By Roger Annis, A Socialist In Canada, June 25, 2018 (updated)
On June 24, the first significant components of Canada’s military mission to Mali in north-central Africa touched down. The presence will eventually count 250 soldiers. Two typically uncritical and uninforming news reports in corporate media appeared on June 24, 2018 reporting on the arrival of the first of the Canadian military mission:
* Canadian peacekeepers begin arrival in Mali as yearlong mission begins, by Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press, June 24 2018
* Mali ‘far messier’ than other peacekeeping missions, says Canada’s defence chief, CBC News, June 24, 2018. The mission will eventually count 250 soldiers.
Although operating under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council’s ‘MINUSMA’ mission (The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali), the Canadian intervention is “not necessarily a peacekeeping mission” according to General Jonathan Vance, Canada’s chief of defence staff.
No vote was held in the Canadian Parliament on the intervention into Mali, but a vote would have been moot. The intervention enjoys cross-party support. Indeed, the soft-left New Democratic Party has criticized the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for not acting more decisively to send more Canadian soldiers abroad.
Canada’s recent history in Africa is scarred by two military interventions. In 2011, the Canadian government and military participated in the violent overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi and his government. The overthrow caused the violent dismemberment of Libyan society.
Twenty years before that, the Canadian military disgraced itself in Somalia. In 1992, it sent its crack Canadian Airborne Regiment into the country alongside its U.S. partner. The regiment earned infamy when later revelations showed many of its members to be racists and extreme rightists. They engaged in abuse, torture and even murder of Somali detainees. The scandal led to the dismemberment of the regiment and the resignations of two successive chiefs of staff of the Canada armed forces. (See ‘Somalia Affair’, on Wikipedia.)
The Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien elected in 1993 was obliged to convene a formal inquiry into the affair, but it was cancelled in mid-stream soon after Chrétien and the Liberals won re-election in 1997. The times were such that the government did not pay a high political price for the cancellation, but the affair no doubt contributed to Canada’s decision to limit to a support role its participation in the U.S. attack against Iraq in 2003.
Western intervention into Africa
As with the Security Council’s ongoing, 14 year-old military mission in Haiti, the purpose of the Security Council mission in Mali is to ‘stabilize’ the country in favour of imperialist investors and military. Established in 2013, MINUSMA numbers some 11,000 soldiers, most of whom are drawn from African countries. Some 150 MINUSMA soldiers have been killed in action.
France is the largest foreign military presence in Mali as part of its ‘Operation Barkhane’ across northern Africa (Wikipedia). That mission aims to maintain the imperialist stranglehold over the region. But the French army does not operate under the UN ‘peacekeeping’ fig leaf in Mali. Instead, it calls its own shots. It invaded Mali in January 2013, seizing on the chaos created when the Mali military overthrew the country’s elected president in April 2012. The coup aimed to forestall peace talks with the ethnic Saharan minorities that live in the north of the country. They have long sought autonomy amidst Mali’s majority Black population.
The United States is the largest imperialist military presence in Africa. For more on that story, read here:
* Behind the secret U.S. war in Africa, by Wesley Morgan, Politico, July 2, 2018
* America’s war-fighting footprint in Africa, by Nick Turse, published in Tom Dispatch, April 27, 2017
* The US military is conducting secret missions all over Africa, by Nick Turse, VICE News, Oct 24, 2017
France’s military adventuring in Africa enjoys broad domestic support, including from the moderate political left in the country. The radical left issues rather tame critiques of the mission, accepting the premise that ‘something’ needs to be done about the problem of ‘jihadism’ in Mali and north Africa. In Canada, the political left across the spectrum is largely silent on Canada’s military adventuring in Mali. Critical journalists merely argue that Mali is too dangerous and too chaotic to be worth the loss of life of any Canadian soldiers.
The intervention into Mali follows Canada’s disastrous military intervention into Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014 and its ongoing, military/political intervention into Haiti. The latter mission began in February 2004 when Canada joined in assisting the overthrow of Haiti’s elected president. The Security Council’s ‘MINUSTAH’ mission in Haiti (Wikipedia) began in June 2004 and is ongoing. (The name of the mission was recently changed to ‘United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti’).
In Afghanistan, 158 Canadian soldiers died. The prestige of Canada’s military suffered greatly following revelations of its participation in the routine practices of torture and abuse by its Afghan police and army allies. Growing numbers of Canadians began to see that the U.S.-led Western intervention into Afghanistan, now dating back nearly 20 years, has had nothing to do with human development for the country and everything to do with projecting imperialist power and diktat. The 2013 book Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War In Afghanistan tells this story (reviewed here).
