Mali teaching lesson in African security challenges

French soldiers in armored vehicles operate near Sevare, Mali, on Jan. 23. France intervened in the impoverished North African nation this month to turn back an extremist Islamic movement that had been seizing territory in the country for more than a year. /AP photo


The international community can't afford to ignore Africa.

In an opinion piece for the Concord Monitor this week, Africa security and terrorism expert Kurt Shillinger makes a powerful case for global leaders such as the United States and France to actively help African countries develop their nascent democracies and combat extremist groups. In particular, Shillinger sounds the alarm about the spread of Islamic extremist movements from East Africa into the Sahel and across North Africa.

The Sahel, a barren band of territory between the vast deserts and arid expanses of North Africa and the grasslands that stretch across the southern half of the continent, is one of the harshest environments on Earth. Most soldiers from African nations lack the training and equipment to operate in the Sahel, making it fertile soil for any insurgency to grow.

With fighting raging in Mali for more than a year, last summer's deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and this month's hostage crisis at an Algerian petroleum plant, it's clear that North Africa is becoming one of the hotter battle fronts in the struggle against terrorism and Islamic extremism.

In a view from the Ahmed Baba Institute's conservation lab, a ramp slopes down to the underground exhibition room and archive space, where the Timbuktu, Mali, libary's 20,000-manuscript collection is stored. Islamic extremists retreating from Timbuktu last week set fire to the library, reportedly destroying thousands of the ancient texts. The library holds one of the largest collections of early Islamic scholarship in the world. /Image via archrecord.construction.com

The rugged Sahel region of Africa stretches about 3,000 miles from Senegal in the West to Eritrea in the East. /Image via energeopolitics.com

Congo: Africa's next genocide

At the beginning of 2012, more than 1.7 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were internally displaced persons, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. About 72,000 of those refugees were living in "spontaneous camps" where they received UNHCR assistance. /Truls Brekke photo via Global Knowledge

Starting in April 1994, the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda was targeted for genocide. In 100 days, more than 500,000 Tutsis were killed and thousands of women were raped. The total Tutsis killed in the conflict is estimated at 800,000. /Image via United Human Rights Council


In 1994, the international community turned a blind eye to a genocidal conflict in the heart of Africa. A half a million Rwandan Tutsis were killed in 100 days, a blink of an eye in the halls of power in Washington, New York and Paris, where officials took no action while a small U.N. observer mission bore witness to one of history's most barbaric episodes.

The latest civil war in the Congo has been dragging on for 14 years, grinding away in plain sight if anyone cared to watch. According to GlobalSecurity.org, 3.8 million people died in Congo from the beginning of the civil war in 1998 to an attempted political solution in 2004, the period of most intense warfare. The fighting, which has involved several neighboring countries, has flared off and on ever since.

The civil war has claimed at least 5 million lives, with no end in sight. The Germans are accused of killing 6 million Jews during World War II.

Several armies and guerrilla movements that have fought in the Congo's civil war have enlisted child soldiers. /Image via wordpress.com

The introduction to the 2012 Amnesty International human rights report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo speaks volumes:

"Impunity for crimes under international law continued in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), despite some limited progress. Government security forces and armed groups committed scores of human rights violations in eastern DRC. Nine soldiers from the Congolese armed forces, including a lieutenant colonel, were convicted of crimes against humanity, notably rape, committed on 1 January in the town of Fizi, South Kivu. They were sentenced to jail in February in a rare example of perpetrators being promptly brought to justice. However, investigations stalled into other cases of mass rapes committed by the national army and armed groups. The general elections were marred by many human rights violations, including unlawful killings and arbitrary arrests by security forces. Human rights defenders and journalists faced intimidation and restrictions on the freedoms of expression and association."