The journalist explains the keys to the confrontation between Algeria and Spain

Beatriz Mesa: "For the first time Algeria recognises that it is part of the Sahara conflict"

photo_camera beatriz mesa

In the latest programme of "De Cara al Mundo", on Onda Madrid, we had the participation of Beatriz Mesa, journalist and correspondent for COPE in North Africa and writer, who presented her book "Los grupos armados del Sahel: Conflicto y economía militar en el norte de Malí". In addition, the journalist also gave us the keys to the latest developments in the conflict between Algeria and Spain, following Spain's position on the plan for Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara.

What do you tell us in your latest book "The Armed Groups of the Sahel: Conflict and Military Economics in Northern Mali"?

First of all, it is an important deconstruction of the threat because, let's say, over the last 20 years we have been working on international terrorism or security, there is an obsession with making people believe that any armed group that raises a flag with religious references and associates it with jihad has to do with religious objectives, with installing a state of a religious or extremist nature. Far from that, when we refer to the armed groups in the Sahel, regardless of ideology, whether jihadist or secessionist, there is a much more complex problem, which is the control of a territory, linked to the defence of a tribal identity, and this territory is important in economic terms because they are transit areas for an international criminal economy, a refuge for other criminal activities such as Western hostages, etc. In short, there is a whole criminal corpus that involves all these armed elements which, moreover, have become more sophisticated over time and there are internal struggles related to power and elites and to this economic control that has led to a significant armed proliferation in recent years. I have summarised it, but it is much more complex than what I have just described.

What are the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group doing there?

Well, this is now being talked about as if it were a novelty, but Russia has been collaborating with Mali for a long time. One of the main supporters of Mali's independence was Russia, and they have always maintained a very close relationship. It is true that in the field of security this space has been dominated by the US, in the international context of preventing organised terrorism since 2000 we have had military bases in Mali in this context, and then France joined in, which has dislodged the Americans from this predominant position. As a result of major clashes between Mali and France, because Mali's assessment of the security deployment led by France is negative. So negative that these armed groups have proliferated, so the perception of the Malian population and the Malian state is that France's intervention has not had clear objectives, but rather geopolitical objectives, which in the end has led France to withdraw from the Malian, not Sahelian, scene. Mali has therefore sought out other strategic partners such as Russia, which has no historical or colonial alliances with any armed actor, while France does have important links with tribal groups in the area. It continues to maintain close ties with jihadist terrorism and has joined armed groups that erode Malian institutions, the same groups that rose up against Bamako to fight for independence. These enemies of the Malian state are France's friends, so for Mali, France's alliances over the last thirteen years of presence in Mali have been the wrong ones.
beatriz mesa

In your book you highlight the need for the EU to pay more attention to the Sahel region, which is still our backyard and we do not pay enough attention to it.

The Sahel as a region has indeed become a laboratory of international security over the last 10 years, with France putting its first drops in the bucket. Researchers in the region had been warning long before that, not about a problem related to ideology, because ideology is not the ultimate goal, but about a larger problem related to the criminal economy. As states have lost control of this parallel economy because what differentiates one country from another in relation to the criminal economy is when institutions are absorbed by the actors of the criminal economy. A state cannot allow the criminal economy to remain in the hands of non-state actors who in the end become great rivals of the state because they have accumulated arms and men and control this fundamental economic resource. In the end we have what we have right now in a state like Mali, where the country cannot impose itself in the north and has lost it, half of the country is in the hands of armed groups, the centre of the country the same and we cannot allow this to spread to Niger or Burkina Faso where there are reasons for a young person to become a violent person and choose to pick up a Kalashnikov because this becomes a kind of survival and from the outset, only because of the geographical context in which this individual is situated, for him it is a kind of death and since I am dead in life, at least I die through violence. This is a very important reflection that Europeans should know who these actors of violence are and why this violence does not want to leave, so what we have to consider is how a peace process can be achieved, and this is done by recovering what was there before, a negotiation. Negotiation with all armed actors, regardless of their nature, non-aggression agreements with Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, etc. This is what has allowed stability to be maintained in the region. As long as these agreements are not recovered, it will be difficult to achieve periods of peace rather than violence.

