2012 CRISIS AND EMERGING OF CONFLICT IN MALI
Category : Uncategorized
Jibrin Ubale Yahaya
Department of Political Science
National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN)
Abstract
The Mali War is an ongoing armed conflict that has started in January 2012 between the Northern and Southern parts of Mali in Africa. On 16 January 2012, several insurgent groups began fighting a campaign against the Malian government for independence or greater autonomy for Northern Mali, which they called Azawad. This paper has analysis the activities of National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an organization fighting to make many communities of Mali an independent homeland for the Tuareg people, which had taken control of the region during April 2012. However, on the same 22nd March 2012, President Amadou Toumani Touré was ousted in a coup d’état over his handling of the crisis, a month before a presidential election was to have taken place. Mutinous soldiers, calling themselves the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDR), took control and suspended the constitution of Mali. The paper has diagnoses the consequence of the instability following the coup, Mali’s three largest Northern cities of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu were overrun by the rebels on three consecutive days. On 5th April 2012, after the capture of Douentza, the MNLA said that it had accomplished its goals and called off its offensive. The following day, it proclaimed the independence of Northern Mali from the rest of the country, renaming it Azawad. This paper would recommend that peoples in African continent need to be allowed to elect their leaders who would serve the needs and demands of their peoples to avoid discrimination on religion, tribal and racial difference between the various regions in the Mali and elected leaders needs to provide an extensive strategic framework that could address the malingering issues of insecurity, unemployment, injustice, corruption and poverty in Mali in particular and Africa in general.
Keywords: Crisis, Conflict, National Movement, Restoration and Malian Government
