A FORMER MINISTER OF DEFENSE'S VIEW OF THE CRISIS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAMAKO 000507

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/04/2018
TAGS: ASEC PINS PINR PREL
SUBJECT: A FORMER MINISTER OF DEFENSE'S VIEW OF THE CRISIS
IN NORTHERN MALI

REF: A. BAMAKO 00357

B. BAMAKO 00482

C. OUAGADOUGOU 00448

D. BAMAKO 00415

Classified By: Political Officer Aaron Sampson, Embassy Bamako, for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1.(C) Summary: On June 3, former Minister of Defense
Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga met with the Ambassador to discuss
Mali's response, or lack thereof, to deepening Tuareg unrest.
Maiga described President Amadou Toumani Toure's plan for a
regional Heads of State summit on Sahel-Saharan security as
overly-optimistic and said Mali was not prepared to host such
an event despite Foreign Minister Moctar Ouane's recent
attempts to drum up support from neighboring capitals. The
Heads of State summit is likely one of the agenda items for
the UN's Special Representative for West Africa Said Djinnet,
who will be in Bamako to meet with President Toure and others
from June 8-10. Maiga has urged President Toure to help the
Tuareg rebel Alliance for Democracy and Change (ADC)
re-assert its authority over dissident Tuareg rebel groups in
order to serve as northern Mali's principal interlocutor.
Maiga expressed concern that newly emergent rebel militias
were not bound by the Algiers Accords which was signed by the
ADC in July 2006 and said that Algeria could help unify
disparate Tuareg movements under the ADC banner. He also
stressed the need for Mali to set a public time-line for
implementation of the Algiers Accords as a means of
preventing Algeria from drawing out its mediation efforts.
End Summary.

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The Ex-Minister
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2.(C) On June 3, former Minister of Defense Soumeylou Boubeye
Maiga met with the Ambassador to share his views on the
situation in northern Mali and President Toure's proposed
regional summit on security issues. Maiga is from the
northern city of Gao and served as Defense Minister and
Director of State Security under former President Alpha Oumar
Konare. He was among seven candidates who challenged
President Toure for the presidency in 2007 but finished far
back in the pack with less than 2 percent of the vote.
Although his political support base is slim, President Toure
and others respect Maiga's continued ties to the Malian
security services and his influence within the Songhrai
community of Gao and northern Mali. Maiga now serves as an
informal advisor to President Toure and others in Bamako on
Sahel-Saharan security.

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Views on the Regional Summit
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3.(C) Over the past few months President Toure has
repeatedly raised the idea of a regional Heads of State
summit on regional security as a response to multiple and
growing threats in northern Mali and across the Sahel-Saharan
zone (Ref. A). Although Foreign Minister Moctar Ouane has
traveled to several neighboring capitals to drum up summit
support, there is no indication that a regional Heads of
State meeting in Bamako is any closer to fruition. The local
UN representative in Bamako told the Embassy on June 2 that
the UN's Special Representative for West Africa, Said
Djinnet, would likely discuss the proposed summit with
President Toure during Djinnet's June 8-10 visit to Bamako.

4.(C) Maiga posited that the planning for a summit has
faltered due to a failure on the part of President Toure to
narrow down Mali's objectives for the summit. "If we invite
people without formulating any clear ideas ahead of time,"
said Maiga, "we risk an impasse." Maiga said Niger indicated
interest in a summit despite Presidents Toure and Tandja's
differing approaches to Tuareg unrest, but Algeria was
pressing for a Ministerial level meeting rather than a
Presidential conference. Libya has also apparently balked at
the idea of a regional Heads of State meeting. "If the
summit doesn't happen in June," said Maiga, "it is unlikely
to happen at all."

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Helping Tuareg Rebels Help Themselves
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5.(C) Since the ADC signed the Algiers Accords on behalf of
dissident Kidal Tuaregs in July 2006, it is not clear whether
newly emergent groups, each with their own agendas, are bound
by the Algiers framework. Maiga questioned whether Mali
could negotiate Accords implementation with Ibrahim Bahanga
or representatives of other groups not affiliated with the
ADC. He said the cease-fire agreement reached in Tripoli in
March 2008 was problematic because it was negotiated with
members of Bahanga's group who were not part of the Algiers
process. Maiga advocated resolving this anomaly by bringing
everyone back under the umbrella of the ADC since this is the
only Tuareg movement officially recognized by the Malian
government. Otherwise, said Maiga, Mali is headed toward an
intra-Tuareg confrontation that will leave the Malian
government at the mercy of random groups of rebels and
bandits.

