The Sahel, too important to be left to its own devices

‘It is strange to hear from the mouths of diplomats and high-level local personalities the harsh anti-colonialist language of the 1960s, clear proof that anti-French sentiment has resurfaced with all its violence in West Africa’. These are the words of David Soler Crespo, founder of Africa Mundi, and Ricardo Gómez Laorga, co-director of Geopol21, both authors of the ‘Sahel Report’, a basic document and essential theoretical framework for understanding the dynamics of a region that is crucial for the African continent and for the rest of the world, especially for Europe. 

Presented at Casa Árabe in Madrid, the report was praised for its rigour by Antonio González-Zavala, special ambassador for the Sahel, who corroborated the document's conclusions regarding the ‘urgent need to fill the vacuum that France has [forcibly] left in this enormous and convulsive region of Africa, to the point that it has become a priority for Spain’. 

The dependence of the French-speaking Sahel countries on their former metropole continued after independence, especially through financial control via the introduction of the CFA franc. The new African leaders consider that France has practised a neo-colonialism with them that they are now breaking with abruptly, with the corresponding after-effects of affection turned into hatred and veto of anything that might come from Paris, without even stopping to analyse whether it might be good or bad. 

The pre-eminence of the French presence in the region, in addition to its European leadership, has led the leaders of the Sahel countries to spread this negative sentiment to the entire EU, and they have become much more permeable to the powers that are already vying to fill the vacuum left by the Gauls.

The earliest movers are Russia and China. The former charges up front, offering no development assistance to the Sahel countries, but promising to ‘provide unswervingly for their security’. China, more patient, is weaving its web of interests, especially through the financing of large infrastructure projects, with the corresponding clauses of dependency and exclusivity of supplies.

They are not the only powers trying to make themselves at home in the Sahel. Egypt, concerned about the spread of jihadism along the Strip, with consequent repercussions in its own sphere, is also claiming its place. Turkey also sees its opportunity to increase its own international stature, which has been enhanced by its position as one of the victors in the fall of the Syrian regime of the Al-Assad dynasty. And, for reasons of geopolitical influence, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also offer their advantages to the Sahel countries now shaking off French tutelage. 

As seems more than evident, the EU needs to have a presence on that chessboard, with at least one country that presents a different face to France. ‘Your worst mistake’, an African Foreign Minister told Ambassador González-Zavala, ‘is that you have always looked at the region through French eyes and not through our own’. The time has come, therefore, to obtain that direct vision, unshackled from exclusive French interests, to let them speak, express themselves freely and treat them as true partners.

But, as the authors of the report also point out, ‘it is imperative and urgent that we in the European Union itself agree on the objectives we want, and that the dispersion of views does not persist, where the Scandinavians consider this 'Sahelian anti-colonialist' explosion to be transitory; those further east in Europe consider the Sahel to be too far away; and Spain, together with Germany, Italy, Portugal and the Benelux countries, believe that it is the region that most threatens our security'.

There is little doubt that the upheavals are set to increase in the coming months. To begin with, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which until now comprised fifteen countries, will be amputated by the three - Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger - which on 27 January will in turn create the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), with the aim of incorporating the new pan-Africanist and anti-French countries.

In addition to this segmentation of alliances, the region is set to increase tensions stemming from a climate change that is already not only wreaking havoc, but also provoking intense migratory movements. Extreme droughts are decimating pastures, wiping out livestock and agriculture, driving people to occupy foreign territories, which their owners obviously defend by resorting to war if necessary.

This lack of answers and future prospects for a mostly young population with an explosive demography is already pushing those who are not resigned to languishing in misery towards the Maghreb and Europe - we are already seeing it starkly in the Canary Islands.

Strengthen, grow, connect, protect and coexist. These are the five fundamental concepts of the new ‘Africa Strategy’ adopted by Spain, as Ambassador González-Zavala revealed. Within each of them lie enormous tasks to change the relationship that Spain, and Europe, has maintained until now with a continent that is once again the scene of confrontation between more than a few powers. The big difference for us is that, due to our greater proximity, the danger is more imminent.