1

Remaking the Social. New Risks and Solidarities

The First International Conference of the Society of Sociologists from Romania

Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, “Babeş-Bolyai” University Cluj-Napoca

2-4 December, 2010

Thematic session: Faces and Phases of the State: Ethnographies from the Global South

Convener: Jakob Rigi Central European University – Budapest

Raluca Pernes University College London

Conference paper. Do not quote without author’s permission

Transnational terrorism and his implications to the states from the Global

South

Maria Cristina ABOBOAIE

Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi

Abstract

According to the officials of the African Union, the most important threats to the African continent

are terrorism and HIV / AID. Along with these there are mentioned a wide range of other transnational

threats, such as „drug and human trafficking, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons,

mercenarism, food insecurity generated by drought and plagues of locusts, and most recently climate

change and avian influenzas‖1.

But, different subregions of the continent are facing various problem: in South Africa the HIV /

AIDS problem is emphasized , the food insecurity problems are serious in the Horn of Africa, while the

Economic Community of West African States focuses on problems related to terrorist and organized

criminal activity, particularly trafficking in arms, drugs and persons2.

Country Reports on Terrorism 2009 argues that in Africa safe heavens for terrorists are Somalia

and the Trans- Sahara subregion3.

Given these considerations, we propose in our article to grasp the relationship between nation

states located in the Trans-Sahara sub-region and the insurance of its security in dealing with

transnational terrorism.

Are they able to combat the threat of transnational terrorism?

The article is structured in the following subsections. To understand the context of terrorism event

we will begin with an overview of the characteristics of the African nation-state, followed by the

presentation of the Trans-Sahara subregion focusing on the vulnerabilities and the threats it faces. The

following subchapter will exemplify what security means for the countries in the Trans-Sahara subregion

and the solutions these countries found to combat the transnational threats. We conclude the article by

presenting arguments for the necessity of reconfiguring the nation-state against the challenges posed by

globalization and collective partnership in addressing transnational threats.

1 Paul D. Williams (2008) ‗Regional Arrangements and Transnational Security Challenges: The AU and the Limits of Securitization Theory‘, African Security 1(1): 2-23. 2 That said, at its 12th Ordinary Session, the AU Assembly adopted a Decision on the Threat of Drug Trafficking in Africa (AU

2009). 3 US Department of State (2010) Country Reports on Terrorism 2009, Washington DC: Office of the Coordinator for

Counterterrorism.

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Keywords: democracy, governance, nation-state, security, state-nation, terrorism, rule of law,

West Africa.

1. Overview on the african states from the Trans-Sahara

The Trans-Sahara Subregion is an area particularly vulnerable due to the vast expanses of desert

and porous borders. With a history of being a center through which arms and other illicit trade flow, it is

becoming increasingly attractive to the extent that terrorists seek to use these routes for logistical support,

recruitment and safe haven.

Concerns about the security of this area will be addressed in the context of The Trans-Sahara

Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), including countries in West Africa-Senegal, Mauritania, Mali,

Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Africa Middle-Chad.

Source: United Nations, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Cartographic Section, Map No.

4242, February 2005, www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/profile/westafrica.pdf.

RAND MG561-10.1

According to Barry Buzan:

„…states as territorially defined socio-political entities. They represent human collectivities in

which governing institutions and societies are interwoven within a bounded territory. …the major

3

purposes of interaction within the system this nexus of territory, government and society is what

constitutes the state.‖ 4

A definition of international perspective, as reflected in international policy and documented by

the UN charter, reffers to the state as a territorial sovereign political entity.

The state consists of three components: the idea of the state (nationalism); the physical base of the

state (population, resources, technology); and the institutional expression of the state (administrative and

political systems)5.

The nation is defined as „a large group of people sharing the same cultural and possiblythe same

racial, heritage, and normally living in one area‖ 6

.

Political legacy of most governments in the Global South has been a state without a nation, or even

worse, a state with more nations . For example, Nigeria's reality is the massive multiethnicity of the

country, with more than 250 ethnicities7, suffering ethnoreligious tensions between the people of the

North and the peoples of the South. In that case, Buzan speak of state-nation where „the state plays an

instrumental role in creating nation, rather than the other way around. The states generates and propagates

uniform cultural element like language, arts, custom and law, so that over tine these take root and produce

distinctive , nation/like, cultural entity wich identifies with the state. … many African states, faced with

complex tribal divisions, seem to look to the state/nation process as their salvation. ‖8

The main role of the state is to provide a range of fundamental political goods: physical security,

legitimate political institutions, economic management and social welfare.

