195
8
1990 came as much of a surprise to the Tuareg further south along the river as it did
to everyone else (Poulton and Ag Youssouf 1998).
Thus, the main cause of the Tuareg rebellion that started in 1990 was a modernization policy that led to the marginalization of nomads, combined with an anger at
what was perceived as a predatory state. The drought in the mid-1980s led to drier
conditions and scarcer resources for farmers and pastoralists alike. However, since
the end of the 1980s, there has been a recovery of rainfall in northern Mali. In addition, the first Tuareg uprising in 1963 took place following an unusually wet period
(Benjaminsen 2008).
Why Do Pastoralists in Mali Join Jihadist Groups?
In January 2013, Mali again hit international headlines when jihadist forces moved
south after having conquered northern Mali in 2012. Five years earlier, the jihadist
organization that became Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had announced
its allegiance to al-Qaeda. This group had arrived from Algeria after the military
government there had cancelled elections that the Islamists were about to win, which
had brought the country to a civil war in the 1990s. This experience further radicalized the Algerian Islamists that survived and escaped to Mali.
In northern Mali, jihadists strengthened their economic position through the
kidnapping of foreigners and receiving millions of euros in ransom, and through the
involvement in large-scale smuggling of cigarettes and drugs (Daniel 2012; Lounnas
2014; Harmon 2014).
Simultaneously, following NATO’s bombing of Libya and the killing of Gaddafi
in October 2011, a few thousands Tuareg soldiers in the Libyan army had returned
heavily armed to Mali. This sparked a new Tuareg rebellion that had been simmering
for a while. However, in 2012, the various jihadist groups established in northern
Mali managed to push aside the secular Tuareg rebels, and in January 2013, they
started to move south. This led French forces to intervene, and at the battle of Konna
in the Mopti region in central Mali, combined French and Malian forces succeeded
in pushing back the jihadist troops, and within a few weeks reconquered most of the
northern parts of the country.
In 2020, Malian, French, African and UN forces, however, only control the
towns in northern and central Mali, while the state and its representatives have withdrawn from the region for security reasons. In the central Mopti region, this means
that most of the rural areas have been controlled by various jihadist groups since
2015. These groups have gradually been replacing the state and expanding their
authority, support base and influence in the area, because rural populations increasingly relate to and cooperate with the various armed groups.
The main question we want to discuss with this case study is how such increased
support for ‘jihadist’ groups can be explained, thereby to better understand the
causes of the current crisis in Mali. It is common in the media and internet blogs to
8.2 · Pastoralism, Marginalization and Conflicts in Mali
8
1990 came as much of a surprise to the Tuareg further south along the river as it did
to everyone else (Poulton and Ag Youssouf 1998).
Thus, the main cause of the Tuareg rebellion that started in 1990 was a modernization policy that led to the marginalization of nomads, combined with an anger at
what was perceived as a predatory state. The drought in the mid-1980s led to drier
conditions and scarcer resources for farmers and pastoralists alike. However, since
the end of the 1980s, there has been a recovery of rainfall in northern Mali. In addition, the first Tuareg uprising in 1963 took place following an unusually wet period
(Benjaminsen 2008).
Why Do Pastoralists in Mali Join Jihadist Groups?
In January 2013, Mali again hit international headlines when jihadist forces moved
south after having conquered northern Mali in 2012. Five years earlier, the jihadist
organization that became Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had announced
its allegiance to al-Qaeda. This group had arrived from Algeria after the military
government there had cancelled elections that the Islamists were about to win, which
had brought the country to a civil war in the 1990s. This experience further radicalized the Algerian Islamists that survived and escaped to Mali.
In northern Mali, jihadists strengthened their economic position through the
kidnapping of foreigners and receiving millions of euros in ransom, and through the
involvement in large-scale smuggling of cigarettes and drugs (Daniel 2012; Lounnas
2014; Harmon 2014).
Simultaneously, following NATO’s bombing of Libya and the killing of Gaddafi
in October 2011, a few thousands Tuareg soldiers in the Libyan army had returned
heavily armed to Mali. This sparked a new Tuareg rebellion that had been simmering
for a while. However, in 2012, the various jihadist groups established in northern
Mali managed to push aside the secular Tuareg rebels, and in January 2013, they
started to move south. This led French forces to intervene, and at the battle of Konna
in the Mopti region in central Mali, combined French and Malian forces succeeded
in pushing back the jihadist troops, and within a few weeks reconquered most of the
northern parts of the country.
In 2020, Malian, French, African and UN forces, however, only control the
towns in northern and central Mali, while the state and its representatives have withdrawn from the region for security reasons. In the central Mopti region, this means
that most of the rural areas have been controlled by various jihadist groups since
2015. These groups have gradually been replacing the state and expanding their
authority, support base and influence in the area, because rural populations increasingly relate to and cooperate with the various armed groups.
The main question we want to discuss with this case study is how such increased
support for ‘jihadist’ groups can be explained, thereby to better understand the
causes of the current crisis in Mali. It is common in the media and internet blogs to
8.2 · Pastoralism, Marginalization and Conflicts in Mali