Three Spaniards snatched from an aid convoy, in an unpleasant first for Mauritania. Details remain scarce, but you’ll find an informative post and a useful discussion at the Sahel Blog.

Violent incidents are focusing international attention on criminality in the Sahel, continuing a trend that has gone on since at least 2007.

Yesterday gunmen stopped an aid convoy in Mauritania and kidnapped three Spanish nationals.

The three Spanish nationals, “two men and a woman, were travelling in a car, the last vehicle of a convoy that was heading from Nouadhibou to Nouakchott” when they were attacked on Sunday afternoon, a Spanish diplomat said.

The convoy had earlier delivered aid to Nouadhibou and was transporting donations that they intended to drop off in various towns along the route, the diplomat added.

A Mauritanian security source confirmed the kidnapping, adding the kidnappers fired several shots to force the vehicle to stop and then took the Spaniards away in a 4×4 vehicle.

A spokesman for the Spanish humanitarian group Barcelona-Accio Solidaria confirmed the three were members of their association and named them as Albert Vilalta, Alicia Gamez and Roque Pascual.

“The found all the supplies only the people were gone,” said the spokesman, adding “we don’t know anything more, if they were bandits or had any political motives.”

A Spanish humanitarian worker based in Mauritania, Montse Bosch, was able to speak by telephone with some of the other members of the aid convoy following the kidnapping.

“A group of armed men stopped and then took them, leaving their vehicle in place and without touching any of the supplies, luggage or money contained in the car,” she said.

Bosch said Barcelona-Accio Solidaria is part of the Caravana Solidaria, or Solidarity Caravan, which distributes aid in Mauritania and other African countries in the region.

The attack took place near the town of Chelkhett Legtouta, 170 kilometres (106 miles) north of Nouakchott, according to the Mauritanian security source.

Reuters adds some political context, saying the incident “will heighten security fears in the West African desert republic where al Qaeda-linked gunmen operate.”

The Mauritanian Sahara

Killings in Trarza on Saturday appeared unrelated to the kidnapping of the Spaniards, but observers are wondering about connections between the incident in Mauritania and the seizure of a French national in Menaka, Mali last Thursday. Over the weekend, a Malian official confirmed that AQIM is holding the victim, Pierre Camatte, after using “intermediaries” to abduct and transfer him.

These incidents will have an immediate and negative effect on aid delivery in Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. France has issued warnings to French citizens resident in Mali, asking them to head back to Bamako. Commenter Wyndham Carter writes, “Our son has just had his Peace Corps service in Niger terminated because of these concerns about AQIM” and that “with the withdrawal of Peace Corps, these people are really left with no economic development support to improve their lives.” If foreign governments and aid agencies perceive a pattern of violence and terrorism in the Sahel, the region could see more military attention – and less humanitarian activity on the ground.

I’ve said this before, but essential for an understanding of what’s going on is the question of AQIM’s coherence. On the one hand, we could argue that AQIM are cold-bloodedly masterminding terrorist attacks from the Atlantic Ocean to the heart of the Malian Sahara. On the other hand, we could argue that AQIM is a loose organization that exploits its relationships with freelance criminals to enhance its political reputation (and income). Or we could argue something in between. The point is, the policy response that Sahelian governments and outside actors adopt with regard to these kidnappings will depend heavily on the way they view AQIM. That’s why it’s essential to work carefully to understand the group and its assorted alliances.

Poor farmers in Niger, Chad and northeastern Mali will likely need food aid until the early harvests of August…. From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: farm. The blog is also related to: farm.

Poor farmers in Niger, Chad and northeastern Mali will likely need food aid until the early harvests of August…. From VOA. Full story

This site may contain information about: food. The blog is also related to: food.

US foreign policy in Africa IS military policy. The US State Department is starved for money. The Pentagon’s gargantuan budget is still largely unquestioned and treated politically as free money. Major portions of the State Department budget are allocated for military activity and support instead of traditional diplomacy. This picture illustrates the institutional problem US policy has created, and that it faces.

