11/17/15 – Jeremy Keenan – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, guys.
Welcome back to the show.
Now on to our first guest today.
It's Jeremy Keenan.
And very importantly, he writes for Middle East Eye.
He's a professorial research associate at the School of Oriental and Africa Studies at the University of London.
He's written many books, including The Dark Sahara and The Dying Sahara.
And he's a consultant to the UN and the European Commission, etc.like that.
His most recent article at Middle East Eye is called Mali, a peace deal to promote conflict.
Welcome back to the show, Jeremy.
How are you doing?
Hello, Scott.
Very good.
I was going to say good evening, but it's actually good morning with you.
Is it not?
Yeah, it'll be lunchtime here in about half an hour.
Wonderful.
I'm on Texas time.
But yeah, good evening to you, sir.
Yeah, very good to have you back on the show.
And I'm kind of kicking myself that we haven't been keeping up all this time.
You know, when I go back through your archives here and look at, you know, this obviously extensive knowledge that you have of Mali, the conflict in the background and everything.
So I guess before we get to the peace deal, let's talk a little bit about the war deal starting 2011 or before that.
Sorry, which deal?
The war deal.
What happened?
What, you know, what happened that started the most recent conflict?
And then we can get to what's so bad about the peace agreement.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, one can take the start of the conflict back and back and back in history.
But I suppose the best time to start is really with the fall of Gaddafi.
With the fall of Gaddafi or the overthrow of Gaddafi, a lot of Turek who had gone up into Libya looking for work, some of them as mercenaries, but most of them just emigrating out of the Sahel region.
That's out of Mali and out of Niger because of drought, lack of employment, lack of money.
So they'd gone up to Libya and a lot of them came back.
We're talking about maybe, certainly many, many hundreds, possibly two or three thousand, that sort of number.
So they came back into Niger and into Mali.
Those in Niger, the problem of coming back home was sort of resolved.
But in Mali, it wasn't.
There had been a rebellion, a Turek rebellion against the government, both in Niger and in Mali, running through about 2008, 2009, 2010.
And it had never really been resolved, but it had sort of died down through exhaustion more than anything else.
But these guys came back.
They came back with a lot of arms.
They were very angry.
They were angry with everybody, with the West for overthrowing Gaddafi.
With everybody, because of their circumstance.
And when they got back into Mali, the Mali government, which is down in Bamako, which is a good sort of thousand miles away from the northern part of Mali, where the Turek come from, they paid very little attention to them.
They paid very little attention to their grievances and that really sparked off a renovation, if you like, of the rebellion.
So this is at the end of 2011, October, November, December.
And by January 2012, they had taken up arms and very quickly they had overrun northern Mali.
But also very quickly, their movement, this is the Turek rebel movement, had been hijacked by a so-called Islamist movement or groups of Islamists, which were in fact being supported and supplied by Algeria from the north, which has never been made very public.
Largely to weaken the Turek movement, because that was a threat to Algeria as well.
So we get an awful mess developing in northern Mali and by the middle of 2012, the whole of northern Mali is effectively in the hands of jihadists, that's Islamist jihadists, rather than the Turek rebels who had been almost sidelined.
And that sort of reaches a stalemate.
But then by the end of 2012, the Islamists start to break out further south, threatening towards the capital.
And with the UN and other parties sort of really faffing around, not really knowing what to do, France decides to move in with a military intervention.
This is January now, 2013.
They very quickly pushed the Islamists back up into the north, killed off several hundred, but certainly didn't overcome the problem.
In fact, the security situation isn't much better now than it was then.
That really led on to the whole question of some sort of peace agreement, which has been going on really since then.
But two or three months ago, starting in May, then again in June, June, July, an agreement, a peace agreement of sorts was signed by most of the parties.
I say that very reluctantly because if you took it to an international court, it probably wouldn't stand up for very long, largely because the amount of sort of coercion on some of the parties, most of the Turek claim they had no say in the peace treaty at all.
There's some truth in that.
So it was a bit of a coerced peace agreement, if you like, and that didn't really last for very long.
More fighting continued.
This is now through August, September, October, really up to about a month ago.
Now between really a very complex ethnic mix, but to put it a bit simply, two different Turek groups.
So you're now getting fighting between the populations in the northern regions, two Turek, I won't call them tribes, that's a bit simplistic, but two Turek classes, if you like, traditionally a more superior, a lower class in a sort of African traditional culture.
They start fighting, one sort of being supported by the government, the one against the government.
That got very, very messy.
So we're getting a continuation of fighting, but almost, you know, you could imagine the groups involved in the fighting sort of, you know, changing, if you like, as time moves on.
In short, there's been really, since 2011 and before that, three years of rebellion.
But since the overthrow of Gaddafi, we get this renewed rebellion in the north, taking on this very complex mix, first of all, with the Islamists coming in, then an internal divisions between the fighters themselves.
And that takes us up to pretty well where we are now.
