InsiderBLM Africa
On Sunday, the Algerian president met with former Malian rebels who had signed a major peace deal in 2015 with the help of Algiers. They said that they wanted to end the “impasse” and the “status quo” even though tensions with the government in Bamako were still high.
The war in Mali was put an end by a peace agreement signed in 2015 with the independence rebellion. Algeria and its southern neighbor share roughly 1,400 km of border.
The implementation of this peace agreement, which calls for ex-rebels to be incorporated into the national army and decentralization measures in particular, is surprisingly low.
The Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), an alliance of separatist and separatist organizations, declared in December that it was suspending its participation in the application of the agreement due to the “persistent lack of political will” of the junta in power.
For weeks, the parties have been trying to come to an agreement through international mediation, with Algeria playing a significant role.
The leaders and representatives of “political movements of the Republic of Mali” were received by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Sunday in Algiers, according to the official Algerian agency APS.
According to comments made by a spokesperson for the Malian movements, the meeting allowed Algeria to emphasize its firm commitment to a “new dynamics of peace in the region.” The Malian movements welcomed Algeria’s role in “solving the problems in Mali.”
In a press release, the CMA claimed that after discussing its goals and priorities, it had come up with “potential solutions that can help break the impasse and the current status quo.”
To reach “an agreement on the diligence of a common impetus with stricter guarantees,” President Tebboune reaffirmed Algeria’s strong commitment to Malians “on all sides,” according to the press release.
The CMA has been criticizing the “failure” of the Algiers peace accord for a number of months and urging its international backers to “avoid a definitive break” with Bamako. After meeting with mediation ambassadors in the middle of February, the Malian junta in power declared its intention to implement the peace accord.
Amadou Albert Maga, a member of the National Council of the Transition (CNT), which serves as a legislative body, announced at the beginning of February that the Malian army would soon start operations to reestablish the central State’s control over Kidal (north), a vital city held by the CMA. In Kidal, war is unavoidable, he declared.
Even though more and more Malians are speaking out about how old this peace agreement is, it is still seen as a necessary step toward restoring political and military stability in this huge country, which has been in a state of conflict since 2012, when separatist and jihadist insurgencies began in the north.
if the former independence rebels had stopped fighting because of the 2015 peace deal. The jihadists are still fighting with the Malian army, and their violence has spread to central Mali, Burkina Faso, and the neighboring countries of Niger and Niger.