BAMAKO, Mali - U.S. Army Master Sergeant Robert Price stands with Malian soldiers he helped train as he is congratulated by Malian Minister of Defense Natie Pleah during a Counter Terrorism Train and Equip (CTTE) transfer of equipment ceremony in Bamako, October 20, 2009. Price, a logistics NCO with Special Operations Command Africa's Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara, supervised maintenance and supply accountability training provided to Malian soldiers for tactical vehicles and communications equipment transferred to Malian units. Under the U.S. State Department's Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Program (TSCTP), U.S. Africa Command's Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans Sahara (OEF-TS) Counter Terrorism Train and Equip initiative provided 37 brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser pickup trucks and high-tech communications equipment that will allow Malian military units to move, transport and communicate across vast expanses of open desert in the northern region of the country. In addition, replacement parts, clothing, individual equipment and other supplies will be provided in the next few weeks as part of a U.S. government capacity-building equipment transfer totaling more than $5 million. The CTTE program is designed to develop stronger military-to-military relationships while underscoring U.S. support for partner nation sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. (Photo by Max R. Blumenfeld, JSOTF-TS PAO)

State Department money and contracts are paying for the equipment and the training described in this picture. The only significant budget the State Department has, particularly regarding African affairs is money that is spent on military supplies and activities, and therefore supplements the Pentagon’s already bloated military budget. In these circumstances the only possible product of US foreign policy is increased militarism.

Vijay Prashad recently published an article at Pambazuka that describes the ongoing effect of US policy on Mali:
Counterterrorism’s blindness: Mali and the US

Describing the military expenditure pictured above:

[T]he US government will provide US$5 million in trucks and military equipment to Mali. The aim of this donation is to help the Malian military fight the group known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Last December, AQIM kidnapped two Canadian diplomats, who were released after four months. This is what they do these days: kidnap, extort, run guns and drugs. Islam is a veneer.
…
The association with al-Qaeda is a propaganda coup … AQIM is a small shop with a large sign, paying its franchise dues without increasing its own business. But since AQIM operates on the border between Algeria and Mali, and does some of its business in Mali, the US government decided to help fortify Mali’s military. US$5 million is not much money for the US, but for a country with total revenues of US1.5 billion, with a military budget of about US$70 million per year, this small disbursement is considerable. And it is set to increase – keep an eye on that.

…

Through the TSCTP, the US government wanted not only to fight the Islamists on the battlefield, but also take on their extremist ideology. To this end, USAID got some funds to help revise textbooks, pay for schools that teach a ‘tolerant ideology’ and run rural radio stations ‘by broadcasting moderate views and providing information on government services’. The money for these non-military functions was available in 2005 and 2007, but not in 2006. Because of this fluctuation, according to the General Accounting Office of the US government, ‘the mission suspended its peace-building program in northern Mali‘.

All attention was focused on the military aspect, although even here there is some uneasiness. The US Embassy in Bamako was quick to point out that the US$5 million for trucks and other military hardware comes not from the US military, but from the US State Department.

The fact that this money comes from the State Department is not a mitigating factor. It only makes the situation worse. The principal US institution that should be working for peace and democracy, that should be working to strengthen civilian institutions, becomes just another tool to subsidize military activity and war.

Although, the State Department is not the only one involved; from April to June this year, 300 US Special Forces ‘advisers’ trained the Malian military at three of its bases. These Sahelian initiatives are now run through AFRICOM, the US African Command, set up in October 2007. It operates a programme called ‘Joint Task Force Aztec Silence’. … The ’silence’ after Aztec is chilling.

The insurgents in northern Mali are various. The longest tension is between the Malian government and the ‘Tuareg rebels’.

Prashad goes on to describe the tensions between Mali’s government and the Tuareg over the years. And as Keenan points out, quoted below, in 2006 US Special Forces worked with the Tuareg and the Algerians to destabilize Mali. Now in 2009 the US is backing Mali’s current government.

Prashad provides a summary history of Mali since independence. It came out of colonial rule almost completely dependent on cotton.

… a popular government led by the charismatic Modibo Kéita came to power. But the country was dependent on one crop (cotton) for more than half its GDP (gross domestic product), it had little processing and industry and almost no sources of energy. … Further, the cotton subsidy regime in both Europe and the United States strikes at the heart of Mali’s attempt to grow its already dismal economy.

Prashad recounts the changes in Mali’s leadership, and that immediately following Kéita, Mali came under military government:

Traoré had none of Kéita’s imagination, and none of the socialist movement’s patience with the devolution of power. When things turned bad, he went to Washington. The World Bank welcomed him in 1981, and Mali became the test case for its ’structural adjustment’ policies.

