One of the main armed groups operating in northern Mali decided on Monday August 29 to commit to a merger of all the armed groups of ex-rebels that signed a peace agreement with Bamako in 2015. armed group National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) is one of the main groups to have taken up arms in 2012 demanding independence for northern Mali.
Along with several other groups united under the banner of a coalition, the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), they abandoned their demands for autonomy and in 2015 signed a peace agreement with other pro-government groups and the authorities. .
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On Monday, the MNLA said it had instructed its executive office to “start (the) process of merging» with these other groups of ex-rebels in «a single politico-military entity“, declared Sidi Ag Baye, spokesperson for the MNLA at the end of a congress, according to a report by AFP. “When the three movements“of the CMA”will unify in a single entity, it will give strength, whether in the field of politics or in that of security“, reacted for AFP Salah Ag Ahmed Abba, notable present at the congress of the MNLA.
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Several hundred participants
The meeting, which took place in Kidal, in northern Mali, between Saturday and Monday, brought together several hundred participants. The relations of the ex-rebel armed groups with Bamako are written in sawtooth. The peace agreement signed in 2015, which provides, among other things, for decentralization measures and the integration of ex-rebels into the national army, is only very little implemented. “The implementation of the agreement is dragging on to the point of tarnishing its credibility in the eyes of the populations“, Estimated Monday the MNLA, judging that”the evolution of the challenges and the volatility of the context suggest that the agreement as it stands cannot meet the requirements of the moment“.
The authorities announced in early August the reinstatement of some 26,000 ex-rebels, but many questions related to this reinstatement are pending. The actual numbers of ex-rebels, like those of soldiers in the national army, also remain unclear. This peace agreement, more and more publicly considered obsolete by some Malians, is nevertheless considered to be an essential component of a return to political and military stability in this immense country destabilized by a conflict for 10 years.
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