On the occasion of the visit of the Malian President of the Transition Bah N'Daw to his Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune last Sunday, the exchanges were particularly cordial. Are we moving towards a concretization of the Algiers agreement?
Malian interim president Bah N'Daw paid an official visit to Algiers on Sunday. The culmination of the diplomatic efforts of the two countries to establish a lasting peace in northern Mali. The epicenter of the discussions between the two leaders was the peace agreement and the improvement of Algerian-Malian relations on the economic and security levels.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune reiterated Algiers' desire to help Mali prepare for the 2022 elections. For his part, N'daw declared: “At the end of this visit, we feel supported, helped, supported in our approach ”.
Algeria, a natural ally
After excessive exchanges of courtesies and a few jokes during this meeting, the two presidents got to the heart of the matter. And the Mali-Algeria alliance seems to be obvious. Bah N'Daw is above all a soldier: establishing relations with a neighboring Algeria controlled de facto by the army makes sense from a geopolitical point of view.
From a diplomatic point of view, this is a dream opportunity for the Malian Transitional Council to repair the damage of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and his Prime Minister, the exuberant Moussa Mara, after the multitude of actions and aggressive statements they made towards Algeria.
Two other actors are already present in the theater of operations in Mali: the UN and France, which have their respective armies deployed in Mali, with tens of thousands of men, for years. The Serval and Barkhane operations are vestiges of the IBK regime and, for the Malian people, of French neocolonization.
Mali and Algeria share a common liability when it comes to their respective relations with France. Currently, Algeria is at odds with France because of the latter's support for the Bouteflika regime, the monopoly on foreign investments, nuclear archives, the coverage of Hirak by France 24, etc. Algerian intervention would thus be a perfect alternative if Franco-Malian relations deteriorate. An inevitable consequence if the new anti-terrorism initiatives, resulting from the G5 Sahel summit, and catalyzed or even chaperoned by France, did not materialize.
Fill the French void, without commitments
From a security point of view, which remains Mali's priority, Algeria could be a major ally in the fight against terrorism. Algiers could bypass the negotiations between Bamako and the terrorist organization EIGS (affiliated with Daesh), which it has been contesting for two years.
A common cause unites the two countries: the eradication of the threat of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The latter is the main source of major security problems on the borders that separate the two countries, as well as in southern Mali and in the Algerian mountains. However, to imagine a possible Algerian anti-terrorist mission in Mali would be going very quickly.
President N'Daw intends above all to gradually secure the northern part of the country, set up a transitional government as well as a National Transitional Council and integrate the movements that signed the 2015 Algiers Accord into the government. An agreement that has seen its share of negotiations.
The movements in question are the rebels of the Coordination of Movements of Azawad (CMA) and the Tuaregs of Kidal and Gao. And securing a national alliance in Mali would unify the territory and regain control of the fight against terrorism in the country.
A privileged relationship in perspective
Among all the international mediators, Algeria is the only one to have proposed the integration of the CMA into the government in order to materialize the Algiers agreement in 2015.
N'Daw's visit also allowed the two heads of state to discuss new cooperation projects. The reactivation of the Joint Operational Staff Committee (CEMOC) of the Malian, Algerian, Mauritanian and Nigerian armies was discussed beforehand during a meeting of the Algerian-Malian joint military commission on February 9. Cooperation between the military academies of the two countries was ratified two days later.
Finally, with the resumption of increasingly harmonious relations between Bamako, the CMA and Algiers, previously planned projects could see the light of day, such as the Tamanrasset-Gao road. What offend the French government, to which Mali has always refused access to eastern Mali, and embarrass Emmanuel Macron.