the 'social capital' used to foster peace in Mali, this is it: embracing the African tradition, where decisions are taken at the village council, where elders preside over a discussion involving the entire community. 'Social capital', defined in A Peace of Timbuktu as 'the sum of human cultural and spiritual values and patterns of personal interaction in a society', has been the driving force behind the entire peace process. The national government was keenly aware of this and endorsed it, in fact it had no choice. Participants at the hundreds of meetings that took place from 1994 through 1996 included local leaders as mentioned, social and religious organisations, political parties, the administration, trade unions, NGOs, women's organisations, economic cooperatives and associations. All these meetings stressed the inseparable relationship between security and peace.
The fact that these local initiatives were actually noticed and taken seriously by outside players is a credit to both the UN and the international African NGO Synergies Afrique. Firstly, Synergies organised a regional meeting on the Tuareg conflict where politicians and legal experts from the various countries in the region got together to discuss the problem. When Synergies director Hassan Ba visited the region in January 1995, he found that traditional leaders ('chefs') were willing to make their ancient networks available for use as vehicles for national and cross-border deliberations which could lead to peace. The chefs met in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in March 1995 and later in the year held local meetings. They succeeded in bringing together the older, more sedate chiefs and the angry young men with the guns, two groups which had until then been difficult to reconcile.
As mothers, wives and sisters, women exercise considerable influence in the various societies that together make up Mali. This fact, embedded in many of the proverbs that oil social life in Mali and elsewhere in West Africa, is frequently overlooked by outsiders, but this part of the country's 'social capital' is of course never lost on actors from within. The Mouvement National des Femmes pour la Paix has played an important facilitating role, for instance resulting in local groups beginning to collect arms spontaneously, in a reflection of the government's 'Security First' policy. This and other women's organisations were at the forefront of the peace process.

International
Various international NGOs have stepped in and started development projects in the North, possibly helping to provide the best guarantees against the return of violence. The African ACORD, and European and American NGOs, are all engaging in livestock, fisheries, agricultural and other income generating projects that are aimed to reduce the economic marginalisation of the region.
Together with international NGOs like Oxfam and Novib, ACORD also helped finance a scientific analysis of the conflict, entitled Nord du Mali. De la tragédie à l'espoir (Northern Mali, from tragedy to hope). The analysis was conducted by three West African scholars and published in July 1995.
Norwegian Church Aid has been instrumental in mobilising resources to enable civil society meetings to take place. It is also expected that donor funds that were held back pending the outcome of the conflict will now gradually be released. Tentative moves into the area have been made by development NGOs.

Prospects

Mali provides living proof that peace building on local foundations is a lot cheaper than restoring faith, confidence, bridges, roads and buildings after the fact. What has succeeded here is the combination of the 'social capital' of its people, traditionally available in abundance, with the workings of modern statehood and international mediation. As Amadou Toumani Touré asserted in an interview with a Dutch newspaper in February 1997: 'Mali is a modern democracy with its very own traditions.'
This also applies to the political aspirations of the North, which were not served by the highly centralised forms of government under the French and the first post-independent regimes. Robin-Edward Poulton, senior research fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, who has worked on conflict resolution for many years in West Africa, describes the Konaré approach as 'ambitious' and 'visionary'.
Observing that 'most of Africa's states will flourish in the 21st century only if they are able to reconcile the need for broader economic or monetary unions with the pressure from local groups to assume their cultural identities,' Poulton concludes that 'decentralisation is the new framework which will make people responsible for their own lives, for mobilising national resources and using them locally for productive investment.'
There has been political volatility and violent protest in Bamako around the elections that were held in 1997, which led to the arrest of several opposition politicians. In January, a National Forum was held in Bamako, in a government bid to address the political and institutional problems in Mali. There have also been student protests in the capital in 1998 and 1999, although these revolve mainly around bread-and-butter issues. President Konaré appears to take it in his stride, as he told the Guinean weekly Le Lynx in June 1999: 'Opposition is not a mistake, it is a demand of democracy.'
The political turbulence does not appear to have had an adverse effect on the peace now existing in northern Mali. In the course of 1997 and 1998 there were reports of violent clashes between Tuareg from Mali and Niger but these appear to be rivalries among local clans over water and grazing rights, without anti-government or rebel overtones. The clashes took place within Niger, where problems persist between the Tuaregs and the very repressive military government of general Mainassara, which was overthrown in April 1999. However, as Dutch brigadier-general (ret) Henny van der Graaf, who frequently visits Mali to help facilitate and monitor the process knows, Tuareg fighters have withheld arms, calling this their own version of the 'Security First' programme. Small arms remain present in the region in large numbers.