…

In 1995, Howard French reported from Bamako for The New York Times, ‘Diplomats also speak of this large landlocked country as a bulwark against the spread of Islamic militancy from its northern neighbor, Algeria. Already Mali faces a destabilizing conflict involving Tuareg tribesmen in the north, but any settlement has been thwarted by a lack of resources. At the same time, Mali’s debt burden, contracted under years of dictatorship, consumes so much of the country’s revenues that there is little left for development needs.’ The point was clearly made. No one listened.

…

Washington’s counterterrorism spectacles see only al-Qaeda. The debt burden and the impossibility of governance are not on the agenda. Whether the State Department or the Defense Department give arms to the Malian military says more about anxiety in the US than about the dynamic in Mali. Once more the US will strengthen the military against civil society, and once more we might see Mali fall the way of Guinea and others in the region that were set up to become dictatorships.

I have quoted from Demystifying Africa’s Security by Jeremy Keenan before, but he makes a number of points that are particularly relevant to Mali:

Beginning in early 2003, the US, in collusion with Algeria, its key regional ally in the GWOT, fabricated a string of false flag ‘terrorism’ incidents in the Algerian Sahara and across much of the Sahel (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad) in order to justify the launch of a new or ‘second’ African front in the GWOT.

…

US presence sought to resolve conflicts in Africa by brute military intervention. Post-2006 interventions by US troops in the Sahara-Sahel have been widely documented(Keenan, 2006d, 2008b, 2009b). In May 2006, for example, US Special Forces, flown secretly from Stuttgart to Tamanrasset, accompanied Algeria’s secret military services into northern Mali to give support to the Algerian-orchestrated Tuareg rebellion designed to destabilise northern Mali. In February 2008, US Special Forces (possibly contractors – PMCs) accompanied Malian troops on a vindictive raid on a desert town in the same area, at the same time as AFRICOM’s commander, General William ‘Kip’ Ward and US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, Theresa Whelan, were promoting AFRICOM at a RUSI meeting in London and at which Ms Whelan denied the presence of US ‘troops’ in northern Mali.

…

Since 2005-6, justification for the US’s militarisation of the continent has shifted from the GWOT and straightforward counterterrorism to the more humanitarian security-development discourse. The fundamental question with regard to AFRICOM is whether its website news headlines and its ‘peace and development’ oriented mission statements really do reflect a paradigm shift in US military thinking, or whether they are merely good PR, a further twist in Washington’s ‘information war’: a deceptive mystification process that enables AFRICOM to be portrayed as more benign than it really is. The answer is found on the ground – in Africa. Whether couched in the language of the GWOT or the security-development discourse, local-regional outbreaks of civil unrest and rebellion (‘incursions’) by minority-cum-opposition groups, frequently provoked by local US supported politico-military elites, continue to help legitimise the US military presence in Africa and are being dealt with by military means. Far from bringing ‘peace and security’ to Africa, AFRICOM is directly instrumental in creating conflict and insecurity.

…

Does AFRICOM have any prospect of bringing peace, security and development to Africa? While AFRICOM’s commanders have been preaching ‘security and development’, their operations on the ground have so far created insecurity and undermined democratic expressions of civil society.

…

… many [African regimes] are now using the pretext of the GWOT to repress legitimate opposition by linking it with ‘terrorism’

A Newsweek piece on terrorism in the Sahel by Scott Johnson provoked a strong response from Kal, who writes that while Johnson makes some fair points his article lacks vital historical, geographical, and political context. I have to confess that the piece does not evoke a strong feeling from me. Nonetheless, the debate Johnson has occasioned is more interesting than the piece itself, and both Kal and commenter Tommy Miles have given me a lot to think about.

Specifically, the debate raises the question of how seriously we should take AQIM. Kal does not advocate the “overreach and aggressiveness” of 2003, but he argues that Johnson dismisses AQIM too quickly:

Simply because the region has yet to be broadly receptive to extremist ideology does not mean that it cannot be [...]

