End of an Era in Mali as UN Force Finally Quits

An emblem of the United Nations on the arm of a German armed forces Bundeswehr soldier who had served under the U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali after the troops landed at the military air base in Wunstorf, northern Germany, on Dec. 15, 2023. Ronny Hartmann/ AFP

YAOUNDE, Cameroon—Mali’s army says it has successfully retaken the key Aguelhok territory in the country’s tense northern Kidal region without “major clashes” as the country struggles to fill the security vacuum left by peacekeepers of the U.N. mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

The West African military-led government accused U.N. troops in late October of leaving their base in the area without waiting to hand it over to Malian soldiers, thereby leaving space for terrorists to take over. An Islamist insurgency erupted in 2013 in northern Mali and quickly spread to other parts of the Sahel—a vast and dry stretch of land between the Sahara Desert and the savannah farther south. MINUSMA was deployed in the same year to prop up Mali’s security amid attacks from jihadis linked to the al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorist groups, as well as a Tuareg-led separatist revolt.

But MINUSMA’s peacekeeping mission finally came to an end on Dec. 9 following a request by the government, which alleged that the force was inadequate to respond to growing violent extremism. It lowered the U.N. flag at its headquarters in the Malian capital, Bamako, symbolically closing a decade of deployment in a country that’s still prey to jihadism and a deep crisis. By Dec. 15, 10,689 uniformed or civilian MINUSMA personnel had left Mali, out of a total of about 13,800 at the start of the withdrawal, MINUSMA stated on X, formerly known as Twitter. The mission stated that it had closed 10 bases thus far and that the liquidation process at the remaining two bases in Bamako and Gao will begin on Jan. 1, 2024.

Deadliest Peacekeeping Mission Ever

The head of MINUSMA declared on Dec. 9 that all personnel not affected by the “liquidation” will have left Mali by the Dec. 31 deadline. The U.N. mission in Mali has been the deadliest peacekeeping mission in the world, with more than 300 personnel killed. Many of those peacekeepers died because of improvised explosive devices, largely during road convoys.

“The Malian terrain was vast and difficult,” Maj. Gen. Mamadou Gaye, commander of the 13,000-strong force, said during the closing ceremony in Bamako.

But Gen. Gaye still believes that the U.N. mission has been “very positive” and has given the body “a great deal of satisfaction,” even though it would have liked to have done more with the “limited resources” it had. He nonetheless expressed confidence in Mali’s security forces to resolve the security crisis.

The year 2020 was the deadliest on record in Mali for civilians despite the U.N. presence. Violence in the broader area has increased since 2015, with attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS spreading to Mali’s neighbors in the Sahel region. Thousands have been killed and more than 6 million displaced.

Adam Rousselle, editor and geopolitical analyst at Militant Wire research network, said MINUSMA’s withdrawal from Mali could result in a “greater number” of civilian casualties.

“The Malian government’s request for withdrawal demonstrates its trust in [the Wagner Group] and its own defense forces: With the influence of insurgent groups rising steadily, it’s hard to imagine an environment that is safer for civilians moving forward,” Mr. Rousselle told The Epoch Times in an email.

The Wagner Group is a Russian state-funded private military company led until 2023 by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Rousselle said the role of the U.N. mission became “obfuscated” over time.

“In addition to aiming to protect civilian lives, these missions are meant to promote human rights and the Malian government simply wasn’t interested in that component, actively discouraging the mission’s investigation of 2022 massacres in Moura that the government claimed were counterterrorist operations,“ he said. ”It’s one thing for peacekeepers to protect civilians and uphold human rights when the conflict is between two militaries, but it’s another thing entirely in the context of counterinsurgency where the distinction between enemies and civilians is much less clear.”

MINUSMA Branded ‘Colonial Project’

Landlocked Mali has struggled to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012. Extremist rebels were forced from power in northern cities the following year with the help of French-led Operation Serval, later replaced by Operation Barkhane. But rebels regrouped in the desert and began launching attacks on the Malian army and its allies—which soon included the U.N. force. Mali’s government—which seized power after coups in 2020 and 2021—pushed out France’s counterinsurgency force in 2022 following a breakdown in relations with its former colonial power.