The literature places the „time‖ to create the current model of the system of sovereign states in

1648, with the peace settlement at Westphalia. The Westphalian sovereign state based on principles of

autonomy, territoriality, mutual recognition and control is the key concept for most theoretical

approaches9.

This is not true for the African countries that have not been created by Africans. The ―Berlinist

State‖10

was established by the imperialist powers, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and

Spain, the Conference of Berlin in the years 1884 - 1885, regardless of its concept of nationhood Africans

4 Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and Jaap de Wilde (1998) Security: a New Framework for Analysis. UK: Lynne Rienner

Publishers, Inc., p. 6. 5 Idem (1991) People, States, & Fear, p. 65. 6 Ibidem, p. 45. 7 CIA World Factbook (2010), ―Nigeria.‖ 8 Barry Buzan, idem, p. 46. 9 Stephen D. Krasner (2001) ―Rethinking the Sovereign State Model‖, Review of International Studies 27. 10 George Klay Kieh (2007) ‗Introduction: The Terminally Ill Berlinist State‘, in George Klay Kieh, Jr(ed.) Beyond State

Failure and Collapse: Making the State Relevant in Africa. Lanham, pp. 3–20. MD: Lexington Books, p. 3.

4

based on ethnicity. European nation-state concept has become in this context, an amalgam of ethnicities

united by a geographical confine.

As Oliver and Atmore (1994: 100) said:

‗The European powers partitioned Africa among themselves with such haste, like players in a

rough game, that the process has been called the “scramble for Africa.‖ 11

The state thus created was characterized in the early post-colonial period, among others, by

repression, violence, neglect, exploitation and exclusion. The repressive element is reflected by the total

indifference to the cultural, economic, political and social rights of Africans. And this because, after

independence, the first generation of African leaders has kept a portrait of colonial rule, failing to rethink

and rebuild the democratic state. Different visions that invaded the African continent have profoundly

affected the nature and character of the African countries. It is marked by sub-ethnic identity and religious

polarization, leading to deeply divided societies that were unable to create well-knit institutional

structures.

Africa suffered from cultural fixation as three types of social formations emerged:

i) The indigenous African social structures that are transformed from pre-colonial indigenous

institutions, which in their transformed states operate within the new socialcultural system and framework.

ii) Social structures and constructs were almost literally parcelled from metropolitan centres of the

imperial West to Asia and Africa and grafted onto the new colonial situation. They acquired their own

life-world and established their unique parameters of social existence.

iii) Emergent social structures. These were not indigenous to Africa, but were not brought from

outside. They were generated, born from the space and time span of colonialism12

.

11 Roland Oliver and Atmore, Anthony (1994) Africa since 1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p.100. 12 Wafula Okumu and Anneli Botha, eds. (2007) ―Understanding terrorism in Africa: in search for an african voice‖, Institute

for Security Studies, South Africa, p. 9

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Figure 1: Multiplex circles of social information or worldviews in Africa13

However, the trend of democratization of African politics came gradually. Civil constitutional

systems have become common on the continent, obscuring the military dictatorships or one party that had

led until then. These new arrangements are based on considered free and fair elections.

The Trans-Saharan Africa identify the various regimes. According to State Fragility Index14

and

Matrix 2009 and Freedom House15

, three countries are certificated as democracies, Mali (free), Nigeria

and Senegal (partly free), and four states are autocracies, Burkina Faso and Niger (partly free), Chad and

Mauritania (not free).

13 Ibidem. 14 Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole (2009) Global Report 2009 ―Conflict, Governance, and State Fragility‖, Center

for Systemic Peace. 15 Freedom House (2010) Freedom in the World 2010: Erosion of Freedom Intensifies, Washington DC: Freedom House.

European Social Structure

European Migrated Structure in Africa

P-colonial African

indigenous tradition/culture

Transformed African

Indigenous Social Structure

Emergent Social

structures in Africa

Arab/Islamic Social

Structure

Arab/Islam Migrated

Social Structures in Africa

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The researchers of the domain, however, consider that democracies on the African continent

―clearly meet minimal democratic standards—namely that legislative and chief executive offices are filled

via popular choice under universal suffrage‖16

. Civil and political freedoms are not universally provided.