The ability of AQIM militants to break out of prison in 2008, to carry out a suicide bombing not far from the presidential palace this year, and to carry on with recruiting young men even now speaks to the fact that the radicalizing mechanism does exist. The Salafist presence in the Sahel is growing, its social and political views are shaped more by the internationalizing trends in Islamism elsewhere than in local traditions. One can observe this in both Mauritania and Mali. Fifteen years ago, the influence of Salafism or politicized religious people either country was not readily apparent. Changes are happening, quickly. “My Friend Who Disappeared,” a film in which a young Mauritanian explores the fate of a childhood friend who disappeared after joining AQIM, won first place at the Nouakchott Film Festival this year. Clearly, the Mauritanians see the group as a threat, both at the official level where it is a political tool and at the popular level where it is a genuine cause of concern for public stability.

The bigger point is that it does not take broad social approval to launch a destabilizing campaign in a place like the Sahel. What Johnson leaves out, curiously, is the fragility of local governments and the importance of tribalism in the area. In no fewer than three Sahel countries, Mauritania, Niger and Guinea, there have been important and disappointing disruptions of constitutional government in the last ten years. Mauritania has seen two coups, the second resulting in a political process of dubious legitimacy tolerated by international actors and many in the political establishment, causing growing popular disillusionment with western wisecracks about supporting democratic government in the region. In Niger, President Tandja shoved through an extension of his presidential term, amid widespread opposition. In Guinea a military coup, led by an artless and shameless captain, recently mowed down protesters, deeply impacting the way many in the region see the fate of resistance. Recent floods have shown that the national infrastructure in the region is especially vulnerable in urban areas. As the political processes in the region turns sour, closing off peaceful outlets for political expression, closing off peaceful outlets for political expression, the likelihood that political order may be put in jeopardy increases.

Contrast this point – and I am not trying to start a flame-war between two people I respect, but rather to advance an important debate – made by Tommy Miles here. Tommy writes that AQIM militants don’t have an

ice cube’s chance in hell of being successful amongst the communities to the south of the Sahara [...]

The fact is, AQIM militants are hiding out in Mali cause the area is not policed, is near areas they have actual political interest in, provides them with a great money making business, and because they likely have family connections to some communities of Arab speakers who make up really miniscule percentages of the population of Mali and Niger.

Sure, Niger is poor (as an aside, this poverty is mostly rural/seasonal, not a disappointed class of urban shanty town dwellers), and several ethnic groups are “restive.” But why in god’s name would that make them embrace Saudi (or even Algerian) conceptions of radicalism in any great numbers? [...]

People in Kita, Kayes, Tillaberi or Tahoua have their own ways to be “restive”, and they really are unlikely to copy wholesale some imported ideology, especially from a culture with which they have comparatively little contact. How many young Malians look to some Egyptian or Algerian cleric for ideological guidance? I see no evidence that these groups are any stronger in Niamey and Bamako than they were in the early 1990s. In fact, my guess is that they are weaker. Saudi mosque/school construction campaigns are now viewed with more skeptical eyes, as are their versions on Islam. Maybe in the 1980s young men in Bamako might have been surprised to learn the land of the prophet had a very different religious culture from the local marabouts, and been dazzled by their oil wealth. But folks in Bamako get the same satellite TV as other places, and they are well aware that the “purity” of the Islamist ideology is neither more pure than their own traditions, or has brought them a much better life. Do disaffected educated young men in these cities really look to Algeria or Afghanistan and say “that’s our way forward”?

Of course, Kal’s and Tommy’s points are not irreconcilable. AQIM could certainly pose a growing challenge to the regime in Mauritania, but I would also be surprised to read of a suicide bombing in Bamako. If much of AQIM’s core group of fighters and political impetus still comes out of the fallout from the Algerian civil war, it is plausible that their political appeal diminishes the further from Algeria one gets – unless they can tap into strong local political grievances as perhaps they have in Mauritania. That still leaves us with the question of AQIM’s significance (Is it a threat in some parts of the Sahel, but not others? Are political clampdowns inviting greater militancy?), but at least now we’re getting into a discussion that has some of the context Kal has called for.

[UPDATE: I wrote this last night, and Kal has since responded to Tommy here. Kal's suggestion that "that AQIM and other disruptive Islamist tendencies are significantly weaker outside the Arabophone areas of the region" is actually the hypothesis that I was considering earlier this morning.]