We have to redesign this policy very carefully because we have a lot at stake. I was recently in Mauritania and there is a certain stability, but there are also risks of instability... 

The threat of destabilisation is there because more and more armed organisations are appearing, regardless of the ideologies that theoretically mobilise these people. What is important here is to see how arms trafficking is incessant, how for these armed groups there are no borders, which is why we speak of transnational violence, and this means that there are many communities such as Tel that participate in this violence. If in Burkina Faso, Togo or Côte d'Ivoire we are seeing a mancipation of the community through violence, in this case, the Tel community, they can emerge in Benin or Mauritania, as is already happening. There is no need for another actor who, through elements such as social justice, the economy, etc., starts to acquire certain leaderships and picks up the banner to organise young people and move in this direction against institutions, eroding states and creating parallel states, this is something very worrying. We should not simplify it into jihad because jihad is one of the many slogans that exist, being a Muslim in this area is not important, what is important is belonging to an ethnic group or a faction and going against a territory.
beatriz mesa

You talk about conflict and criminal economy, drugs, arms, human trafficking, kidnappings and animal trafficking... Let's remember that David Beriáin and Roberto Fraile were murdered in Burkina Faso while they were reporting on animal trafficking... It is an area where there are many elements to take into account. 

Of course, poaching, the case of our colleagues who were in an official convoy, which also becomes a target for these criminal groups, they cut roads, tracks and forests, they cut down trees, they kill elephants and take the ivory. We are talking about areas with natural reserves that bring great benefits for the states, but also for these actors. Unfortunately, we are also talking about areas where drugs, weapons, people and kidnapped people are transiting. Today, when there are practically no Western targets in the area because of the risk and exposure to kidnapping, national kidnappings are taking place, kidnappings of politicians, tribal leaders, religious leaders, and even of local aid workers, which is part of the agenda of this criminal economy. Clearly Europe has a commitment to this region because it is the southern border with the continent, we are concerned about the flows of people coming to Europe, and we are concerned that an actor coming from this region to our continent may become an extremist, etc. Europe has to look beyond this and see how it can help these states in the creation of serious armies, without losing sight of the fact that even if tomorrow we have national armies in a case like Mali, these armies are not representative of a multi-ethnic population and these ethnic sensitivities have to be considered and this is the complexity of the lands in which we find ourselves that have been overtaken by the modern state that is questioning modern borders and returning to colonial borders because they consider that the modern state has not worked. There is a problem of historical religion.

Now that summer is beginning, Beatriz Mesa's book is essential to resolve the main issues that plague the Sahel region. Moving on, how do you see the Algerian issue, and is Putin exerting pressure?

Our observation is that Algeria has never needed orders from Russia in its foreign and domestic policy. Algeria is a sovereign country and the proof is that it is a country that is closed to the international community and the army is the one pulling the country's strings; it is very clear that the path it has taken is to focus its economy on hydrocarbons and mainly on gas. It is very clear that they don't want to open up to international tourism, they don't even want to open up to SMEs, they know about the administrative obstacles of the Algerian state that prevent foreign investors from easily entering the country. Algeria is what it is, a fairly closed system, and now what I am personally seeing is that it was obvious that it had to give this tantrum, as for months it had been expressing its anger at the change in the Spanish government's position on the Sahara conflict. The reading to be made is that for the first time Algeria recognises, through the suspension of the trade agreement, that it is part of the conflict. This is important because for years it has tried to stay out of it and now it is not, and it is telling us all that it is part of the Sahara conflict and explaining to us its alliances with the Polisario and all that this entails. Another important point is that, for days, there has been an outcry in Spain about gas and there is a communiqué from Algeria saying that gas is protected and is outside the suspension of this treaty because it forms part of other mechanisms. A third point, without wishing to demonise Algeria, Spain must take care to look after all its southern partners, I understand the weight of Morocco for all that it represents in terms of trade, migration, etc. .... but we must look after the other neighbourhood and we must do more serious work. 

Like taking the Falcon, going to Algiers and explaining why certain decisions are being taken...

Yes, that's right.

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