In many states of the Sahel, pervasive impunity and indiscriminate repression have undermined popular trust in government and fuelled further conflict by pushing victims into the arms of jihadists.
States in the Sahel are diverse and face different challenges. But the repeated failures of regional militaries to contain the threat from armed groups is a product of common features of state weakness and dysfunctionality, including endemic corruption, structural disorganization, and the deliberate weakening of military cohesion and control by national leaders worried about the threat of coups. Military forces are often made up of hastily recruited, poorly trained, under-equipped and unpaid soldiers, with little knowledge of the terrain in which they operate. The result is pervasive impunity and indiscriminate repression that undermines popular trust in government and, rather than ending violence, fuels further conflict by pushing victims into the arms of jihadists.
Governments across the Sahel have little control over their security forces at the local level. In states that have transitioned from military dictatorship to democratic governance, there is significant mistrust between elected presidents and the militaries that held power before them, for example in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and, to a lesser extent, Mauritania. Out of fear for their own position, some leaders have deliberately weakened their regular armies.
Corruption also impedes state control over troops on the ground. The misappropriation of soldiers’ pay leads to mutinies or desertions, as has occurred in Nigeria, and contract fraud leaves them poorly equipped. In Niger, for example, an audit carried out in 2020 revealed that nearly 40 per cent of the $312 million committed by the Ministry of National Defence between 2017 and 2019 was lost through over-invoicing or contracts that were never honoured. Even worse, security services have often been involved in arms-trafficking that directly or indirectly supplied insurgents. Again in Niger, an army captain in Niamey and a prison director in the Diffa region were caught selling part of their stocks to Boko Haram fighters in 2013. In Chad, Boko Haram obtained weapons from military officers in N’Djamena in return for vehicles stolen in Nigeria.
Militaries in the Sahel are predominantly non-professional. Since independence, they have rarely fought against other states, instead being used largely for the internal repression of political opponents.
In addition, militaries in the Sahel are predominantly non-professional. Since independence, they have rarely fought against other states, instead being used largely for the internal repression of political opponents. Recruits have joined for material benefits, rather than to fight for their country, and are reluctant to confront highly motivated insurgents. Today, jihadi groups see regional militaries as very weak. Members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), for instance, are said to consider the Malian military as a mere ‘inconvenience’, and the UN peacekeepers as ‘target practice’. Professional military observers have dismissed the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) as ‘bureaucrats in uniform’ or ‘a comical theatre group, suitable only for military parades’.
The integration of former rebels into national military forces has amplified these challenges. In Mali, some Tuareg rebels were integrated into the army in 1992, only to desert in 1994 before contributing to further revolts in 2006 and 2012. Likewise, in Niger, peace agreements signed in April 1995 provided for the integration of Tuareg combatants into the National Forces for Intervention and Security (FNIS); they ultimately deserted and joined the rebellion of the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), set up in May 2007 by a former FNIS captain.
Even Chad, a state seen as a pillar of security in the Sahel, is not free from these challenges. In power since 1990, President Idriss Déby has withstood coup attempts from numerous armed groups. In 2008, his regime would have collapsed were it not for the reported bombing by French forces of rebels approaching the presidential palace in N’Djamena. Furthermore, the Chadian military is reported to have been involved in looting, human rights violations and supporting rebel groups in the Central African Republic. In 2015 the UN asked the Chadian government to remove its troops from the country.
Human rights abuses
It appears that all the member states of the G5 Sahel also share common characteristics when it comes to abuses against civilians. Governments have done little to respond to accusations of human rights violations, either because they endorse them, because they want to protect their reputation, or because they could not punish military personnel they do not control. Laws and regulations that could be employed to bring undisciplined or criminal soldiers before judicial bodies are not applied, or are circumvented in the name of security priorities, with accommodations reached behind closed doors that very often result in the transfer of suspects rather than bringing them to justice.
The case of Mali is emblematic in this regard. The government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (who took office in 2013) has broadly avoided taking responsibility when the army or allied militias have committed atrocities, as for example in the central and southern regions of the country in 2018 and 2019. Under international pressure, the authorities condemned these crimes at the highest level and appointed commissions of inquiry, but no official reports were ever published and no trials took place. The Malian state also absolved Captain Amadou Sanogo, the leader of the March 2012 coup that ousted president-elect Amadou Toumani Touré. After military intervention from France and the election of Keïta to the presidency, Sanogo was in fact promoted to the rank of general. He did not pay compensation to the families of his victims or reimburse the public funds he was accused of misappropriating. His deputy at the time of the coup, Ibrahima Dahirou Dembélé, was reinstated in the army and was eventually appointed as minister of defence in May 2019, despite strong suspicions that he was involved in the assassination of loyalist troops during the coup. For fear of mutiny and further coups, the Malian government simply did not have the authority to sanction its own security forces.
