sensitive Topic this Friday on the agenda of the security Council of the UN. Enforced disappearances, summary executions… The accusations of abuses on the local populations multiply against the soldiers of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger engaged against the jihadists in the Sahel central. “Peace and security in Africa” : the theme of the meeting organised by the Council of safety is wide, but one of the main topics expected “will be the charges of violations of human rights by the armed forces of the Sahel,” says a diplomat in Bamako. The concern is expressed with insistence for the last several months, at the same time as the denunciation of the conduct and jihadists in inter-communal violence.
at the Beginning of April, the UN mission in Mali (Minusma) has denounced the “multiplication” of the harm attributed to the national army. The UN has counted 101 extrajudicial executions by the malian army between January and march, and about thirty others by the nigerian army on the ground in mali. “These figures, names and circumstances have been documented “, had said Guillaume Ngefa, head of the division of human rights of the Minusma. Twelve people arrested for complicity with the jihadists died in the cells of the gendarmerie in mid-may in the eastern part of Burkina Faso. Relatives and NGOS say that it was civilians, summarily slaughtered. Justice has promised investigations.
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excesses “here and there”
In Niger, what are 102 people who were allegedly killed by the army in the region of Tillaberi (West), according to the publication of a list of missing persons that was released in April. The ministry of Defence has said that an inquiry would be pursued, while praising the “professionalism” of the troops. Each time, organizations of protection of human rights publish lists of names, photos, deploring the disappearance of the persons concerned after the passage of soldiers. In the majority of the missing are of the Fulanis, that would be treated as accomplices of the jihadists. “It was beautiful to report, to denounce that so many of the Peuls have been killed and thrown into a well, or show the world a common grave, nothing is done then,” laments a part of the association of malian fulani Tabital Pulaaku under the guise of anonymity.
“It is undeniable that some of the Fulanis have taken the path of jihadism, but it is naive to bring jihadism to a single ethnic group,” said the president of Tabital Pulaaku, Abou Sow, in front of the press. The governments of the sahel have always been a block behind their armies, which, often under-equipped and under-trained, pay a heavy price in the fight against jihadism. “The governments of our countries do not encourage the violations of the rights of man” had said on Wednesday the minister of foreign Affairs of mali, Tiébilé Dramé. Tiébilé Dramé account, explained Friday to the security Council, ” the precise terms and concrete that have been taken to correct the excesses that have been seen here and there “.
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A problem of “credible forces”
The meeting, scheduled for early may, had been postponed at the request of Niger, a non-permanent member of the security Council, to “give time” to the sahelian countries to prepare their responses, he explained to Agence France-Presse a black diplomat from the un in New York. National armies are involved at a pivotal moment for the Sahel. The UN, first of all, faces the skepticism of some members of the security Council on the scope of its mission in Mali (13 000 men by mid-June). France, for its part, reviewed the terms of his engagement in the Sahel after the death of 13 of its soldiers in November. His presence and that of the Minusma, whose mandate must be renewed, such as the new regional force formed in 2017, have not been able to stem the tide of violence that have left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced since 2012.
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France convened a meeting of its allies in the sahel in January in Pau (South) and has “put a sudden pressure to show tangible results,” recalls Ibrahim Maïga, Institute for security studies (ISS) in Bamako. “The protection of civilians is an objective related to the” number 1 priority of the military forces (who) is to put out of harm’s way “the jihadists,” he observes. Interviewed in may by the Agence France-Presse on the abuses attributed to the armed forces, general Pascal Way, force commander anti-jihadist French, had qualified as” intolerable “and could” pose a problem in terms of the credibility of the forces “.