6.(C) Maiga said he has advised President Toure to help the
ADC reconstitute itself in order to re-exert its authority
over Bahanga and others. This apparently includes allowing
time for the ADC and Tuaregs to regroup in order to select a
new point person for negotiations with the government.
(Note: ADC spokesman Ahmada ag Bibi and National Assembly
Deputy Alghabass Intallah pitched the same or a similar
notion to President Toure last week, although their demand
was predicated on a cease-fire declaration by President Toure
(Ref. B). End Note.) Maiga said Mali should demand the
unconditional release of the approximately 50 Malian soldiers
captured by the ADC during the May 21 attack in Abeibara and
33 hostages still held by Bahanga as a prerequisite to
negotiation.

7.(C) When asked who could spearhead the ADC in place of the
absent ADC president Iyad ag Ghali, Maiga cited either ag
Bibi or Lt. Col. Bah Moussa. Maiga speculated that money
could resolve most of the differences between these groups.
He indicated that Algeria was also working to unify Tuareg
groups but warned that Mali needed to publicly articulate a
time-line in order to prevent Algeria from dragging out its
mediation ad infinitum.

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Refugees, Mixed Units and a Murder Inquiry
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8.(C) On June 2 international and local media carried
reports of several hundred refugees crossing the border into
Burkina Faso to flee fighting in northern Mali (Ref. C).
These refugees are likely not from the northern region of
Kidal, as indicated by international press reports, given the
distance between Kidal and the Burkina frontier. Embassy
staff who have heard radio interviews with the refugees
report that their accents are consistent with individuals
from the Gao region near the frontier with Burkina.
Nevertheless, refugees and internally displaced persons have
been a problem in northern Mali since Ibrahim Bahanga began
systematic attacks against the Malian military around
Tinzawaten in August 2007 (Ref. D). Until now, these
displaced populations have taken refuge in extremely remote
areas of northern Mali or been absorbed into the Tuareg zones
of southern Algeria. Maiga said news of Malian refugees in
camps in neighboring Burkina increased pressure on the Malian
government by placing a human face on a small-scale
humanitarian crisis that has been brewing since late 2007.

9.(C) Maiga identified the creation of mixed military units
as one of the central components of the Algiers Accords and
proposed a vast overhaul of the Malian military - complete
with regional and international peace keepers based in
northern Mali - in order to fulfill requirements for both the
mixed units and the repositioning of the Malian military to
pre-2006 levels. Maiga faulted President Toure for failing
to articulate a clear road map for the creation and
integration of mixed military units. He attributed this in
large part to internal bureaucratic divisions within the
Malian government. He also noted that, in addition to there
being no point person for the Tuareg side, the Malians appear
to be muddled in a tug-of-war between the Ministries of
Defense, Internal Security and Territorial Administration
over who controls northern policy. This confusion, or lack
of authority, contributed in Maiga's view to Mali's failure
to send any senior civilian or military leaders to visit
Malian troops in the north following the May 21 battle in
Abeibara. Maiga said Mali's losses on May 21 were larger
than anything experienced during the rebellion of the 1990s.


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10.(C) Maiga has also urged the Malian government to
publicly announce an official inquiry into the April 10
executions of two Tuareg ADC members in Kidal. One of the
two victims, Barka ag Cheikh, had been integrated into the
Malian army yet was buried hastily without the military
honors normally accorded to a fallen member of the Malian
armed forces. Maiga said this decision fueled suspicion on
the Tuareg side of a governmental cover-up.

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Comment: Theory Meets Reality in Northern Mali
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11.(C) Maiga operates at a theoretical level that is often
several steps removed from practical reality. Some of his
notions, such as a vast military reorganization involving
regional and international peace-keepers based in the
northern hamlet of Tessalit, are not practical in view of the
Malian government's limited resources and the remoteness of
northern Mali. His assessment of progress toward a regional
Head of State summit on security and the need to unify Tuareg
rebel groups is, however, note worthy. We share Maiga's
pessimism about Mali's ability to cobble together a summit
agenda and secure the attendance of key regional leaders in
the near future. While the Malians are masters of
last-minute logistics, differences between Mali, Algeria and
Libya over the proposed summit's format may be
insurmountable.

12.(C) Realigning Tuareg rebel groups behind the ADC may
lso be a good idea in theory and clearly correspons with
ADC spokesman ag Bibi's point of view. I practice, however,
unifying Tuareg rebel groupswill prove difficult given the
divergent interest of Tuareg militias and the ADC's evident
leadership void. Neither ag Bibi nor Bah Moussa appear well
placed to influence Ibrahim Bahanga or even smaller groups of
bandits now operating independent of the ADC. Ag Bibi lacks
the rebel credentials of the absent ADC leader Iyad ag Ghali.
While Bah Moussa's clearly possesses the requisite military
experience, his diplomatic abilities remain unknown. There
is also no indication of any willingness on the part of
either the ADC or Bahanga to release the estimated 80 Malian
soldiers they are currently holding as "prisoners of war."
MCCULLEY