Nigeria is an example of an ambiguous hybrid regime, located in the gray zone between

democracy and autocracy. Specifically, the elections are conducted in this type of political regime, but

they are characterized by ―dubious voter registers, campaigns of intimidation and vote buying, ballot

questionable counts, and challenges to the results by disillusioned losers‖17

.

The most common way of organizing the national policy in Africa is not democracy, they are

characterized by what we call liberalized autocracy, according to Freedom House, the censorship of

freedom of expression and the media, restrictions on political parties and civic organizations, human rights

violations, etc.

But international organizations report a number of problems common to the member subject to

our analysis: political instability, incomplete or poor law, weak and corrupt judicial system, official

corruption, transparent financial institutions, unfavorable economic conditions, extreme poverty, abuses

by security forces on citizens, the availability of small arms and light weapons, trafficking in human

beings especially children (severe Mauritania, Niger and Chad18

) and in Nigeria 43,000 people still live in

conditions of servitude.

Corruption Perceptions Index 2009 realised by Transparency International identifies Trans-Sahara

states among the most corrupt countries in the 180 taken for analysis:

Table 1

Rank Country Score

175 Chad 1.6

130 Nigeria 2.5

Mauritania 2.5

111 2.

5

Mali 2.8

106 Niger 2.9

99 Senegal 3.0

70 Burkina Faso 3.6

16 Michael Bratton, Eric C. C. Chang (2006) ―State Building and Democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Forwards,

Backwards, or Together?‖ in Comparative Political Studies 39: 1059, p. 1064. 17 Idem. 18 Mauritania, Niger şi Chad were demoted to Tier 3, the worst-possible rating, in the U.S. State Department‘s 2009 Trafficking

in Persons Report.

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In addition, police in several West African countries are considered among the most corrupt

sectors of society19

.

As we seen, in Africa law and order are paramount. Because rule of law (as counterposed to the

rule of men) is inseparable from civil liberties and rights, the voluntary consent of the governed, and

political accountability, only if the african state willn attain regulate conflict within its borders, protect the

citizenry from criminals, and turn back illegal challenges to electoral rule, people will be inclined to

conclude that democracy is being supplied.

A significant ―shadow‖ economy exists in all states of West Africa, as a result of the

underdevelopment of the national economy and an avenue by which members of these societies can

maintain financial activities out of the government‘s sight. Informal economies could be used to used to

transfer or exchange funds illicitly, to fund terrorist support activities out of the government‘s view, and to

move both funds and people across porous borders and regions. In Nigeria, the government has been

called ―organized crime‖20

. Whether or not it is intentional, the Nigerian government has created an ideal

environment for the propagation of organized crime. Indeed, criminal networks are largely incorporated

into the government itself on a national level, as well as locally with regional and tribal systems21

.

Moreover, UN officials warned this year that ―terrorism in Africa is increasingly linked to

organized crime‖ and that ―West Africa is becoming more popular as an intermediate destination in the

trans-shipment of drugs from South America to Europe and elsewhere, and that terrorist groups are using

funds raised in this process to buy weapons for attacks‖22

.

The northern border problems of the region seem to be, according to some experts, the most

worrying23

. According to Abdel-Fatau Musah, conflict prevention, to senior adviser to the ECOWAS sub-

Sahel grievances of communities ―have been adulterated with terrorism, trafficking in humans, drugs, and

cigarettes to transform the [vast, sparsely populated, and undergoverned] northern parts of Niger and

Mali into the most insecure zones of West Africa‖24

.

19 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), ―Organized Crime Plundering West Africa, Says UNODCReport‖. 20 According to Dr. William Chambliss, a professor in the sociology department of George Washington University. 21 Kevin A. O‘Brien and Theodore Karasik (2007) “Case Study: West Africa” in Ungoverned Territrories, Understanding and

reducing terrorism Risk , RAND Corporation, p.185.

22 United Nations (2010) “UN official warns terrorism and organized crime increasingly linked in Africa”, 30 July 2010. 23 Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation (2010) Workshop on Building Capacity in the Area of Counterterrorism in

West Africa in the Framework of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy” 24 Abdel-Fatau Musah, ―West Africa: Governance and Security in a Changing Region,‖ International PeaceInstitute Africa

Program Working Papers Series, February 2009, p. 3. http://www.ipacademy.org/asset/file/425/west_africa.pdf. In 2002 the

remote and open reaches and loosely policed borders along the trans-Sahararegion, coupled with the presence of tribal groups

operating in the northern parts of Mali and Niger, beganattracting attention from U.S. counterterrorism officials concerned that

it would become the ―nextAfghanistan,‖ i.e., ―a safe haven where terrorists would train, test their weapons and organize attacks

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Nigeria has 4,049 kilometers of border to protect, and its customs and border control police are

thought to be the most corrupt sector of government. As a result, currency, arms, drugs, and people are all

trafficked across its borders. Arms and other illicit goods move with little restriction across the border

from Sierra Leone to Liberia, as well as north and west to Burkina Faso.