Turning to the political import of Johnson’s piece, I think Kal is right to caution us that the desire to intervene massively in the Sahel is not widespread in the US government. On the other hand, I do get concerned by occasional (and generally vague) calls by elites for the US to “do something” in Somalia or elsewhere in Africa. To the extent that Johnson can convince any elites silently hoping for a massive US military presence in West Africa that this is neither necessary nor desirable, I think his piece can play a positive role in the debate.

Texas in Africa looks at piracy in Somalia and argues that “the reason the response to the pirates has largely been effective is that piracy isn’t really the problem here. Young Somali men only become pirates because they don’t have other employment options.”

William Easterly and Laura Freschi ask whether Ethiopia is having a famine.

As often is the case, there are two forces pulling in opposite directions that make it hard to answer the question.

On the one hand, the authoritarian government wants to cover up any famine to mute criticism of its performance.  Ethiopia is due for elections next year, and the government is determined not to go the way of previous regimes toppled in part because of anger at famines in the 1970s and 1990s. The government’s solution? Prohibit journalists from entering the worst-off areas, and fight tooth and nail with aid agencies to repress or delay information on humanitarian needs.

Complicating the situation further is that the government army is operating against insurgents in the suspected famine areas in the South and cites security reasons for not allowing outsiders to enter, so nobody really knows what is happening there.

On the other hand, NGOs have a well known tendency to cry wolf and exaggerate—to see famine where there is no famine—perhaps in order to raise more money for their own organization (I am echoing here fierce accusations of exactly this from Ethiopians I talked to during my visit who were NOT allied with the government).

Reuters writes that the population of Africans in China hovers around a quarter of a million.

FP Passport flags an interview highlighting the SPLM’s views on Scott Gration. The same blog examines dynamics of aid and violence in Chad.

And finally, Kal critiques a recent Newsweek piece on terrorism in the Sahel. Definitely worth a read.

What are you reading today?

C’est à l’occasion des premières Assises de la Solidarité Internationale organisées par la Région Bretagne à Lorient en juin 2005 que j’ai rencontré Bihim Attayoub, maire d’Akoubounou. Cette commune se trouve dans le nord Niger, une région qui s’appelle l’Azawagh. J’avais alors le projet de passer plusieurs mois en Afrique (où je suis née) pour faire du bénévolat, en particulier de l’alphabétisation.

Mon projet a intéressé Bihim et en octobre 2005 je suis partie avec ma Peugeot 205 jusqu’au Niger en passant par la Mauritanie, le Mali, le Burkina Faso. J’ai séjourné 6 semaines à Akoubounou où j’ai appris à des femmes à lire et écrire. J’étais accompagnée par Madel, une très belle jeune femme touareg, et son bébé de 6 mois… qui traduisait mes propos en tamasheq. Grâce à un petit manuel fourni par Bihim j’ai pu travailler dans cette langue.

Des liens d’amitié se sont noués. En décembre 2006 l’association Les Amis de l’Azawagh a été créée, dont j’ai été jusqu’à récemment l’antenne Bretagne. Pour plus de souplesse l’association bretonne Azawagh Bretagne a été créée en novembre 2009 et basée à Pont-Scorff. Elle sera présente à tous les niveaux: local, départemental et régional. J’en suis la présidente.       

 Maryvonne Lancien              

Une précision: ces photos montrent des jeunes femmes parées pour la grande fête de l’année, donnant une impression de richesse. Mais la réalité est toute autre car la région a subi des famines (la dernière en 2005) et ces populations ont une vie très dure, dans une région qui semble avoir été oubliée par les pouvoirs publics. Mais tout ceci sera dans d’autres articles qui essaieront de vous faire connaître cette région et de vous y intéresser. Ce choix de photos correspond à un des buts essentiels de Bihim Attayoub: tout faire pour que continue à vivre une culture dont il est fier et qui est menacée de différentes manières.

