Organized crime and conflict in the Sahel-Sahara region
Source: Getty
Summary
Over the past decade, the increase instability in the Sahel-Sahara region is a growing concern in Europe and the United States.
It has remained concerned Western governments to point to the weakness
of state control in the region will allow for al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb and other jihadist organizations to expand their influence and
establish safe havens in areas outside government control.
It seems that the seizure of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and
regulations related closely to the north of Mali recently justified
these fears.
Western governments have focused heavily on the presence of al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb, and provided technical assistance in an attempt to
strengthen the capacity of the security and justice sectors to combat
the group.
However, Western governments underestimated, that were not ignored, the
influence of organized crime which undermines stability in the region.
The al-Qaeda itself, albeit partially, criminal network, where
Westerners abducted in order to blackmail the exercise is taking double
the ransom and the release of imprisoned members of the group.
Was state collusion with organized crime, until the military coup in
Mali in March / March 2012, the most important factor in the growth of
the organization and drive the conflict in the north of the country.
Exercising the actors involved in organized crime currently influential
politically and militarily decisive in the north of Mali.
In the meantime, did not stand a growing organized criminal activity in the region, only very little attention.
إذ يعترف المراقبون الخارجيون والمسؤولون في حكومة مالي بسهولة بأهمية
الاتّجار بالمخدّرات، بيد أنهم ركّزوا بصورة رئيسة على دور تنظيم القاعدة
في بلاد المغرب وتجاهلوا أو قلّلوا من أهمية علاقات المسؤولين في الدولة
والقادة السياسيين بالشبكات الإجرامية. علاوة على ذلك، كان صنّاع القرار في
الغرب ينظرون في المقام الأول إلى الفرع الإقليمي لتنظيم القاعدة بوصفه
جماعة إرهابية، على رغم أن نشاطه سيء السمعة كان يتمثّل في اختطاف الرعايا
الأجانب لابتزاز الفدية.
لفهم الأزمة في شمال مالي، وعلى نحو أوسع موجة عدم الاستقرار المتزايد في
المنطقة، لابدّ من تجاوز دور تنظيم القاعدة في بلاد المغرب والتنظيمات
الجهادية الأخرى. إذ مكّن التنافس للسيطرة على عمليات التهريب وتسامح
مسؤولي الدولة تجاه النشاط الإجرامي الذي يمارسه الحلفاء السياسيون
الجماعات، المتطرفة من الازدهار. كما تسبّب تواطؤ وضلوع المسؤولين في مالي،
واستعداد الحكومات الغربية لدفع الفدية، في ازدهار صناعة الاختطاف. فضلاً
عن ذلك، كانت هذه العوامل هامة بالنسبة إلى الديناميكيات التي تسبّبت في
انفجار الصراع المتجدّد في شمال مالي في العام 2012.
Cigarette smuggling has contributed greatly to the emergence of
practices and networks that allowed the growth of drug trafficking.
Began smuggling cigarettes to North African markets to flourish in the
early eighties of the last century, and evolved into a large-scale trade
and controlled by a few big players.
Supplied cigarettes imported via Mauritania large part of the Algerian
and Moroccan markets, while the direct those imported via Cotonou in
Benin and Lome in Togo, Niger and across Burkina Faso, to Libya and
Algeria.
In the year 2009, the estimates of the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime (UNODC) to be smuggled cigarettes across these roads account
for about 60 percent of the tobacco market Jamahiriya (or 240 million
dollars in revenue at the retail level) and 18 percent of the Algerian
market (or 228 million dollars).
Comprising the main actors in this trade of importers and distributors
of cigarettes legal, who import their goods from the free trade zones
such as Dubai.
So the best explanation for this trade is that it is a deliberate
strategy of tobacco companies to circumvent the tax regulations, or
break the monopoly of the state in North Africa for the distribution of
cigarettes.
This system has led to the erosion of tariff devices due to corruption
and collusion between smugglers and officials in the state.
During part of her goods are transported in large trucks on the main
roads, in collusion with the security officials in Mali and Niger.
In Libya, the operations control cigarette smuggling networks in the
security services, which is dominated by members of the tribe Alqmazfah.
Indeed, in the triangle between Mauritania, Mali and Algeria desert
trading networks - often with the direct involvement of officials in the
Polisario movement, which seeks independence for Western Sahara - the
Algerian-backed goods and humanitarian aid to the south and north of
cigarettes to Algeria and Morocco.
Cigarette smuggling has also contributed to the emergence of smaller
gangs of smugglers expensive to transport goods from Mauritania, Mali
and Niger to Algeria.
Famed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who won notoriety later as one of the leading
figures in the countries of the Sahel operations carried out by
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, he ran for a long time smuggling
cigarettes across the desert.
Like the smuggling of goods, cigarettes, Trade immigrants also helped
in the emergence of transport companies in the region specializing in
transport operations off-road, or make arrangements with corrupt
officials.
Has increased flows of irregular migration from sub-Saharan Africa to
North Africa and from there to Europe, starting from the early nineties.
The GAO has emerged in northern Mali and Agadez in neighboring Niger,
and two magnets are also two of the cigarette smuggling, Comerkzen
presidents of immigrants flights to Morocco (via Algeria) or to Libya.
Across the desert, did not lead to the emergence of trade migration networks transnational widely.
The operations are irregular migration in the region are generally in
accordance with the system of "pay-go" system instead of a "full
package".
This means, as shown in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a
group or a single network for Ataatoly usually manage the whole
process, where it is transportation and negotiate the payment of bribes
to customs officials and police usually in separate stages of the
journey across Niger, Mali, and holds the transport companies Algerian
or Libyan responsibility at the border.
Only in Libya was to control immigration and profits monopolized by
members of one tribe - Alqmazfah - who have close links with the
security apparatus.
The advent of multi-militia-controlled parts of the territory of Libya
to make the country more dangerous for migrants, who are now at risk of
intercepted at many different locations.
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