Three West African states led by military junta met this week to bolster a fledgling alliance described by some analysts on Friday as an effort to legitimize their military governments amid coup-related sanctions and strained relations with the neighbours.
On his first trip abroad since then the July coup that brought him to power, Niger’s junta leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani held separate meetings Thursday with his counterparts in Mali and Burkina Faso.
During their meetings, the leaders pledged security and political cooperation under the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES), a partnership the three countries announced in September as a measure to help combat of extremist violence with which they each struggle and opposite the Sahel, the vast arid expanse south of the Sahara desert.
The alliance provides a “road to sovereignty” for countries and their citizens, General Tchiani told reporters after meeting Malian leader Col. Assimi Goita. “Through this alliance, the peoples of the Sahel assure that … nothing will stop them from the goal of making this region of the Sahel, not a region of insecurity, but a region of prosperity,” Chiani said.
In reality, however, the partnership “is partly an effort to entrench and legitimize (their) military governments” more than to address the violent extremism they have limited capacity to combat, said Nate Allen, an associate professor in Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
Violence across the Sahel has contributed to a recent wave of coups in the region and the militaries that claimed to have taken power to help address their country’s security challenges have found it difficult to do so.
On Thursday, General Tchiani partly blamed the violence on foreign forces, repeating allegations his government has often made against France — which had influence in the three countries before it was forced out after their troops took over — and regional West African bloc of ECOWAS, which has subject to severe sanctions in Niger as a measure to reverse the wave of coups in the region.
The new partnership also offers the military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger an opportunity “to say, ‘we are not internationally isolated and we actually have partners who share our ideology and philosophy,'” said James Barnett, a researcher who specializes in the West. Africa at the US-based Hudson Institute.
Some analysts, however, believe that by pooling their resources, these countries are able to reduce dependence on foreign countries and face the security challenge on a single front.
“The value of this new alliance, despite its limited means and capabilities, lies in its initiation by interested members,” said Bedr Issa, an independent analyst who studies the Sahel conflict. “Its long-term success depends both on the resources that member states can mobilize and on the support that Africans and the wider international community can provide,” he added.
In Mali’s capital, Bamako, 35-year-old Aissata Sanogo expressed hope that such cooperation could be useful.
“It’s important to take charge of our own security,” Sanogo said. “That’s what I expect from this alliance.”
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Associated Press reporter Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali, contributed to this report.
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