In addition, V Africa provides a high degree of invisibility for the terrorist groups. Outside the

major (capital) cities, most societies remain so tribally centered that strangers or ―outsiders‖ would

presumably by easily identified and reported by local leaders; inside major cities, their presence would be

noticed relatively quickly by the citizenry and security forces—especially in those countries with slowly

growing governance.

Although violence is prevailing in the subregion, under Professor Eboe Hutchful, this violence is

usually seen ―through the lens of ethnicity, identity politics, poverty, governance, and Struggles over

Natural Resources, rather than terrorism‖ 25

. This understanding will help us throughout the article to

partly explain why some African governments and the public does not consider terrorism a top priority,

compared to other threats facing the region, and the counter is seen as a form of racial, ethnic, or religious

profiling in the ethnically and religiously diverse societies of West Africa26

. Many states continue to see

terrorism as a subject predominantly Western and counterterrorism as a priority imposed by the West

arguing that many people in the subregion are affected by disease, crime, poverty, and hunger than by

terrorism27

. For example, the food crisis touching the lives of millions of people especially in the Niger,

home to more than 7 million hungry people.

Therefore, the African state's inability to provide a range of basic goods between the state and

maintain the gap between its citizens and weakens the idea of nation. At this time, state-citizen

relationship is characterized by a lack of loyalty and confidence in state and vice versa, lack of partnership

with civil society and media, many conflicts - ethnic, tribal, civil wars, which further weaken the state

(including the Africa largest number of refugees in the world), African elites consider sovereignty an

economic value which enables them to get rich, etc. The elements presented in this chapter are the

vulnerabilities of the African countries regarding the threats and also conditions that make a nation

―hospitable‖ to terrorism and transnational organized crime.

2. Security and insecurities in Trans-Sahara

on theUnited States.‖ Nicholas Schmidle, ―The Saharan Conundrum,‖ New York Times, 12 February 2009,

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Africa-t.html?_r=1. 25 Eboe Hutchful (2007) ―Economic Community of West African States Counterterrorism Efforts,‖ in African Counterterrorism

Cooperation: Assessing Regional and Sub-regional Initiatives, Andre Le Sage, ed., Washington DC: National Defense

University Press and Potomac Books, p. 114. 26 U.S. Department of State, ―Africa Overview,‖ 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism, 30 April 2008.

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African state security and security is a complex term. At the national level is seen in terms of

survival, welfare and protection of the state, while international same concept refers to the common

security between states.

„The state’s prime function is to provide that political good of security—to prevent cross-border

invasions and infiltrations, and any loss of territory; to eliminate domestic threats to or attacks upon the

national order and social structure; to prevent crime and any related dangers to domestic human security;

and to enable citizens to resolve their disputes with the state and with their fellow inhabitants without

recourse to arms or other forms of physical coercion.‖28

In the light of the states we ask whether this region alone can ensure the security of its citizens. We

need to know what security means for Africa, from whom and what are the implications of security

strategies .

We start from the idea that as a whole, West Africa is becoming increasingly important not only in

terms of ―hard security‖ and war against terrorism, but also in terms of other considerations of security

and fuel resources. On the one hand, West Africa holds 60 billion barrels of oil reserves and large natural

gas deposits which are expected to comprise a quarter of U.S. petroleum imports by the year 201529

.

On the other hand, organized criminal organizations closely linked to extremist groups resort to the

illegal purchase and precious stones and other natural riches, to procure the money needed to finance

their activities.

According to a senior UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) official, this has led to “West

Africa becom[ing] a black hole where any kind of wanted personcan come and operate or hide … be they

terrorists or other kinds of criminals…. It’s a criminal paradise”30

.

This criminal paradise mean not only transnational terrorism, but organised crime, illegal trafic of

small arms and light weapons31

, narcotics and so on.