Nos enteramos por el blog desertification del Prof. Willem Van Cottem (en el blogroll) de la edición del libro en inglés Millions fed de IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute http://www.ifpri.org/publication/millions-fed), que trata 20 casos exitosos de producción de alimentos en diferentes lugares. Puede ser descargado completo o por capítulos. Me parece interesante el capítulo sobre la regeneración en el Sahel por medio de pozos para retener el suelo y la materia orgánica, captar el agua y la utilización de árboles para mejorar las condiciones para la agricultura. Algunas de las técnicas  pueden ser aplicadas en nuestra región. El capítulo Re-Greening the Sahel (Reverdeciendo el Sahel) pueden bajarlo aquí:

The Sahel Blog has a post up about slavery in Mauritania, a major but neglected human rights issue in the West Africa and Sahel region, where millions of people are still subject to various forms of hereditary social discrimination, ranging from outsider status to outright slavery. While there is a black/white element to it in some areas, one shouldn’t confuse this with US traditions of skin-color based labor slavery among captured peoples. It’s more an outgrowth of traditional tribal culture, local adaptions of ancient Islamic rulings on slavery, and hereditary social stratification in nomad communities, and it has existed in various forms as a fact of life for hundreds of years. It’s quite repugnant nonetheless, of course, but understanding the context is important to realizing how deeply-rooted and hard to destroy these notions are.

Also, it’s not only among the Moors of Mauritania. The caste-like traditions that underpin these practices also apply to varying degrees to the closely related Sahrawi and other communities in Western Sahara, Morocco and Algeria (including among the Tindouf refugees, as this report from Human Rights Watch makes clear) as well as among non-Moorish, non-Arab Touareg communities in the wider Sahara, and also among several African peoples in Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, etc. This is not to mention how traditional practices sometimes mix with modern slavery practices, tied to labor exploitation, warlordism, and such phenomena.

Dodici Paesi africani vogliono piantare una “Grande muraglia verde” su 7.000 chilometri di lunghezza e 15 chilometri di larghezza, Dakar a Gibuti, per arginare le progressione dei deserti del Sahel e del Sahara.

L’iniziativa, promossa dall’Unione africana, vuole essere una risposta dell’Africa alle sfide climatiche e alle conseguenze della desertificazione. La Grande muraglia verde sarà una cintura di alberi di diverse specie che collegherà Dakar, in Senegal (ovest) e Gibuti, nel Golfo di Aden (est).

Ogni Paese dovrà delimitare una fascia di circa quindici chilometri nella zona del Sahel (subito a sud del Sahara) in una regione in cui le precipitazioni piovose siano comprese tra 100 e 400 millimetri l’anno. L’andamento della striscia sarà piuttosto lineare anche se in alcuni punti dovrà ovviamente aggirare degli ostacoli come montagne, corsi d’acqua e centri abitati.

Il progetto, denominato Gmv ha come obiettivi globali quelli di contribuire alla lotta contro l’avanzamento del deserto, di valorizzare le zone degradate del Sahel in vista di una gestione sostenibile delle risorse e di lottare contro la povertà.

Fonte: Informazioneambiente
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photo by Borut Sraj

One of the scariest experiences I’ve had in my career was crashing into a frigid glacial lake in the former Yugoslavia while on assignment for National Geographic.

A twilight moon rises above the Kamniske mountains and Slovenia’s Sava River Valley,  Slovenia.

I had hired a small, ultra-light, two-seater airplane in to do aerials over Bled Lake in Slovenia. The pilot flew down to the surface of the lake, very, very close — in fact so close that I told him to go up because we were only about five feet from the water.  If I had wanted to be that close I could have hired a boat, but it was too late. The wheels got caught in the water and we couldn’t pull out. We went down and as soon as the fuselage and the propeller hit the water, the propeller blew apart.

Rijeka, Croatia, 1989

We flipped upside down in the 40-degree water in the middle of February and immediately began to sink. The cockpit was not enclosed. The seatbelt was a jerry-rigged homemade device and I hadn’t studied it and couldn’t get it off me.

I realized I was going to die. I guess that part of your brain concerned with self-preservation kicked in, and I slid underneath the contraption, literally went underneath, and was able to swim to the surface. The pilot made it, but didn’t attempt to help me.  My passport and equipment went to the bottom. Fortunately the pilot and I were picked up by a fisherman within ten minutes. Days later the plane was raised but all of my equipment is still 60 feet down.

Picture of me in Lubiana before going to Lake Bled where my plane crashed.

There was another airplane incident in Africa.  Again, I was on assignment photographing the Sahel, that band of land that separates the Sahara Desert from the grasslands of the Savannah.

We got lost flying from Timbuktu in Mali back to the capital of Bamako. We had left in a sandstorm and started flying along the Niger River. I guess the pilot’s navigational instruments weren’t working. He literally could not find his way back to the capital.

