Highway of crime in Africa and cocktail of risks in the Sahel (AU)

(BRUSSELS2) The African Union has to deal with major security problems and for this it is counting on its international partners, in particular the European Union. This is the main message from Ramtane Lamamra, African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, to MEPs in the Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday (30 May).

This diplomat, former Algerian ambassador to the UN and mediator in many crises in Africa (Mali / Burkina Faso, Libya, Chad, Liberia...), delivers an interesting point of view on security priorities in Africa. Priorities that seem to coincide with those of the EU on this continent. The "security" experts of the two institutions, the PSC for the EU and the Peace and Security Committee for the AU, met elsewhere on Tuesday 29 May (for the fifth time since the creation of the African Union there ten years old) in order to implement inter-regional cooperation.

An East-West “Highway of Crime”

Today, while Commissioner Lamamra is pleased with the reduction in the number of conflicts and victims compared to the previous decade, he evokes an evolution towards conflicts which are now almost all " internal ". Non-state actors are becoming increasingly important: organized crime, terrorism, maritime piracy... These are the adversaries now. He bluntly refers to a " crime highway which crosses Africa from East to West, from the Gulf of Aden to that of Guinea. And it's drug trafficking that worries him the most, because it generates or fuels conflicts... when it doesn't finance them.

The Sahel: a new geostrategic challenge and a cocktail of difficulties

It's sort of the new subject of " serious concern for Africa. In the Sahel, it is a real cocktail of difficulties which makes the situation very complicated to manage: governance problems, humanitarian crisis, environmental challenges, terrorism and secessionist movements are the ingredients of this cocktail. And that " goes beyond Mali alone ". In this country, the coup d'etat is “senseless”* (carried out one month before the elections are held...). Carried out under the pretext of mismanagement of the secessionist threat from the North, it actually made the situation worse. Especially since he took away from the country " his most important weapon: legitimacy ". From now on, two thirds of the Malian territory escapes the government. The Islamists of AQIM are a threat, while the "concerns" of the Tuareg secessionists are negotiable, as long as they respect the integrity of the country. The African Union expert hopes that a solution can be found on June 7, when a meeting of the support and monitoring group will be held, which brings together both African countries and international partners.

Fragile improvement in the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa

Among the other security priorities, Ramtane Lamamra of course mentions the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. These two regions remain characterized by great fragility  despite improvements. With regard to Sudan, there too the threat is very present and the AU calls for the cessation of violence, the withdrawal of troops and negotiation as the only possible way towards a solution with two States co-existing "side by side". ". THE " popular uprisings (a term preferred by the African representative to that of the Arab Spring) offers positive perspectives in this rather difficult picture. " We should be able to learn from this says the African expert.

* The word is also used for Guinea-Bissau, where the coup took place between the two rounds of the election...