Types of Sub-regional cross-border crimes in West Africa32

:

Predominant

Border Crimes

Country /Border

Zones of activity

Groups / Actors

Involved

Transit States Recipient States

28 Robert I Rotberg, ―Failed States, Collapsed States, Weak States: Causes and Indicators‖, in State Failure and State Weakness

in a Time of Terror, ed. Robert I. Rotberg (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003). p. 3. 29 Motlagh, Jason (2005) ―U.S. Eyes Sahara Desert in Global Terror War‖, Washington Times, November 17, 2005. 30 Pascal Fletcher, ―W. Africa Is Crime, Terrorism ‗Black Hole‘—UN expert,‖ Reuters, 13 January 2008. 31 Mohammed Ibn Chambas, President of the ECOWAS Commission puts the estimated amount of small arms in circulation in

West Africa at 8 million- Zhucker, Blerim, ―Trafficking in Small Arms in West Africa‖, IRIUM, (April 2007), p. 21. 32

Amado Philip de Andrés, 2008, ―West Africa under attack: drugs, organized crime and terrorism as the new threats to global

security‖ in UNISCI Discussion Papers, nº 16 (enero / january 2008), pp. 207- 208.

10

Narcotics/Drug

Trafficking

Cape Verde,

Ghana, Nigeria

and Togo

Narcotics/Drugs

dealers

Nigeria Spain, Portugal,

UK, USA and

South Africa

Internet Crime

(Advance fee

fraud/Money

Laundering)

Nigeria, Ghana,

Côte d‘Ivoire

and Sierra Leone

Advance Fee

Fraud gangs or

syndicates/Weal

thy businessmen

Syndicates

commute from

the Western part

of West Africa

(Senegal) to the

eastern part

(Benin/Nigeria)

Nigeria and

other countries

where the ‗419‘

fraudsters are

resident

Human

Trafficking

All across West

Africa but

mainly around

Benin/Nigeria/

Côte

d‘Ivoire/Burkina

Faso

Traffickers who

serve sometimes

as middle-men,

trade and

business

partners

Mainly Ghana

and Sierra

Leone

Other West

African

countries, and in

North America,

Europe, and the

Middle East

Fire Arms

Trafficking

Ghana/Togo/Be

nin/Nigeria/Sier

ra

Leone/Liberia/

Guinea/Côte

d‘Ivoire/Senegal

Rebels, local

manufacturers

of fire smalls

and middle-men

Togo/Benin/

Guinea-Bissau

and Gambia

Nigeria, Liberia,

Sierra Leone,

Guinea and Côte

d‘Ivoire

Smuggling of

illegal goods,

minerals and

natural

resources and

cash crops

Côte d‘Ivoire,

Ghana, Togo,

Benin, Nigeria,

Liberia and

Sierra Leone

Individuals,

businessmen

and women,

warlords/civil

wars combatants

Mainly Ghana,

Liberia, Sierra

Leone and Côte

d‘Ivoire

In Europe and

North America

Source: UNODC, International Relations Institute of the University of Michigan.

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The AU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism defines terrorism or terrorist

acts in article 1(a)(i) as meaning to: “intimidate, put in fear, force, coerce or induce any government,

body, institution, the general public or any segment thereof, to do or abstain from doing any act, or to

adopt or abandon a particular standpoint or to act according to certain principles; or disrupt any public

service, the delivery of any essential service to the public or create a public emergency; or any promotion,

sponsoring, contribution to, command, aid, incitement, encouragement, attempt, threats, conspiracy,

organizing, or procurement of any person, with the intent to commit any act referred to in paragraph (a)

(i)-(iii)

(i) Intimidate or coerce civilian population,

(ii) To infl uence the of a government by mass intimidation or coercion or

(iii) To affect the conduct of a government by a mass destruction,

assassination or kidnapping.

In all these definitional samples, the one that is outstanding and fascinating is that provided by the

Convention of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) on Combating International Terrorism. In

article 1 it defines terrorism as any act of violence or threat thereof, notwithstanding its motive, to carry

out a criminal plan with the aim of terrorism to threaten, harm or imperil lives, honour, freedom, security

or rights, and public or private property to hazards or occupying or endangering a national resources or

international facilities or threatening the stability and political unity or sovereignty of independent states.