The Liberal Party government elected in Canada in October 2015 cancelled a formal investigation into Canada’s role in detainee torture and abuse in Afghanistan (reports here and here).
Mali is scheduled to hold a presidential election on July 29, 2018. But the vote may not proceed, considering the volatile political and military situation in the country. The country suffers an enduring humanitarian crisis which the foreign military interventions have made worse. An analysis of the situation in Mali by two writers favorable to the foreign military intervention is here. An analysis of the long and tortured efforts to reform Mali’s intervention is here, also written by a writer favorable to the foreign intervention.
This writer published extensive reports on the situation in Mali between 2012 and 2015. They provide valuable background to the present situation. Read them here: Mali war and occupation This is the archive of articles by Roger Annis and other writers on the April 2012 military coup d’etat in Mali and its aftermath. One of the feature articles in that archive is here: The political left in France and in Mali assess the French military intervention and its aftermath, by Roger Annis, March 30, 2013.
One of the foremost writers in English on the history of northern Africa is Jeremy Keenan. He is a professor of anthropology at the University of London and author of the 2012 book The Dying Sahara: U.S. Imperialism and Terror In Africa. In 2012, he wrote this article: ‘Algerian state terrorism and atrocities in northern Mali‘.
Mali is one of the poorest countries in Africa. It sits on the periphery of the Sahara Desert, whose boundary is moving steadily south as global warming increases. Mali desperately needs assistance in social and economic development and environmental protection. The last thing it needs is yet more imperialist military intervention, whose purpose is to deepen the foreign exploitation of mineral and other natural resources. The working class movement in Canada should speak out and demand ‘Canada Out of Mali’.
The above headline is a change from the original ‘Uncritical corporate news reports accompany arrival of Canadian military mission in Mali’. Roger Annis can be reached at rogerannis@hotmail.com.
Related news:
* Bomb attack against UN military base in central Mali kills six, Deutsche Welle, June 29, 2018
* UN Security Council approves Sahel counterterrorism force, Deutsche Welle, June 21, 2018
[The UN Security Council has approved an African counterterrorism force in the Sahel region of central Africa. The resolution creating the force was introduced by France. Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – known as the G5 – agreed in March to deploy a counterterrorism force in the region alongside the African Union and sought UN backing.
[The force is under a separate command but will complement the UN’s 15,000-strong MINUSMA peacekeeping mission in Mali and the 4,000-strong French troop presence in the region, known as Barkhane. Germany participates in an EU training mission in southern Mali and has a mandate to contribute up to 1,000 troops in support of the UN mission. ]
* 36 civilians dead in militia attack on village in central Mali, reports Fulani ethnic group, The Associated Press, June 25, 2018 Attack took place in area populated by ethnic Fulani, accused of al-Qaeda ties
* Mass grave in Mali holds 25 bodies tortured and murdered by Mali army, Reuters, June 19, 2018
* Twenty-five bodies found in central Mali after army sweep, Agence France presse, June 18, 2018
* Executions by Malian government troops highlight human-rights challenges for Canadian soldiers, by Geoffrey York, Globe and Mail, June 22, 2018
* Canada sends military force to Mali, by Gerry Caplan, published in his blog at Rabble.ca, June 29, 2018 [This is a generic analysis of the role Western powers in Africa during the past century and a half. The analysis sidesteps any specific analysis of the present situation in Mali, including the military coup of March 2013 and the Frnech military intervention ten months later, and any specific history of Canadian intervention abroad, be it of the warmaking or ‘peacekeeping’ variety. Thus, there is no mention of Canada’s central role in the Haiti coup of 2004 and no mention of Canada’s central role in the new cold war and the Ukraine coup of February 2014. Instead, we get a suggestion in this sentence of Canadian peacekeeping benevolence: “There are many other UN missions that would welcome Canada’s help, so why did the Liberals choose Mali?”]
Background:
The peace of Timbuktu: Democratic governance, development and African peacemaking, by Robin-Edward Poulton and Ibrahim ag Youssouf, published by the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 1998 (383 pages) Read the document here in pdf format: The Peace of Timbuktu, Robin-Edward Poulton and Ibrahim ag Youssouf, UN Publications, 1998 [This document traces the crucial years of the 1990s in Mali, a time of the ending of military rule and a peace agreeement in northern Mali (in 1996) between the Tuareg (Saharan) people and the central Mali government (section beginning on page 77 of the text). (The document is tainted by the pro-United Nations biases of its authors who attribute nothing but positive intentions to the world body.) The complex history of Mali is scrubbed from accounts by Western mainstream media because it is selling a simple-minded story of Western militaries riding to the rescue of a country (Mali) and continent (Africa) threatened by ‘terrorism’.]
