LONDON — Clashes between Islamic fighters and French troops in the Malian city of Gao may suggest that, after a swift campaign to liberate the north, France could be in Mali for the long haul.
“From the moment France committed itself, it became responsible for what happens in that country,” Vincent Desportes, a retired French general and military theorist told the magazine L’Express. “If France leaves too soon and the situation deteriorates, Paris will get the blame.”
Confronted with the specter of “ mission creep,” François Hollande, the French president, said on Monday that French forces were moving from a phase of liberating Mali to one of securing it, to ensure that “no corner of Malian territory remains under the control of the terrorists.”
In the best-case scenario, the Islamist militants would be ousted from Mali, a trained African force would move in to support the Malian army, and France would withdraw to celebrate a job well done.
There are concerns, however, that without political change in the fragile Saharan state, the military option might not be enough to prevent a resurgence of the Islamist threat.
According to Helen Clark, head of the United Nations Development Program, which has been operating in Mali for more than three decades, the country needs a very clear time table for national dialogue, constitutional reform and improved governance.
“You have to do this first, otherwise Mali will fall over again,” Ms. Clark told Rendezvous in an interview.
The former New Zealand prime minister was in Britain to give a lecture to conflict experts at Oxford University, where she warned that Mali’s road back from a combination of violent conflict and constitutional crisis was not an easy one.
“It will require international support for some time, including for resuming development progress,” she said. “Long-term stability for Mali requires dedication to inclusive governance and to inclusive and equitable development across the country.”
The U.N. agency would support the election process and prepare a development program for the north of the country.
“In the North, state authority and services must be re-established, infrastructure rehabilitated, and livelihoods restored,” she told the Oxford audience. “Reestablishment of the rule of law will also be vital to putting the country back on track.”
Ms. Clark said two decades spent building democracy and pursuing development in Mali had been derailed by a combination of factors that included an existing conflict in the north of the country, a military coup, and the spillover of the upheaval in neighboring Libya.
The situation was compounded by a severe drought that threatened 3.5 million Malians with food shortages in 2012.
Mali was the regional country most vulnerable to the Islamist incursion because of continuing north-south tensions that were being resolved elsewhere in the Sahel, she told Rendezvous.
The U.N. development chief is not alone in believing that the outside world should look for more than a military solution in Mali.
As my colleagueEric Schmitt writes from the neighboring state of Niger, the Pentagon’s Africa Command is in the region to play a “soft power” role in strengthening social, political and economic programs as well as training regional armed forces.
At an international conference on assisting Mali in Brussels last week, Joe Costello, the Irish trade minister, said good progress had been made in stabilizing the security situation, “but now it is vitally important that the provision of humanitarian aid and the political process keep pace.”
