BEHIND MALI’S CONFLICT – MYTHS, REALITIES & UNKNOWNS

• Main Author: Ondřej NOVOSAD
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Publishing House of Rzeszow University of Technology 2015-02-01
• Series: Modern Management Review
• Subjects: resources, interest, intervention, goal, global, terrorism, military training, economy.
• Online Access: http://doi.prz.edu.pl/pl/pdf/zim/144
• ISSN: 2300-6366; 2353-0758

This article presents selected issues about a military operation in Mali. On 11th January 2013, France launched Operation Serval, a military offensive in Mali. The operation is code-named after the Serval, a medium sized African wild-cat. Since the beginning of operation, French president Francois Hollande has maintained that his country’s military intervention has no other goal “than the fight against terrorism”2. Although the response to the crisis in Mali has revealed the shortcomings of the multilateral security architecture in the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the African Union (AU) and the UN, the first phase of Opération Serval in Mali is assessed as having achieved its aims in the first ten days of deployment. It succeeded in securing Bamako, stopping the terrorist advance, striking terrorist rear bases, and setting the conditions for the arrival of African troops. They have retaken terrorist- held urban areas and pushed deep into the rural strongholds. Unsurprisingly, given the training, equipment and capabilities of the French forces, they did so rapidly and efficiently. It’s too soon to declare Operation Serval a success, and there are already concerns about its eventual end, but the French-led military intervention in Mali has at least brought the country back from the brink of disaster, and opened up a space in which Malians can finally begin to chart a way forward for their nation.