In Mali, the junta announced the “end with immediate effect” of the Algiers Agreement

Published on: 01/25/2024 – 22:16Modified: 01/25/2024 – 22:48

4 minutes

The junta in power in Mali announced on Thursday, January 25, the “termination, with immediate effect” of the landmark Algiers accord signed in 2015 with independence groups in the country’s north, which has long been considered necessary to stabilize the country.

The junta called for “a change in the posture of certain signatory groups”, but also “acts of hostility and exploitation of the agreement from the Algerian authorities, of which the country is the leader of the mediation”, a press release indicated. read on state television by the spokesman of the military-installed government, Col. Abdoulaye Maiga.

Also readBetween Mali and Algeria, “unprecedented” dispute over Tuareg question

The agreement was already considered a dud since hostilities resumed in 2023 against the central state and the Malian army by mainly Tuareg independence groups from the north following the withdrawal of the United Nations mission (MINUSMA). Junta after ten years of presence.

The agreement suffered a serious blow earlier in the year when the head of the junta, Colonel Assimi Goita, announced during his New Year’s greetings the establishment of “direct inter-Malian dialogue” to “privilege national ownership of peace”. process”.

A press release read on Thursday evening said the government “notes the total invalidity of the Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali as a result of the Algiers Process signed in 2015, and therefore, announces its end with immediate effect.”

“All negotiation channels are now closed,” Mohamed Elmoulaud Ramadan, spokesman for the Permanent Strategic Framework, an alliance of armed groups that signed the 2015 accord before taking up arms again last year, told AFP. . “We have no other option but to fight this war that has been imposed on us by this illegitimate junta with whom communication is impossible.”

Deterioration of relations with Algeria

The formalization of the end of the Algiers agreement is part of a series of breakdowns carried out by the military that took power by force in 2020. They broke the old alliance with France and its European partners and abandoned Minusma to turn to Russia.

Also readMali: What you need to know about Minusma’s final withdrawal

The end of the agreement also comes amid a serious deterioration in relations between Mali and its larger neighbor Algeria, with which Mali shares hundreds of kilometers of border.

Colonel Maiga read another vigorous speech on Thursday evening, particularly against Algeria. “The government notes with great concern the multiplication of friendly acts, cases of hostilities and interference in Mali’s internal affairs” by Algerian officials, he said.

He condemned “the mistaken perception of the Algerian authorities who regard Mali as their backyard or doorstep state, against a background of contempt and condemnation.”

Among various complaints, the junta accuses Algeria of hosting representative offices of certain groups that signed the 2015 agreement and have become “terrorist actors”.

The Malian regime “demands that the Algerian authorities immediately cease their hostilities.”

Mali has been mired in unrest since independence and a Salafi uprising broke out in the north in 2012. Mainly Tuareg groups took up arms for independence or autonomy. The uprising paved the way for armed groups linked to al-Qaeda to conquer much of the north, triggering a military intervention by France and plunging the Sahel into war.

After a ceasefire in 2014, mainly Tuareg armed groups signed the so-called “Algiers” peace accord in 2015 with the government and loyalist groups fighting alongside it, which granted more autonomy. The so-called “integration into” local and combatants “reorganized under the authority of the state” army.

Jihadists, for their part, continue to fight the state under the banner of al-Qaeda, or the Islamic State organization.

The violence, which has killed thousands of fighters and civilians and displaced millions, has spread to central Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, in turn the scene of military coups in 2022 and 2023.

with AFP