Before the September 11th attacks in the US, terrorist-like activities could be located in the

colonial state, which was essentially a law and order state based on the use of force to suppress popular

movements against unpopular policies33

. In the post-independence era, however, several African countries

have witnessed the rise of terrorist groups and incidents. There were several cases of hijacked planes and

bombings in the 1970s and 1980s. There was also the mid-flight bombing of ma French airliner, Union

des Transports Aériens (UTA), over Niger in 1989, which killed 171 people34

. Experts have defined

various types of threats that occur on the African continent into several categories35

:

(a) domestic terrorist attacks on African interests;

(b) international terrorist attacks on Western interests;

(c) use of African territory as a safe haven;

(d) Africa as a terrorist breeding ground and source of recruits; and

33 See Oyeniyi, Bukola A. ‗A Historical Overview of Domestic Terrorism in Nigeria‘, paper presented at the International Conference on Understanding Domestic Terrorism in Africa, organised by the Institute of Security Studies, Pretoria, South

Africa, November 2007. 34 Ibidem, p. 17. 35 United Nations (2009) ―Report of the Expert Group Meeting on African Perspectives on International Terrorism, Addis

Ababa, 3 and 4 June 2009 p. 7.

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(e) Africa as a transit point for terrorists and fund -raising tied to other illicit activities.

In terms of mission orientation and we can talk about two types of terrorist groups that have

emerged in this sub-region:

religious groups: Islamic fundamentalists in Northern Nigeria, Touareg insurgency in Mali, and

violence in the Cassamance region of Senegal;

economic/Transnational Criminals: nu au scopuri politice bine definite, scopul actiunilor lor

ranges from robbery, internet scam, drug and humantrafficking to small arms proliferation, illegal oil

bunkering and diamond transfer, money laundering and so on.

―Nigerian criminal enterprises are the most significant of the African criminal

enterprises…operating in more than 80 countries of the world…Nigeria criminal enterprises are some of

the most aggressive and expansionist international criminal group and are primarily involved in drug

trafficking and financial frauds‖.36

The emergence of the al-Qaeda network constitute the fourth wave of terrorism in Africa37

, the

most dangerous wave, was helped by an African Muslim scholar and an African state (Sudan).

Excluding Nigeria and Senegal, West African states face direct terrorist threats.

Country Reports on Terrorism 2009 released by the U.S. State Department draws attention to the

intensification of terrorist activity by terrorist group al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)38

in

Mauritania, Mali, Niger, indicating that it is the main terrorist threat in this area.

As to how terrorist action, they are:

kidnapping foreign citizens, workers or tourists: last year's kidnapping of three Spanish citizens

and two Italian citizens in Mauritania and Mali brought by the group N AQIM, the kidnapping of four

European tourists, one was killed (Niger), kidnap a UN official (Niger), kidnap and murder of a U.S.

citizen (Mauritania), kidnapping of a five French hostages and two other foreigners kidnapped in Niger by

Al-Qaeda this year;

murder officials: the murder of an officer of State Security (Mali) by grouping AQIM;

36 Jimi Peters (2003) ―Transnational Crimes and National Security: An Overview‖ in Nigerian Forum, Volume 24, Nos 11 and

12, Nov/Dec, p.321. 37 Wafula Okumu and Anneli Botha, idem, pg.17.

38 Originally called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, the organization changed its name to AQIM in 2007 in order to show its allegiance to al Qaeda. AQIM is a regionally-focused terrorist group and adopted a more anti-Western rhetoric and

ideology and has aspirations of overthrowing ―apostate‖ African regimes and creating an Islamic Caliphate. It has under a

thousand fighters operating in Algeria and northern Mali, Niger, and Mauritania. The terrorist group has launched a campaign

of bombings and kidnappings, predominantly targeted at Western aid workers and tourists. And it often demands ransoms in

order to finance future operations. AQIM also protects narco-trafficking routes in Western Africa through which Latin

American drugs make their way to markets in Europe.

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attacks on foreign embassies: Israeli Embassy attack in Mauritania, suicide attack near the

French Embassy (Mauritania) - no victims, both claimed by AQIM organization.

How did African countries and their partners of the terrorist threat?

3. Building partnerships for combating terrorism in Trans-Sahara and whole Africa

Security problems in Trans-Africa tend to spread more easily due to geographical and geopolitical

factors, in particular due to the inability of states to maintain effective control over their territories. In

these circumstances and given the vulnerabilities of many African countries, experts argue that all

opinions transnational threats can not be fought by African countries acting alone. It requires a synergy of

skills and strategy to combat terrorism and other threats connected with it.

