The War in Mali
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By Conn Hallinan
Counterpunch
August 28, 2012
Mali has been in crisis since its coup on March 22 this year. While mainstream media has framed the crisis as a result of radical Islam, it should also be seen a consequence of the West’s scramble for resources in Africa and the outcomes of the intervention in Libya. The crisis was set in motion when the Bush Administration declared the Sahara desert a breeding ground for “terrorism” and inaugurated the Trans-Sahal Counter Terrorism Initiative. The crisis in Mali, however, has its origins in the country’s deep poverty and the push by the Tuaregs for greater autonomy. What the US calls “terrorism” in Mali is encouraged by local inequalities, not by an international jihadist agenda.
The reports filtering out of Northern Mali are appalling: a young couple stoned to death, iconic ancient shrines dismantled, and some 365,000 refugees fleeing beatings and whippings for the slightest violations of Sharia law. But the bad dream unfolding in this West African country is less the product of a radical version of Islam than a consequence of the West’s scramble for resources on this vast continent, and the wages of sin from the recent Libyan war.
.The current crisis gripping northern Mali—an area about the size of France— has its origins in the early years of the Bush Administration, when the U.S. declared the Sahara desert a hotbed of “terrorism” and poured arms and Special Forces into the area as part of the Trans-Sahal Counter Terrorism Initiative. But, according to anthropologist Jeremy Keenan, who has done extensive fieldwork in Mali and the surrounding area, the “terrorism” label had no basis in fact, but was simply designed to “justify the militarization of Africa.”