Chris Kwaja, a member of the U.N. Working Group on Mercenaries in Mali, said Mali’s decision to end the U.N. mission in the country was “irrational” and “spontaneous” and informed more by the brewing tension between the military junta and France on the one hand and the West on the other.

“When it comes to the control of MINUSMA, most of the actors come from the West. So the military junta felt that in order to attack or counter Western influence in Mali, the best thing [was] to send MINUSMA packing,” Mr. Kwaja told The Epoch Times.

He explained that MINUSMA has often been viewed from the perspective of the United Nations—which itself is sometimes viewed from the perspective of the United States.

“That has been the way countries and other actors view peacekeeping operations across the world,” Mr. Kwaja said. “Mali and, by extension, the Sahel are very central to the fight against jihadist movements both in terms of the spread and the influence. The Sahel does not only host armed groups; it also serves as a transit point or training ground for these armed groups.”

Mr. Rousselle noted that the rise of insurgent groups preceded the U.N. mission and that they’re unlikely to disappear any time soon.

“We are already seeing signs of regional spillover, and the recent wave of coups across the region suggests the fragile nature of these states and their institutions,” he told The Epoch Times.

“The negative perception of the mission as a colonial project likely played a role in raising local sympathy for Islamic radicalism, thus the media campaign likely played a role in this regard.”

Mr. Rousselle blamed the “substantial” media campaign that equated the mission with the country’s colonial past and said evidence suggests that the Wagner Group was “heavily involved” in this media campaign, producing television and radio content as well as broad-based social media campaigns.

“The fact that an international force was dying in large numbers while criticizing the junta’s apparent lack of adherence to human rights probably didn’t make them very welcome either,” he said. “Although this campaign apparently made the mission less popular locally, I can’t imagine it being any more or less successful in this context, regardless.”

Officials Insist MINUSMA was ‘Remarkable’ Success

There are growing concerns that U.N. peacekeeping operations are increasingly becoming unwelcome in parts of Africa, where a majority of the missions operate. In September, Congo requested the withdrawal of the U.N. mission trying to contain violence in the eastern part of the country.

U.N. officials have always held that MINUSMA’s mission wasn’t to fight jihadists. Its mandate, they’ve pointed out, was to support the implementation of a major peace agreement with northern separatists (non-jihadists); to help the Malian authorities stabilize the center, another source of violence; and to protect civilians and human rights.

MINUSMA head, El Ghassim Wane, recently said the mission had accomplished “remarkable work” in these areas in Mali.

He said MINUSMA carried out “many projects” in which the Malian state wasn’t present, claiming that this marked “a real difference” in the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Malians.

Consequently, the effectiveness of MINUSMA depended in part on the cooperation of Malian actors, Mr. El Ghassim concluded.

The final nail in MINUSMA’s coffin was the 2020 military takeover in Mali. The junta broke the old alliance with the former dominant power, France, and turned militarily and politically toward Russia.

The U.N. openly denounced flight bans and other obstructions by the military junta, causing the latter to protest against the “instrumentalization” by MINUSMA of human rights.

Jeremy Keenan, visiting social anthropology professor at the Law School at Queen Mary University London and an authority on the Sahara-Sahel, told The Epoch Times that Malian authorities simply blamed MINUSMA for their own failings. However, he acknowledged that MINUSMA’s mandate didn’t allow it to fight terrorism.

“Most Malians did not understand this, as the government misled them,” Mr. Keenan told The Epoch Times in an email.

He affirmed that MINUSMA did most of its mandated jobs well under “near-impossible” conditions.

“But, it showed the poor governance and corruption of the pre-coup government. After the coup, the coupists, along with the Russians, wanted MINUSMA out, as its human rights obligations were the complete opposite of the concerns of the junta and the Wagner Group,” Mr. Keenan said.

As evidence, he pointed to the demand by the junta and its Russian ally for MINUSMA to not investigate the killing in 2022 of more than 500 civilians in the village of Moura in central Mali.

“Previously, this had happened on many other occasions when jihadists or other armed groups (including the Malian armed forces, which committed many atrocities against civilians) had attacked villages,” he said. “Ironically, it has been MINUSMA’s departure that has triggered the current outbreak of violence and civil war, which may even bring about the collapse or overthrow of the junta and its Russian friends.”