This article is the second in a series of articles addressing the issues occurring in the Sahel region of Africa. This region stretches across northwestern Africa, south of the Sahara. Here, the declining influence of the Western colonial powers can be seen.
On the night of March 31 to April 1, the Algerian military shot down a Turkish-made Akinci combat drone belonging to Mali, near the Algerian border town of Tin Zaouatine.
Algerian rulers claimed that radar data from its Ministry of Defense “clearly establish the violation of Algerian airspace” by a reconnaissance drone from Mali, “over a distance of 1.6 km.”
On the contrary, the Malian government stated that their drone was shot down within Malian territory because the drone wreckage was found in Mali, 9.5 kilometres south of the border with Algeria.
Immediately, statements and counter statements between Algeria and Mali authorities and even the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) followed.
Mali’s interim prime minister, Abdoulaye Maïga, stated that the incident proves “that the Algerian regime sponsors international terrorism.”
An AES statement said that the Algerian action “prevented the neutralization of a terrorist group that was planning terrorist acts against the AES.”
The Malian Foreign Minister “accused Algeria of an irresponsible act.”
On Monday, April 7, the AES governments withdrew their respective ambassadors from Algiers, while the latter banned all flights from and to Mali.
The Malian government believes that Algeria’s rulers are friendly to the jihadists and Touareg forces, who are fighting the Malian Army Forces (FAMA), particularly in the border region between Algeria and Mali.
In January 2024, the Malian government ended the Algiers Peace Agreement signed in 2015 to end the war between the Malian government and the Tuareg/jihadist movements, which is a blow to Algeria, as the driving force of such initiative.
Algeria considers itself a regional or middle power and believes that everything must revolve around Algeria. It also considers Mali, particularly the Northern part of Mali, as its backyard, where nothing should happen without the approval and intervention of the Algerian government.
Algeria opposed a military solution in Mali
Algeria is opposed to a military solution in the conflict between the Tuareg/jihadists separatists and the Malian government.
They argued that this will have a negative impact on the Tuareg/Berber population in Algeria and across the region. Berber populations are not only in Algeria, but are also found in Niger, Mali, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco and Burkina Faso.
An autonomous or independent Tuareg community anywhere in the Sahel will resonate in all countries with similar populations. The Algerian government, with its Berber population, does not want to see such a scenario.
The Malian government believes that a military solution is the only way forward. That’s why in January 2024, they withdrew from the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement.
It is clear that the Malian authorities’ notion of sovereignty means the exclusion of the influences of France, Algeria and the UN forces known as the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), whose mission ended in December 2023.
For its defense, Mali relies on military partnership with Russia and the alliance of Sahel states itself.
Advancing African unity in the region is paramount
One Africa! One Nation! Africa for those at home and those abroad!
All these slogans announce and anticipate the geostrategy and geopolitics of Africa that is the power of political economy and politics of a united Africa and African people everywhere.
Because of all colonial divisions and fragmentations, we are sometimes reduced to defending our individual “national interests” against each other instead of uniting our strengths to quash forever the global colonial mode of production which denies us the existence of a united African political economy which will eradicate the divisions that are emerging between Mali and Algeria.
The interests of AES, Algeria and Morocco are in the unity of Africa, particularly in this period of irreversible crisis of U.S. and European imperialist nations.
Every foreign power is talking about its geostrategic and geopolitical interests in Africa. What about Africa’s geostrategic and geopolitical interests?
One of the reasons that made the French repression of the Algerian national liberation struggle so bitter, vicious and savage, was the question of resources discovered there in the Sahara desert, which made Charles De Gaulle speak of France potentially finding a “new destiny” in the Sahara due to the oil reserves discovered there.
The Sahel region underground holds vast oil, gas and other resources that Charles de Gaulle wanted to keep for France at all costs.
The crisis between Algeria and Mali has to be seen also in the context of the rivalry between Algeria and Morocco, which both have regional power ambitions.
Algeria versus Morocco in the Sahel
The conflict for the control of Western Sahara, an ex-Spanish colony, has led to antagonism between these two countries, and anyone who supports one of them gets immediate disapproval from the other.
Morocco is working hard to have a connection with the AES, which is landlocked, by offering them the Atlantic Initiative, which will give the AES access to the Atlantic Ocean through Morocco.
Currently, AES relies on hostile ECOWAS countries (Economic Community of West African States) to access the sea. Accepting Morocco’s offer would mean accepting Morocco’s ownership and control of the Western Sahara territory, the only way to reach the Atlantic since Morocco does not have any land border with members of the AES. This will not be acceptable to Algeria.
In December 2024, Niger’s government officially inaugurated a 20 megawatt (22.5 megavolt) diesel power plant donated by Morocco and named after King Mohammed VI, the current leader of Morocco.
There is also the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline, which aims to connect West African energy resources to Europe via Morocco or Algeria. Niger is key to the realization of this project.
Would Niger go with Algeria or Morocco? Would Niger put the interests of AES above its own.
Ultimately, these maneuvers by these individual colonially-created African states don’t serve African people, neither within those states or across the continent.
We must have a united Africa under the leadership of the African workers and poor peasantry if Africa is to have a future in its own hands.