And at this particular moment, probably over the last two or three weeks, four weeks, maybe the most optimistic signs out of a very pessimistic situation are just beginning to emerge.
So right now, we might just be sort of looking at a slightly better scenario, but from a very wretched base, if you like.
And then, and which are those, those latest developments?
Well, I suppose there's been an agreement, which was reached with the intervention of UN peacekeepers, various other international bodies, about a month ago, between these two, I call them Tuareg factions, Tuareg groups who were fighting.
One group was being backed by the government and a lot of other fairly nasty militia.
So it's a pretty, pretty nasty bunch.
They were fighting predominantly the old Tuareg rebels, without getting more complex.
So if you like, two Tuareg groups, and that fighting got pretty nasty.
It came to an end about a month ago, roughly, frankly, more as a result of exhaustion.
And this is quite an interesting scenario.
If you go back over...
Actually, hold it right there, Jeremy.
We got to take this break now.
And then when we get back, we'll hear about the peace deal, what could be in it.
What should be in it.
And what sounds like some optimistic signs, even if, you know, for kind of negative reasons, as you said, they just killed each other out and are tired now.
But anyway, everybody hang tight.
We'll be right back with Jeremy Keenan.
I've been saying Keegan this whole time too, I think.
I'm so sorry.
Jeremy Keenan from Middle East Eye.
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All right, you guys welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Jeremy again.
I'm sorry if I've been saying Keegan.
There's another guest.
I've been interviewing lately named Keegan and it's Keenan everyone.
K-E-E-N-A-N.
Keenan.
Jeremy Keenan at Middle East Eye.
And we're talking about the war in Mali.
And so it's this funny shaped country, right?
Where this gigantic Texas sized north of the country, which is populated mostly by the Tuaregs, is dominated by, I guess, if we go way back in history, the French supported minority or I don't know the numbers, but the French supported smaller land area in the south where the people who have had the power this time, I guess under the French, are blacks from a different ethnicity and a different culture and background than the people that they've ruled in the north.
So Jeremy was telling the story of how after the Libya War, a lot of the Tuaregs came home to northern Mali after being on the losing Qaddafi side and they had a bunch of guns and started saying, hey, you know, autonomy is one thing, but independence is better.
And then how Algeria sent the jihadists, many of them came from Libya, obviously, to come and sideline, as Jeremy said, the Tuaregs and take the war all the way down to the south, at which point the French finally intervened and went and backed up the government in the south and kicked the invading jihadists out and back up to the north and all that.
Now, one of the things I wanted to go over here with you was how before the French intervene, I guess it would have been in the fall of 2012, Hillary Clinton took a trip to Algeria to ask them to do something about the jihadists in northern Mali that you're telling me the Algerians, you know, that the Algerians were actually in cahoots with at the time.
So I'm just wondering, I mean, this is the same Hillary Clinton who was in cahoots with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya.
So who knows, but do you think she was just being deceived there or she just had no idea what the hell was going on with this war at the time?
Well, I don't want to get involved in Hillary's problems or not.
Well, I mean, if you remember that visit, I mean, did that seem confusing to you?
Like, what is she doing?
You just reminded me of it.
The point here is that whether Hillary knew about this or not, I have absolutely no idea.
But the point is that the Algerian Secret Service did work very closely with the American intelligence services, extremely closely, and they have done all through the so-called War on Terror.
And the Algerian Secret Services, which was known by American intelligence, were supporting many of these Islamist groups.
I can't really say much more than that because that pretty well sums it up.
Whether Hillary knew that or not, I don't know.
Well, then are you saying that you're saying that you assume it's the case then or it seems obvious it's the case that Algeria was working with the Americans then and supporting these jihadists in northern Mali just as well as in Libya before?
Well, I wouldn't...
I'd be a little bit careful with the words there.
It's a triangulation.
America was working with the Algerian Secret Services.
Okay, that's one connection.
The Algerian Secret Services, they were working with the various, call them, jihadi groups in the region, which they had been for a long time.
When I say working with them, they had infiltrated a lot of them.
They had some control over the leadership.
There was a few false flag operations.
They supplied weaponry to these movements in northern Mali, etc.
So you've got two connections there.
Making a triangle out of it is a little bit tenuous because although people within the American intelligence services did know about that relationship between the Algerian Secret Services and the jihadists, I have no idea whether it would have gone across to Hillary's side of things in State Department, whether she would have been aware of it.
She would certainly know from her own experience as Foreign Secretary that Algeria does carry an awful lot of stick in the region.
Let's put it that way.
Algeria is a major power.
It has influence.
It has, you know, so she would certainly know that by asking the Algerians to exercise some couch in the region, that would be possible.
But, you know, I don't want to say because I don't know whether she was aware of the linkage between the Algerian Secret Services and the jihadi movements.
And now, so what would you say is the power of the jihadist movements in northern Mali now?
I mean, we are talking about a huge land area there for them to at least hide in, right?
Numerically, they are very much smaller.
There's no question about that.
You know, we're down now to talking about a couple of groups, a few dozen here and there, but active.
