A perpetual jihadist expansion, dying human rights, an absent state: the political situation in Mali is grim, two years after the arrival of the military to power and the day of the definitive departure, this Monday, of the French troops. On Monday, a UN expert said the country was in the grip of a “harmful climate” with shrinking civic space and a sharp rise in human rights violations by extremist groups and security forces. Malian security.

The overthrow of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta on August 18, 2020 by five young colonels, after several months of popular revolt, marked the turn of a regime that has been militarized.

A militarization of political life

The military has appointed officers to positions of power and administration. They installed a parliament, arrested a host of local political heavyweights as part of an anti-corruption investigation, and issued arrest warrants for those who had left the country.

They then completed getting their hands on all the controls of the power in a second hit in May 2021.

In early August, the NGO Human Rights Watch estimated that the democratic space had been drastically reduced with the “harassment” of those who criticize the government and the illegal detention of others.

extent of the war

Already the epicenter of the conflict in the Sahel since 2012, Mali has seen, in recent years, the war intensify and the jihadist expansion accelerate. Attacks are increasing south to the outskirts of Bamako.

In the north and center of the country, state representatives are confined to the cities. The peace agreement signed in 2015 between Bamako and the former rebel armed groups in northern Mali has never been accompanied by great progress. The latter remain armed and firmly established.

In the vast rural bushland, civilians, from the same ethnic communities as the belligerents, are caught in the crossfire of conflict actors and victims of murderous amalgamation. Their humanitarian situation is worsening and has pushed 370,000 people to flee their homes, according to UNHCR.

The number of human victims is increasing: thus, the number of people killed in the Sahel during the first six months of 2022 is already higher than for all of 2021.

Almost every month is marked by a new massacre. In August, 42 Malian soldiers were killed in Tessit in one of the deadliest attacks on the army. In June, more than 130 civilians were killed in Diallassagou in one night.

A sovereign withdrawal

The junta came to power in the name of a sovereignty that it considered mocked and neglected on the altar of the anti-jihadist struggle. The patriotic fiber of “Mali Kura” (New Mali, in Bambara) found a strong echo among the 20 million Malians, to the detriment of the Western partners involved.

France, a former colonial power, was expelled from the Franco-Malian Philippines and the European Union stopped its military formations.

The UN, present with 13,000 blue helmets since 2013, has less and less room for manoeuvre: its human rights missions are hampered by the authorities, its spokesperson has been expelled, its contingent rotations have been temporarily suspended.

In the name of the same sovereignism, the colonels refused to hold elections, as requested by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), alleging a good organization in time instead of a race to the election.

During the first half of 2022, Mali was severely punished financially and economically by neighbors who, according to Bamako, were influenced by Paris.

In this country classified among the least developed in the world, 7.5 of the approximately 20 million inhabitants needed humanitarian assistance in 2022, according to the UN.

Change of strategic alliances

Bamako has enthusiastically revived its Russian and Chinese associations established after its independence in 1960 under the socialist regime of Modibo Keïta. The relationship with Moscow, historically focused on education, has now become more defense-focused since 2020.

Russia has thus delivered several batches of war material (flying and ground). In addition, at the beginning of 2022 Russian paramilitaries from the Wagner company arrived, but Bamako denies their presence while Moscow talks about a “commercial” contract between Wagner and Mali that does not concern Russia.

A recent expert report commissioned by the UN mentioned the presence of “white soldiers” accompanying Malian soldiers at the scene of the killings, in particular at Robinet El Ataye, where 33 civilians were killed in March.

This change of alliance coincided with the development of an anti-French discourse in Mali and what the French general staff called “the information war” between Russia, Mali and France.