Mali: a certain confusion of minds. The end of the Eurafrique model?
(BRUXELLES2, comment) Some informed observers have recently underlined the slowness of setting up the European mission EUTM Mali, comparing it with the speed of the French operation Serval. If some problems have been encountered for the rise of EUTM Mali (force protection, housing ...), they are, in a way, inevitable for any international mission. Less than six months between the first political framework decisions (at the Council of Defense Ministers in November 2012) and the setting up of training in the field may seem long (and it is) but it is also somehow rather short if compared to other missions. There is apparently gender confusion because the objectives of the two operations/missions are indeed different. And is the target well chosen? Aren't the problems elsewhere?
Learning to swim is not saving a drowned person
The first, Operation Serval, is a short-term and urgent military combat mission to block the arrival of rebels in Bamako, restore the authority of the Malian government over a part of the country which has totally escaped its control and the fight against terrorism (objective which has been somewhat superimposed and has become preeminent today). She uses imported means (mainly French). The second, the EUTM Mali mission, is a medium and long-term, long-term mission aimed at reforming the Malian army on new bases. It relies on both "imported" (European) and "local" means (Malian military, government) and aims above all at local consolidation as well as learning a few concepts. To take an analogy, one consists of recovering the drowned person from the water and giving him first aid; the other to teach him to swim, or even become a lifeguard!
A problem deeper: no alarm bells! ...
What is more problematic is the long latency between the first warning signals coming from Mali - signaling significant terrorist and criminal activity as well as a risk of destabilization of the country - signals repeated several times, and the taking of political awareness and the implementation of certain tools. A delay that has been spread over several years has produced no European reaction or so little that it poses a serious problem and deserves serious introspection or even a commission of inquiry. The slow reaction to political, economic or social changes calls for reflection. Because, in fact, Europe was "rolled" in flour by ATT; the former Malian leader having grasped what interested Europeans - an appearance of democracy and the feeling of being able to absorb European funding smoothly... Mali, touted until recently as a model, has collapsed on him- even without any alarm bells being activated...
A model of EurAfrique at the end of its course?
But, beyond the emergency, is it not the whole of European cooperation and development policy that is in question and needs to be rethought? What happened in Mali today, in Côte d'Ivoire yesterday, can it not happen tomorrow in Burkina Faso, Senegal or in other countries? Africa's post-colonial vision of independence imported from former colonial countries (France, United Kingdom, Portugal, Belgium, etc.) no longer seems really appropriate, just as the vision of a vast field to be exploited is not. countries without an overly strong colonial past (Germany, Netherlands, etc.) that prefer to forge commercial ties that raise just as many questions. Because the sociology of the African landscape has been greatly modified since its first foundations. While France is gradually mourning “its” Françafrique and renovating its African policy as best it can, the somewhat paternalistic approach of the Eurafrique model must therefore be thoroughly revised. The absence of a "strategic" partnership between Europe and Africa or the Africas is symptomatic of a certain state of mind... outdated.