It is imperative that transnational security challenges to be addressed through cooperation.

According to the theory of cooperation, such an approach to collective security, not only bring absolute

gains for all members of the security partnership.

The response to the spread of religious extremism in Africa with reference to West Africa took

three forms: a regional effort under the auspices of the African Union, one sub-regional-ECOWAS, and

the international effort that involving the UN and the world powers.

How does it work? His goals?

Africa Union

Regionally, Africa was among the first areas of the world that have developed a regional

framework for counterterrorism. This included the 1999 Convention on the Prevention and Combating of

Terrorism of the previous Organization of African Unity, followed by the African Union‘s 2002 Plan o f

Action on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism in Africa and a 2004 African Union Protocol to the

Organization of African Unity Convention.

The African Union has also established an Algiers Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism

to help foster regional approaches to countering terrorism.

But these important documents taken from the AU was not followed by proper implementation at

national level due to different perceptions of the threat of terrorism and other problems faced by countries.

In addition the African Union was suspected of Africans as a cover to extend to protect American

energy interests.

14

Other questions concern the institutional and operational limitations, lack of funding, training and

logistics systems on measures of counterterrorist cooperation across all African countries is relatively

limited. There are also political obstacles to cooperation39

.

Other agencies involved in reducing poverty and exclusion, improving governance, strengthening

of law, fighting corruption are: AU Peace and Security Council, the Early Warning System, the Panel of

the Wise, the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, the New Partnership for Africa's Development

and STI African PeerReview Mechanism.

The Pan-African Parliament could play an important role in strengthening legislation on T.

At the West African sublevel there is no leader, but only desires of some states to dominate,

Nigeria.

Not only the region‘s hegemon, but also Africa‘s most populous country with a wealth in oil and

natural gas, Nigeria has developed more than other countries in the region and has been able to project

military power outside its borders in the context of multilateral peacemaking operations.40

Nigeria appears

to have functional state institutions, At present, Nigeria has some 152,000 personnel in the national police

force and an additional 95,000 personnel in other security forces.

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established in 1975 for the

purpose of promoting economic cooperation, integration, and development among its member states.

Because, since 1989, political crises conflicts and civil wars began to undermined the political and

economic stability of the subregion, ECOWAS adressed of the promottion and peace and security in the

region.

ECOWAS has adopted a series of tools addressed to the threats in the subregion:

(1) the 1999 Protocol relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management Resolution,

Peacekeeping and Security, which is aimed at strengthening subregional cooperation in areas including

―international terrorism‖;

(2) the January 2008 Conflict PreventionFramework, which was adopted to help the subregion

address the interlinked challenges of cross-border crime, small arms and light weapons proliferation, and

political, security, and resource governance;

(3) the 2009 ECOWAS Regional Action Plan on illicit drug trafficking and organized crime.

39 Jeffrey Herbst (2004) ―African Militaries and Rebellion: The Political Economy of Threat and Combat Effectiveness,‖

Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 357–369. 40 The capital-intensive oil sector provides 20 percent of GDP, 95 percent of foreign exchange earnings, and about 65 percent of

budgetary revenues: See CIA World Factbook (2005), ―Nigeria.‖ In the 1990s, through its leadership of the Economic

Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its military arm, the Economic Community of West African States

Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), Nigeria dominated the region— intervening in civil wars in both Liberia and Sierra Leone a

number of times.

15

In 1999, ECOWAS established the Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering

(GIABA) who seeks to provide a common framework for combating money laundering and the financing

of terrorist activities and to promote cooperation between member states with different legal and financial

systems.

But the current level of involvement in couterterrorism is limited, ECOWAS has not created a

dedicated unit within the office to deal with counterterrorism. Terrorism is at the bottom of the list of

priorities for many countries ECOWAS which brought to “no institutional structures or resources devoted

specifically to fighting terrorism” and the absence of a subregional framework on counterterrorism41

.

Moreover, ECOWAS is in competition with West African Economic and Monetary Union and with

Mano River Union.

United Nations

First, The UN Resolution 1373 requires all member states to enact counter-terrorism legislation.

United Nations Global Counter - Terrorism Strategy is the basic instrument of action to combat

terrorism, given that it enjoys greater confidence among African States UN. They have been interested in

implementing the integrated assistance strategy of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force

(Nigeria) and the Terrorism Prevention Branch.