Chari River in the Sahel region near N’Djamena, Chad,

I watched him circling and I started to wonder what was going on.   He came back down through the clouds. It was getting dark and there was a huge thunderstorm right in our path.  The pilot dropped the small craft to search for his bearings.

Fuel was getting low, and we could never make it back to Timbuktu.  To the south, an enormous black wall of clouds loomed from the horizon – a monsoon storm.  In vain, for a half an hour we scanned the landscape searching for an opening.  We had no radio contact, and and no navigational equipment.  We prepared our last thoughts.

Finally, the pilot spotted a millet field, agonizingly small, but flat.  As we thundered in, I watched the wheel of the plane miss a six-foot hole by a few steps.

Muddy field, Mali

We shuddered to a stop with a few hard bounces.  Villagers ran out from the surrounding bush in wonderment as the sky opened up.   We slept on the plane that night, and finally found a vehicle to take us back to the capital city of Bamako, fourteen hours of bone-rattling roads.

Niger River, Mali

STEVE MCNAIR WAS A GOODMAN! REST IN PEACE

Steve Mcnair, Adrian Gilliam and Sahel Kazemi: The Good, Bad and Evil‏

Ce vendredi matin, Amélie Marcoux et toute l’équipe de Planète vous entraînent dans leur tour du monde en 60 minutes…

Nos reportages feront le point sur

la situation dans les territoires Palestiniens où les tensions entre Hamas et Fatah reprennent après que l’ONU a décidé de reporter la discussion sur le rapport Goldstone,

la faillite économique de l’ Islande,

et ces scientifiques, qui au Sahel, luttent contre la sécheresse en “créant”  la pluie…

Egalement dans Planète,

deux entrevues en direct d’Egypte et de Madagascar,

une chronique dédiée aux énergies alternatives,

notre coup de coeur pour Les Arbres, une pièce de théâtre jouée sur la scène du Premier Acte jusqu’au 24 octobre,

et un tour au musée de la Civilisation de Québec où s’exposent les 7 péchés capitaux.

Ne manquez pas Planète vendredi sur les ondes de CHYZ 94,3 FM de 8h30 à 9h30.

The Sahel Blog has been posting on the recent peace agreement in Niger’s Touareg conflict:

• Niger: Opposition Boycotts, Tuareg Settlement Goes Forward
• Tuareg Peace Agreement Revisited

Not that they were fighting anyway, but Mali’s rebels are supposedly also involved. And so is Muammar, ambitious as always:

Gaddafi said all Tuaregs living in Niger and Mali, and elsewhere in Sub Sahara African areas, were Libyan but said he wanted them to live in peace where they had settled.

No need to thank him, that’s just the way he is: generous to a fault. But in fact, Qadhafi’s claims of leadership among the Touareg has a long history, and it has caused considerable irritation among some Algerians who fear that he’s trying to spread separatist ideas in the south of their country. However, after one newspaper started reporting on some quite blatant Libyan incitement of Algerian Touareg, it was told in no uncertain terms by Algeira’s judicial authorities to shut up, lest The Guide get mad. That’s soft power for you, Maghreb-style.

Yesterday I wrote about the recent Tuareg peace agreement in the context of Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja’s expanding power. But it’s worth considering the peace process from a few other angles as well. I’m still learning about the Tuareg rebellion, the latest round of which began in 2007, but here are a few unpolished thoughts on the ramifications if the peace holds:

1. Libyan Influence: The peace accords were brokered by Qaddhafi and formally concluded in Sabha, Libya. Qaddhafi has been a key player in the peace process, although past accords have fallen through despite his involvement. He has also, Reuters says, been involved in the conflict in another way – by providing arms and weapons to rebels. Both aspects of his intervention are a reminder, as if anyone needed one, of Qaddhafi’s influence on and importance for politics in the Sahel.
2. Terrorism and Transnational Politics: Last year, Kal argued that AQIM fighters “need the conflict in northern Mali to continue to profit from arms sales to the Tuareg. If the conflicts in the region were settled, a major portion of their income would dry up.” This type of relationship between Tuareg rebels and Al Qaeda causes concern among US policymakers and reminds us that, as in so many countries, problems of instability cross borders – the Tuareg have grievances against the governments of both Mali and Niger, suggesting no single national government can defuse the crisis on its own. If any solution is to work, it will have to be undertaken in the context of partnership among regional governments. That may mean that this peace accord, which has regional support, will succeed, but the history does inspire some pessimism.
3. Resource Conflict: Just as some warn that the Niger Delta amnesty will not hold unless oil resources are distributed more equitably, it seems that the politics of who gets what when in the Sahara, rather than the politics of who signs and says what where, will determine the course of relations between Tuareg groups and Sahelian governments going forward.

