Amidst the sudden coup d’état and
disintegration of military positions in Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, the international media
has begun to accord the West African nation of Mali its share of due attention.
However, beyond the capital city of Bamako, behind the frontlines of the North,
a tremendously more consequential and lethal but less photogenic drama is about
to unfold in the towns and villages which constitute the majority of the Malian
population. Absent a sudden turn of events, a completely unnecessary, man-made
catastrophe is about to unfold, and the international community can do little
but watch as it all happens in slow motion.
The Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has given the CNRDRE mutineers a 72
hour ultimatum; either step down and abdicate all powers which they now
illegitimately control, or the regional organization is about to shut Mali off
from all international trade. If CNDRE does not abdicate power, the ECOWAS
nations – including the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea, and Niger –
are going to close their borders and restrict all trade with Mali – a land-locked
nation. ECOWAS will suspend Mali’s account at the regional central bank,
shutting it off from cash reserves. The deadline for this ultimatum is Sunday
night.
Observing what is about to happen
to the Malian economy is akin to watching a car speed down a two-lane highway
and a much larger vehicle is driving in the same lane straight
towards it, for one brief moment you can see exactly how this head-on collision
is going to occur, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.
To understand what these sanctions
are going to do to exacerbate the misery of an already impoverished nation, one
must understand the Malian economy in this particular stage of development. Mali’s
economy is already the third- or fourth-poorest in the world, with a per capita
GDP of only $1,300. The vast majority of the population is engaged in
subsistence agriculture of millet, sorghum, rice and corn. This year even the
rural farming class is beset by a massive food shortage as precipitation last
year’s growing season was pitiful. Malian farmers call the time of year before
the millet harvest in September “hungry season” because the cereals stored in
their granaries is now down to the last dregs, and many families reduce their
consumption to one meal a day. This year, “hungry season” has already begun for
many families in March – and the next harvest is six months away.
To boot, hundreds of thousands of
Tuaregs and Songraï from the North have fled from the advancing MNLA forces,
creating a crisis of refugees and internally-displaced persons where a
population of displaced farmers can’t farm, and their reluctant hosts don’t
have food to feed them. Already, absent any government interventions,
Mali is facing one of the worst food crises in a generation. Rice is now hovering around 400 to 500 CFA a kilo (~$1), which is a lot seeing that that 500 CFA is a good full day's wage in a country where very few people are even employed in the formal sector, and each wage-earner has to support between 1 and 4 wives, each with an average of 7.4 children per woman, as well as his parents, grandparents, and extended family.
A food crisis is more complicated
than a mere shortage of food. During the Great Global Food Crisis of 2009, there
was millet and rice in Malian markets, it was there to purchase. However, due
to a global shock caused by a devastating drought in Australia, stockpiling by
Thailand, speculation on the global commodities markets, the price for rice
soared around the world. In just any plain food crisis, the market in food is
so shocked by a massive spike in prices that a significant swath of the
population cannot afford to buy it. A spike in the price of rice has a dire
affects among the population of consumers who purchase all of the food they eat
– namely, the urbanites of Bamako, Ségou, Sikasso, Mopti, Gao and
Timbuktu. But the 2009 Global Food Crisis was not so bad for the country folk
who grew most if not all of the food they eat – in fact, it was a good year for
a number of farmers who could demand more money in exchange for surplus
grains.
But this food crisis of 2012 is a
monster of its own. This time, there is actually a great, endogenous shortage
of millet, sorghum, corn, rice, and everything else. The people who farm cereals did not produce enough to feed themselves - let alone sell a surplus they don't have. A lot of subsistence
farmers are dipping into their seed corn and slaughtering their draft animals.
Many otherwise subsistence farmers are now forced to sell what little they have
of economic value – cows, goats, sons, daughters – to purchase their food at
market.
To fathom the impact of the
impending ECOWAS sanctions on Mali, one must appreciate the absolute precariousness
of the already-existing humanitarian crisis. When I call my friends in my
erstwhile home, they tell me “the villagers are running out of millet, rice is
too expensive to buy.” Rice is now between 400 and 500 CFA/kilo, but it is feared that that price might skyrocket to 1500 CFA/kilo. The Malian economy is already so impoverished that it is
difficult to imagine how much more miserable it can become. We are about to
find out.
The Malian agricultural sector does
not produce enough food to adequately feed its own population, so the food
economy is significantly dependent on rice and other foodstuffs imported across
the borders with the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Guinea. If the
nations of the ECOWAS bloc close their borders to Mali, all Malian imports of
rice, corn, and all other foodstuffs will cease (but for the inevitable black
market). Mali’s food crisis will deepen even further.
