After pressure on the Provisional Government of Mali and the United Nations for a military intervention, France has a started a military operation called Operation Serval in the north of Mali in January 2013. Operation Serval is much more serving in the interest of France than many pronounced interest of international community. This operation has huge risks for variety of reasons in the region and beyond. The information and news about the operation is not only quite common but also mostly manipulated through the French media outlets. Especially, the lack of information about the human tragedy is striking as it carries the risk of damaging the image of operation. Looking at roughly to the issue, there are three international actors in this conflict. First one is France and its supporters in the European countries. Second key actor is African countries. Although the issue seems to be related to the West Africa, the conflict in Mali has repercussion for the whole Africa both for its results and the way the resolution of conflict is dealt with. Third actor is the Islamic world in general as the both parties in the conflict are Muslims. Since the revolution in Libya, military intervention led by individual states is becoming more frequent in international politics. The latest one is the case of Mali. Although many people debated the French intervention in Mali from economic, political and terrorism threat perspective, the biggest loser in this case has been both the west and Africa.
Since the early 2000, there has been huge African ownership and agency to solve the problems of Africa by Africans. The motto of ‘African solutions for African problems’ have been talked in almost every meeting. This created a moment of golden diplomacy in Africa, where African leaders assumed the leadership and tried hard to solve problems in the continent. They re-structured the Organization of African Unity in a new form and re -named it as African Union in 2002. They articulated an economic strategy for the development of the continent, NEPAD, and they succeeded to get the support of international community. Africa has occupied and important agenda at G-8, G-20 and other international forums. Conflict resolution measures of the Africans were much more impressive. The African Union organized mediations in Ivory Coast, Burundi, Congo, Somalia and many other conflict areas; and in support of this, the African Union sent peacekeeping missions to various places.
Published in Political Reflection Magazine Vol. 4 No. 2