If you’d like more information, here’s a BBC Q&A on the conflict from when it began in 2007.

In a televised interview earlier this week, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh made death threats against human rights activists, provoking outcry from the opposition and from international rights and press freedom groups. The BBC follows up on the controversy:

Banjul, The Gambia

An online petition has been launched in protest at the Gambian president’s threat to kill human rights workers[...]

The campaign by a coalition of pressure groups wants the African Union’s human rights commission HQ moved from Gambia[...]

The Open Society, along with the African Court Coalition, is now campaigning to have the offices moved to a different country.

Their aim is to secure as many signatures as possible from non-governmental organisations involved in the work of the AU’s human rights commission before 28 September, when the petition will be forwarded to the African Union.

I don’t know what effect it will have, but the technique and what the petition asks may have an element of novelty and surprise.

In a separate piece, guest writer Umaru Fofana skewers Gambia’s political elite, turning as much heat on the disorganization and “petty squabbles” of the opposition as he does on the president. It seems I hear that sentiment fairly often now among African essayists who write in the Western press – a distaste for their countries’ leaders, but an equal distaste for their opponents.

Via Ibn Kafka, I read this article on Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s threats against human rights activists (French) – and, by extension, against the journalists to whose treatment the activists object.

My (shoddy) translation from the French:

“Those who want to collaborate with these alleged defenders of human rights and imagine they will be defended by them are mistaken. If you want to destabilize the country, sow trouble, and make my people suffer, I will make sure that you’ll be dead,” the president declared [in a television interview].”

[...] Many organizations for defending human rights and the press in the world regularly denounce the repression exercised in Banjul against independent media. Private media work in a “very menacing climate,” according to Reporters without Borders, since the assassination of a journalist in 2004 and the disappearance of another in 2004.

For its part, the Gambian opposition condemned the president’s threats, though at least one Gambian journalist suggested the opposition had more work to do in presenting a clear alternative to the regime and its language.

More on Gambian journalists at CPJ.

El-Sharq el-Awsat reports that Mokhtar Belmokhtar, al-Qaida’s infamous emir of the Sahara, is about to enter into a peace treaty with the government, following a well-publicized call for peace by Hassan Hattab, the GSPC’s estranged founder. According to the report, based on “an Algerian security source”, Belmokhtar has moved with two aides to a designated place of “hudna” (ceasefire)  in anticipation of his negotiated surrender. Earlier, it says, he had been sheltered by Berabiche (a Moorish tribe, not Touaregs, as the article states) in northern Mali. Mediation allegedly took place through his brother, and now that he’s in place in a designated no-war-zone, he’s supposed to surrender to the Algerian army within days.

If true, that would be a major coup for the Algerians, and a painful blow for AQIM — not just the Saharan wing, but also the northern main branch, since it is supplied with money from down south. Belmokhtar was not only the man to construct AQIM’s semi-independent southern wing, he also established contacts (possibly parallel to those of the main leadership) with al-Qaida central from a very early date. Through the years, he emerged as a major smuggler baron (cigarrettes, guns, cars) with jihadism more or less relegated to a sideshow, but that didn’t lessen the importance of his illicit trade networks financing the rebels up north.

Now, this has been reported wrongly so many times — rumors, psychological warfare, etc — that I’m hesitant to put any confidence at all in it, especially given the source. Actually, I’m going to assume it’s false. However, the constant reports about Belmokhtar negotiating a retreat (they’ve been reappearing for years) does remind one of the similar reports about Hattab, which eventually turned out to be true,  suggesting the faulty reports themselves were perhaps part of the negotiations game. These last few years, other commanders have been stealing the spotlight in AQIM’s southern zone, eg. in the recent kidnappings, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that it’s true that he’s more or less retired from active-duty leadership — but from there to reconciling with the state, it’s still a big step. Possibly, whether true, mistaken or deliberately false, it has something to do with the much-talked-about multi-state chase for AQIM/Sahara.