389 - Cards reshuffled in Saharan geopolitics - Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD)

For ten or so years the spotlights have regularly turned towards the Sahara, but no longer solely for the beauty of its landscapes. The disorder which is stirring up this region, the Earth’s most extensive desert is causing concern among public opinion and authorities the world over. In a special issue of the journal Hérodote , an IRD research team and their partners present reviews of their work on the political, strategic, economic and security-related turbulence at work in that large area.

The geopolitical upheaval of the Arab Spring

Early 2011 saw a political upheaval upset the whole of North Africa. One by one, regimes that had long been strongly established were weakened or collapsed. These Arab Spring events will have considerable consequences for the Sahara and the Sahel.

A particular case, the fall of Mouammar Gaddafi, head of Libya for 42 years, will send shockwaves into the current geopolitical configuration. Throughout his rule, the “Guide of the Revolution” conducted policies of influence over the whole of the Sahel and the Sahara. For instance he played a predominant role in setting up the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, or CEN-SAD, in 1968, and also in the Tuareg rebellions, both as fomenter and regulator of troubles. And currently his massive distribution of arms to combat the Benghazi rebels is creating the danger of increasing the already high level of insecurity of the region. AQIM ha staken advantage of this to procure heavy armaments (anti-aircraft missiles and explosives), whereas Tuaregs from Mali and Niger, several hundred of whom fought alongside pro-Gaddafi forces, equipped themselves with light arms. Under these conditions of increasing insecurity, how can economic activity be relaunched and development projects be set up?

The economy under the yoke of globalization and trafficking

The Sahara is by tradition terrain for trading. But the time of the salt caravans has almost gone. For a decade or so now, various form of trafficking have grafted themselves on to the traditional trade movements. First cigarette smuggling, then drugs and arms.

The region is becoming an a transit area for cannabis ( 1) towards the Middle East and cocaine towards Europe. Coming from Latin America,, 15 % of world production of cocaine now passes through West Africa. This smuggling is represented in the acceleration of wealth accumulation, with corruption, fragmentation of territories and destruction of societies. States are not capable of putting such trafficking to an end, in which AQIM and many workless Tuaregs are involved.

Controls redefining frontiers

Large-scale migratory movements from West Africa have become superimposed on the traditional trade flows. Although only a small proportion of these migrants manage to reach Europe( 2), control of such migratory flows intensified from the end of the 1990s and is dealt with by a “concerted” management approach. Today, the European Union subcontracts the halting of migrants to the North-West African countries and strengthens Sahelian States’ capacities to help them control the flows right from their departure points. As a result of these trends, new migration routes are being traced out*, the itineraries turn eastwards, by way of Turkey or even the Ukraine. Journeys become ever longer, more costly and risky for the candidates for exile.

The race for commodities

Another battle is raging in the Sahara, albeit a peaceful one. This is the race to acquire commodities between the countries of the North and the emerging countries, all attracted by the wealth concealed underground in the Sahara. Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad are becoming countries where the century-old hegemony of France is being demolished by China( 3), India and the United States. Thus the company Areva’s monopoly on uranium extraction in Niger has come to an end with the opening of a new mine a Chinese company has developed. Similarly, in the oil sector, prospecting permits formerly attributed to Western firms are now granted to Chinese concerns.

Increasing insecurity

The Tuareg rebellions of the 1990s and 2000s have had lasting effects on the circulation of both people and goods across the Sahara. With the traffickers of cigarettes and drugs and the settlement of Islamist groups in the Sahara –all actors with an interest in making it a lawless no-go area– these rebellions have installed a climate of insecurity which wiped out some promising economic activities such as tourism.

The actions of AQIM, formerly restricted to Algeria, have spread to Mauritania, Mali and Niger. Locally, apart from the insecurity generated, they alter profoundly the religious and cultural practices of local communities, especially with regard to the status of women.

In one decade, the Sahara has become a vast expanse of desert fragmented into a series of territories and roads, controlled by a multitude of actors who completely disregard borders and State powers. The interests of traffickers of all sorts, migration organizers and terrorist groups intermingle. In the middle there are deprived communities and States which cannot maintain their control without the aid of foreign powers. The Sahara is being stirred up by a multitude of shifting geopolitical and economic power configurations and will continue to be talked about for a long time to come.

* See also scientific bulletin n°34: Le premier atlas des migrations ouest-africaines vers l'Europe

(1) Morocco is the world’s top producer of cannabis (about 21 % of the total).

(2) According to the agency Frontex (European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union), the numbers of Sub-Saharan people reaching Europe do not exceed a few tens of thousands per year.

(3) Since 2007, China has made strong inroads into Africa. A proportion of the supplies for the Sahara are now made up of goods brought in from China.