Mali and Algeria affirmed Thursday in a press release their desire to relaunch the peace agreement signed in 2015 between the former Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali and the Malian government and today in bad shape, raising fears of a resumption of hostilities.
“We have examined in a very precise, very rigorous way, the conditions to be met to achieve an effective and productive recovery through a political process which would be sheltered from economic turbulence”, declared Ahmed Attaf, head of diplomacy. Algerian, after a visit Wednesday to Bamako where he met the head of the junta, Colonel Assimi Goïta, according to this press release from the Malian presidency.
He also underlined a convergence of views around the methods, approaches, and objectives of Bamako and Algiers. In early April, the former Tuareg rebels in northern Mali said there was “no way to build a common future” with Bamako. In December, Mali announced that it was suspending its participation in the implementation of the 2015 agreement signed in Algiers. This peace agreement, which provides in particular for decentralization measures and the integration of ex-rebels into the national army, is only very little implemented.
“They must stop sinking into denial of reality, recognize that the situation is spiraling out of control,” Ag Mohamed Almou, a spokesman for the Coordination of Movements of Azawad (CMA), one of the main signatory groups.
“The CMA will never be accountable or complicit in a selective implementation of the provisions of the agreement advocated by some and encouraged by the complicit silence of the mediation”, he added. At the end of February, the Algerian president had received former Malian rebels who had discussed their expectations and priorities, and worked out ways to “break the impasse and the current status quo”.
Unlike the Tuaregs, the jihadist groups have continued the fight against the Malian state, plunging the country into a deep security and political crisis. Several jihadist attacks have hit Mali for a week, including one in Sévaré in the center of the country which officially killed at least ten civilians and three soldiers.