They're causing quite a lot of trouble, particularly in the central Mali region.
They are offshoots of the group that was operating there, you know, at the time we were talking about just a couple years ago.
They're still fairly small groups.
They're causing problems.
They're hitting the odd police post every now and again.
There's probably about an incident every, on average, every two or three weeks, perhaps.
There have been a couple that have crossed over into the border going further south into Burkina Faso and the Cote d'Ivoire border.
So the jihadi elements in the country are still fairly problematic.
Let's put it that way, but they are infinitely less powerful and numerous than they were when France moved in a couple years ago and pushed them back out because when it pushed them out, a lot of them went north up into Tunisia, more went over into Libya.
So they basically, they kicked the problem down the road to use an expression, which is really what they did.
And that problem has become quite serious, of course, in other parts of the Sahara now, Libya, Indonesia, and across into Chad.
And Mali is sort of left, but, you know, with a residual, well, no, quite an active, you know, jihadi sort of problem, but not as big as it was a couple years ago.
And so the Tuaregs are basically back in charge in northern Mali then?
Well, let's put it this way, the government has not reestablished itself in any real sense or form, that is a military presence or anything else, in the northern region of Kidal, Kidal, that's K-I-D-A-L, that's the northern region, which is the predominantly Tuareg region.
That is still pretty much in Tuareg sort of hands with United Nations, a peacekeeping force up in the area.
So this new peace agreement, you know, there's still the big question of how is that region going to be sort of reintegrated back into the country?
This all has to be worked out.
I mean, the peace deal is still very much up in the sky.
The actual implementation of it has a long way to go.
It's not going to be easy.
I'll be very surprised if it doesn't result in further outbreaks of skirmishing here and there, maybe a bit of fighting.
I'm not optimistic really for the future.
Although the present situation is a little bit more optimistic today than it has been over the last year or two, but it's going to be a lot of uphill struggle and a lot will depend not so much on the Mali government, which is really not very well trusted, not very competent at all, but on the international community, which hasn't really excelled itself so far, but it has the opportunity to do so now, let's put it that way.
And there was an awful lot of money waiting in the wings.
There's three to four billion dollars equivalent of pledged money.
That means probably won't all get there, but there's an awful lot of money from the international community available for the redevelopment of the North.
But big questions about, you know, corruption, accountability, all these sort of things.
So, you know, those are problems that have to be surmounted.
All right now, and you mentioned the war spreading to Niger and Chad, and I believe it was Chad where I read they were putting in the new drone base there.
Maybe it was both.
I can't imagine that's really helping, although that's supposedly the purpose of putting them there is to help.
But can you talk a little bit more about the spreading of the war there to the neighboring states?
Yeah, sure.
The war has spread sort of eastwards, if you like, sort of from Mali through Niger.
When I say the war, the presence of so-called terrorist groups, Islamist groups, numerically not very big, but in fact, there's very little information on what is going on there.
But what has happened is the French military have moved into the region with a military operation, which is called Barkan, Operation Barkan.
That's 3,000 troops.
It's actually probably nearer to 4,000-5,000 troops stationed through Niger, Chad, a little bit of support from Americans, but very much in the back room, so to speak.
About 30 trainers went to a place called Agadez this last week with the drone base, as you say, and the French have got drones there as well.
But there is a more direct correlation between this expansion of Western military forces across the region and the increasing insecurity in the region, which often happens, as we've seen in many other parts of the world, where there have been interventions of this sort.
This entire story is just one intervention causing the other and the other and the other all the way down.
Absolutely.
One of those big problems is that Boko Haram, which was located very much in northern Nigeria, they are spreading north.
So you're getting Boko Haram moving out of northern Nigeria, possibly being pushed by the Nigerian army, which hasn't exactly excelled itself over the last few years, but moving north into very poor rural areas, dry, arid areas of Chad and Niger, causing a lot of problems there.
There's outbreaks of attacks on communities in those areas almost on a daily or semi-weekly basis at the moment.
Hundreds of thousands, probably about 150,000 refugees into those areas, at least 50,000 local villages displaced, dozens of people being killed, a very, very tragic situation, which isn't getting much publicity.
But ironically, that is happening at the same time as sort of French forces have deployed across the region.
So one doesn't want to go into a cause and effect type argument at this stage because it's a bit more complex than that.
But, you know, in fact, I read an article today questioning whether this intervention by the French really is not a failure altogether, both militarily and politically, because the situation across the region now is more of a mess than it has been really at any time in the past.
Very unstable, very insecure, very unclear and uncertain as to where things are heading, and not a very optimistic sort of scenario right across the entire region.
All right, y'all.
Well, that is Jeremy Keenan.
He is Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and Africa Studies at the University of London and the author of The Dark Sahara and the Dying Sahara.
Find him at MiddleEastEye.net.
The latest is Molly, a peace deal to promote conflict.
Thanks very much, Jeremy.
I appreciate it.
Thanks, Scott.
Nice to talk with you.
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