Recommendations

Ultimately, it will be the social and economic development of the North that will provide the best insurance against the return of violence. Mali is fortunate in being, at present, an important destination for donor money and has been able to continue large parts of its ambitious reintegration programme for ex-combatants. Nevertheless, there is a danger that structures and institutions will be built up that bypass precisely those local and other structures that have been responsible for bringing the conflict to an end. These are potential seeds for renewed conflict.
One way of avoiding this is to have the donor efforts coordinated in-country, by a body that is representative of the recipients. The need for donors to conform to realities on the ground, instead of the other way around rises from the pages of A Peace of Timbuktu time and again, especially where the authors share their worries about the fact that the various major international organisations carry out their projects but do not seem to be engaged in helping to strengthen the institutions of Mali's civil society.
In The Weapon Heritage of Mali, authors Van der Graaf and Poulton argue for a programme tying weapons collection to community development assistance. Instead of providing cash payments to individuals who hand in their weapons, development assistance should be provided to communities for programmes targeting, for example, improved water systems, health care, and education. While a 'Flame of Peace' is in itself both practically and symbolically valuable, development of the weapons programme would not only help to reduce the number of weapons in circulation, but also to bring communities together to provide for both security and development, and quite possibly to prevent those who hand in a weapon from simply going out and acquiring a new one. Funding this project may well be one of the best investments one can make in Mali.

Service Information

REPORTS:	ACORD: Nord du Mali - De la tragédie à l'espoir. (Information available from ACORD Mali); UN Centre for Disarmament Affairs: Sahara-Sahel Mission Report, 1996.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:	Civil Society Takes Responsibility - Popular involvement in the peace process in Mali, by Kare Lode. Oslo, International Peace Research Institute, 1997; A Peace of Timbuktu - Democratic governance, development and African peacemaking, by Robin E. Poulton and Ibrahim ag Youssouf. New York, NY: United Nations Publications, 1998; The Weapon Heritage of Mali, by Henny van der Graaf and Robin E. Poulton. Chapter in publication of the Bonn International Centre for Conversion: 'Weapons Collection and Disposal as an Element of Post-Settlement Peacebuilding.' 1998; A Moratorium on Light Weapons in West Africa, by Sverre Lodgaard and Carsten Rønnfeldt (eds). Published by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the Norwegian Initiative on small arms transfers, 1998; Peacemaking by Consensus in Mali. In: People Building Peace, European Centre for Conflict Prevention, Utrecht, 1999.
RESOURCE CONTACTS:	Ousmane Sako - UNDP (PNUD), Bamako/Mali, Tore Rose - UNDP (PNUD), Bamako/Mali; Marianne Maïga - Mouvement National des Femmes pour la Paix, Bamako/Mali; Rita Mba - ACORD, Bamako/Mali; Brigadier-general (ret.) Henny van der Graaf - Arms Control and Verification Mission Mission. Email h.j.v.d.graaf@phys.tue.nl; Halvor Aschjem - Norwegian Church Aid.
SELECTED INTERNET SITES:	http://www.halcyon.com/pub/FWDP/Africa/tuareg.txt (a pro-Tuareg site); http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/2111/Mali.html (non-official Malian site with news, history and good connectivity); http://www.malinet.ml/palabre/presse/les_echos (Bamako newspapers, regularly updated).
ORGANISATIONS:	ACORD, BP 1969, Bamako, Mali, Tel. +223 220 948, Fax +223 228 216; PNUD (UNDP), Bamako, Mali, Tel. +223 - 223 694, Fax +223 225820; Norwegian Church Aid, P.O. Box 4544 Torshov, 0404 Oslo, Norway, Tel. +47 2222 2299, Fax +47 2222 2420, Email nca-oslo@sn.no. Data on the following organisations can be found in the Directory section; Institut International de la Paix et la Securité; Mouvement National des Femmes pour la Paix; Oxfam.

About the author

Bram Posthumus has worked as a freelance journalist since 1990. Before that he was a teacher of English language and literature in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. His work in journalism concentrates mainly on West and southern Africa and on the themes of conflict and post-conflict situations and migration. He has travelled extensively in both regions, visiting among others Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Zambia and Guinea, with Mali, Senegal and Chad planned for the near future. He publishes in a variety of international magazines (African Business, New African, EU-ACP Courier) and other monthlies and weeklies in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and South Africa.