The Malian economy is completely
dependent on imported gasoline which is shipped from the Persian Gulf to the port of Abidjan, then trucked overland across the Ivory Coast to the Malian border. As
of Saturday, March 31, the price of gasoline had already spiked from 750 to
2000 CFA per liter. Without gasoline, transport and commerce will come to a
standstill beyond the local village economy, what little goods can be sold by
foot, bicycle, donkey cart, and canoe. Mali’s urban population of roughly 3 million, entirely
dependent upon a commercial economy, without any fields to farm, are going to
suffer as Malian commerce completely and utterly collapses into a subsistence
economy.
In
addition, ECOWAS is about to freeze Mali’s account at the central bank from
which the Malian Ministry of the Treasury receives its currency to put into
circulation. If all goes as planned, on Monday the various private banks of
Mali will have no more bills and coins to distribute to account holders when
they come to withdraw money. Last week, the banks were already like a scene out
of It’s a Wonderful Life; people are
waiting in lines 50 people deep to withdraw from their accounts, and the banks
are telling patrons that they can withdraw a maximum of 500,000 CFA (~$1,000). By
Monday or Tuesday, the banks will have no currency to distribute at all. Soldiers
in the Malian Army, gendarmes, all civil servants and teachers will be unable
to cash their paychecks.
The point of the ECOWAS sanctions
on Mali is to replicate what occurred in the Ivory Coast last year when dictator
Laurent Gbagbo refused to abdicate power to the elected president Alassane
Ouattara, and ECOWAS froze the Ivorian account. Without the power of the
paycheck, the pro-Gbagbo forces demonstrated that their loyalty was contingent
upon a paycheck, and they lost all will to fight. Some innocent people
suffered, but Gbagbo fell within a few weeks.
If ECOWAS does in fact impose
crushing sanctions on Mali beginning this next Monday, one might hope that the
embargo succeeds in achieving its intended goal: Sanogo & Co. step down as
soon as possible. However, there remains the distinct possibility that the CNRDRE
mutineers cling to power for an extended period of time, during which the Malian
people are going to suffer dearly. Even after the disaster of collectivized
agriculture, the droughts of the 1970s and 80s, this impoverished nation might
know a period of deprivation unlike no other.
Capt. Sanogo and the CNRDRE junta
apparently don’t care. In judging his reaction to recent events, is clear
that in Sanogo and his junta have only contempt for the international community
and brazen disregard for the Malian people whom they purportedly govern.
Make no mistake; the ECOWAS sanctions on Mali are not the result of other states' "imperialism", but the inevitable conclusion of the CNRDRE mutineers' virulent conduct towards its economic partners. The junta showed its true colors by
preventing a delegation of ECOWAS heads of state from landing their planes. Planes carrying the respective presidents and
prime ministers of Ivory Coast¸ Burkina Faso, Niger, Liberia, and Benin were in
en route to Bamako to meet with the CNRDRE faction to diffuse the politica crisis, when they turned around amidst reports of a security breach at the Bamako airport. The press reported that the airport runway had been taken over by a violent demonstration of junta supporters. Read between the lines; the Bamako airport is one of the few government
installations which the CNRDRE mutineers tangibly control; they have prevented
almost all planes from coming or going since the coup began. "These
protesters... couldn't have got to the runway if the military didn't want them to,"
says Bruce Whitehouse, an anthropology professor at Lehigh University. In other words, instead of negotiating with ECOWAS presidents and prime ministers, Sanogo & Co. chose to orchestrate a threat on their lives in order to prevent a dialogue from even commencing.
These are not grown-ups we are
dealing with, but children armed with AK-47s. The New York Times reports that when ECOWAS met to issue its threat
of sanctions on Thursday, a senior advisor to Ivorian President Alassane
Ouattara said that Capt. Sanogo’s reaction to the regional body was
"basically the equivalent of telling us (fuck) you.”
As Capt.
Sanogo and his cohorts jostle with the ship of state as though it is their
plaything, 14 and half million Malian civilians are going to suffer as the
collateral damage of a few warlords’ lust for power and wealth. It is not out of hand to predict that tens of thousands of innocent men, women,
and particularly children are going to die needless deaths in a completely
man-made famine, all but proving Amartya Sen's thesis that famines don't occur in democracies. The cruelest element of this catastrophe is that
it is not a matter of natural cause and happenstance, but the will of a few
evil men.
