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Mali: Enabling Dialogue with the Jihadist Coalition JNIM - Africa Report N°306 | 10 December 2021

Pays
Mali
Sources
ICG
Date de publication
Origine
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Principal Findings

**What’s new? **The Malian government has expressed willingness to explore dialogue with Islamist insurgents, some of whom have sent reciprocal conciliatory signals. Previous talks among communal leaders, militants and militiamen yielded several local ceasefires that eased suffering in rural areas. Yet no one has taken steps to prepare high-level negotiations.

Why does it matter? Thousands have died as Mali’s conflict grinds on. Both the army and the jihadists are taking increasingly heavy losses, but neither party appears capable of securing military victory. Ethnic violence is spiralling. Foreign partners are showing signs of exasperation with the country’s interlocking security and political crises.

What should be done? The Malian government and those jihadists who have said they will talk should strengthen their commitment to dialogue. Ideally, to this end they would defuse resistance among elites and foreign partners, appoint negotiating teams and possibly even agree on a mediator.

Executive Summary

Both Mali’s government and the country’s largest jihadist grouping, Jama’at Nusratul Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), say they want to talk about ending their bloody conflict. Yet neither party has taken steps to make dialogue happen. After eight years of fighting, the government and its external partners lack a convincing military strategy for concluding the war. Talks could allow the government to cut deals with jihadists that would save lives. But officials face major obstacles, not least their own division over the notion of such negotiations. France, Mali’s most important ally, opposes dialogue. JNIM, meanwhile, says foreign forces must withdraw before it will talk, deepening the other side’s reluctance to engage. But with rural militias proliferating and elite squabbles prompting two coups in 2021 to date, the demoralised public is swinging behind dialogue. So as not to rush into talks unprepared, the government and JNIM should first unify their ranks and think through their positions on key issues, particularly the role of Islam in state and society. They should also name negotiation teams and agree upon a mediator.

JNIM is a coalition of four jihadist groups formed in 2017 that operates from rural strongholds scattered throughout northern and central Mali. It is an al-Qaeda affiliate, but most of its constituent elements are under Malian command. For a time, JNIM made significant headway in capturing territory, but the conflict appears to have reached an impasse, with both sides inflicting and incurring heavy losses. The coalition nominally seeks to impose its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam on both state and society. In practice, however, the militants have thus far adopted a largely pragmatic approach, ruling through a system of shadow governance that allows for a degree of local autonomy. They have also agreed to ad hoc ceasefires with self-defence militias. These agreements secured at least a temporary lull in combat in several areas.

For years, the government nixed the idea of dialogue with militants, but lately it has begun rethinking its opposition due to bad news from the front and political instability in the capital. Early in 2020, following an outcry over unprecedented mass killings of civilians and soldiers, then President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta said he was ready to engage with militants. JNIM responded positively within weeks. The junta that ousted Keïta in a coup a few months later named a civilian prime minister, Moctar Ouane, who spelled out ways to pursue dialogue in the government’s action plan. The coup makers removed Ouane, too, in May 2021, but his successor must still contend with a public that has become dissatisfied with the purely military approach to dealing with insurgents. Foreign partners have grown impatient with Mali’s political turmoil. France, for its part, announced that it will reduce its military footprint in the Sahel and hand over responsibility for the anti-jihadist fight to the European Task Force Takuba. Meanwhile, Malian politicians, activists and religious leaders are bickering over how to resolve the conflict.

Talks are by no means guaranteed, and, if they do happen, are unlikely to bring immediate relief to a suffering Malian population. Many politicians, civil society representatives and religious leaders harbour deep reservations. The concerns are widespread, even among Malian officials who have helped shape dialogue policies in recent years. JNIM leaders, while showing an interest in talking, are hard to pin down about what compromises they might accept. France’s rejection of dialogue with JNIM’s top leadership – in the words of French officials, those “responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and … Sahelian, European and international soldiers” – poses another challenge. Finally, and most importantly, neither the Malian government nor the jihadists have determined what they want to talk about and how or where such talks could take place. Yet, as it becomes obvious that the conflict has no military solution, the government could at least begin exploring engagement with militants as part of its search for an alternative way forward.

To this end, the Malian government and the jihadists can take steps to bolster their commitment to peace talks. Malian authorities should seize upon fatigue with the anti-jihadist fight as an opportunity to take the lead in promoting efforts toward a political settlement. Four concrete measures could render dialogue a more viable option:

  • The Malian government and the jihadists should work to overcome suspicions of dialogue within their respective ranks. The government will need to engage in shuttle diplomacy to convince sceptics, in particular France, that engaging with JNIM is worthwhile, given the flaws of existing policy. The Malian authorities should reassure foreign partners that a settlement with JNIM will entail at least the latter’s commitment not to attack foreign interests in Mali or use Malian soil to plot attacks abroad. In addition, the government should get the insurgents to pledge that, to the extent possible, they will stop other militants from carrying out such attacks.

  • The government and JNIM’s leaders can signal their seriousness about talks by appointing credible, inclusive negotiating teams. Neither the government nor JNIM has said who might represent it at the table. Designating teams could kickstart the process. The teams could define strategies, set the agenda for talks and conduct negotiations at a later stage.

  • Before embarking on talks, the Malian government should facilitate a public debate on the role of Islam in state and society, which could help draw the contours of possible compromises and trade-offs between authorities and the JNIM leadership. Both sides should then use the outcome of this debate to think through their own positions before entering talks.

  • Dialogue between the government and jihadists is likely to encounter obstacles that a mediator will have to help them surmount. The two sides will need to agree upon a trustworthy third party, ideally a neutral country with experience in facilitating similar negotiations, to serve in this capacity.

Dialogue is worth pursuing, notwithstanding enormous challenges. The gap between the two sides’ positions is yawning, and the task of negotiating a comprehensive settlement may seem impossible. Just talking to militants may seem a tall order, politically speaking, given some of their stated goals and their al-Qaeda connection. Even if JNIM has shown some pragmatism while fighting an insurgency, it is unclear whether that would extend to compromises off the battlefield. Many Malians oppose its draconian interpretation of Islam. But the present approach is clearly not working: without a change in tack, civilians in much of the country will remain caught up in a violent struggle between militants and security forces. The incremental steps outlined above could pave the way to at least exploring whether a negotiated settlement is a feasible option, and the cost of finding out would not necessarily be steep. Given the worsening instability wracking much of Mali, these steps are at least worth a try.