A number of entities within the UN system have been actively promoting and supporting efforts to

implement UN counterterrorism mandates,including the Strategy, in West Africa: Counter-Terrorism

Executive Directorate (UN Security Council), UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Office of the High

Commissioner for Human Rights, UN Office for West Africa

European Union considered that the risks presented in the Sahel region are the second key

terrorist threat to the EU 42

and therefore sent a member state expert mission to Mali, Niger, and

Mauritania in June 2009 to explore possible counterterrorism efforts to support at the national and regional

level sand supported discussions of a possible Sahel-Sahara regional conference on the nexus of security

and development initiated by the president of Mali43

.

USA is very concerned about not governed territories in West Africa not to becoming terrorist

sanctuaries. U.S. focuses on two programs:

41 Eboe Hutchful, idem, p.120. 42 Council of the European Union, ―EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy—Discussion Paper,‖ 14 May 2009, p. 12. 43 Council of the European Union, ―15th ECOWAS-EU Ministerial Troika Meeting: Final Communiqué,‖11146/09 (Presse

183), 16 June 2009, para. 15.

16

1. The Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI)- US-funded program designed to strengthen capabilities at the

border against arms smuggling, drug trafficking, and the movement of transnational terrorists.

2. The Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI): ―the overall goals are to enhance the

indigenous capacities of governments in the pan-Sahel (Mauritania, Mali, Chad, and Niger, as well as

Nigeria, Senegal, and Burkina Faso); to confront the challenge posed by terrorist organizations in the

trans-Sahara; and to facilitate cooperation between those countries and U.S. partners in the Maghreb

(Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia)‖44

. As an evidence of the importance of securing the areas in the

subregion,US has increased the financiar aid, most of the money was intended for this partnership. The

U.S. strategy in fighting counterterrorism focuses on the local and partnership with major players of the

local community, NGOs, foundations, public-private partnerships, business people and other reliable

partners45

. Some experts argue that military intervention strategy based the security is counterproductive.

Army military presence, its support for authoritarian regimes and join in military exercises with regional

partners and anti-Americanism lead to cynicism about the reasons the U.S. and contribute to increased

radicalization and separatist violence in North Africa-V46

.

Conclusions

In the foregoing we wanted to how can we build a complete picture, but brief, the Member States

for a proper understanding of the phenomenon TSCTI event and combating terrorism. It is clear that sub-

region have been considered significant strides in combating terrorism with the support of states and

international bodies.

Yet serious problems remain in the subregion, and the activity of terrorist groups is not destroyed,

but difficult.

What should be done?

At the national level, we saw how colonialism has played a prominent role in the sub-ethnic

identity and the religious polarization, leading to deeply divided societies of a mosaic type. The triple-

Western legacy of African, Arab and African-Mutual strives to create a separate identity, exclusive deeply

divided. In most African countries' national interests is a collective representation, but an individual

perception of the bourgeois class.

44 US Department of State (2010) Country Reports on Terrorism 2009, Washington DC: Office of the Coordinator for

Counterterrorism 45 Robert F. Godec, ―U.S. Counterterrorism Policy‖ (speech, Washington, D.C., 30 June 2010). 46 See, e.g., Toby Arcer and Tihomir Popovic, ―The Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative: The U.S.War on Terrorism in

North Africa,‖ FIIA Report, no. 16 (2007); Clement Henry, ―Reverberations of the‗Global War on Terror,‘‖ in North Africa:

Politics, Region, and the Limits of Transformation, ed. Yahia H. Zoubirand Haizam Amirah-Fernández (New York: Routledge,

2008).

17

It is necessary to change these practices and to rebuild multinational states more consolidated and

united in the common interest of securing their territories. This can be possible only by transforming the

current system of government in democratic institutions preferred by many african citizens47

and

international donor agencies.

It requires a partnership and inclusive civil society mobilization on issues related to common goals.

Thus, states builiding and democratization are important priorities that must be considered together to

reduce domestic vulnerabilities and combating international terrorism and other transnational threats.

The african states still depend hegemonic influence of the West, even in the development of their

security strategy. This dependence on donor communities has led some governments to hesitate analyse

themselves the way in which terrorism really influence their strategies, while some Trans-Saharan

countries have made strides in strengthening counterterrorism capacity.

For exemple, Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger announced în this summer that they creating a

joint special military command to fight terrorism across their vast desert territories. The remarkable deal

especially targets al Qaeda activities in the Sahara, including in Libya, Burkina Faso and Chad48

.

Moreover, in August the Malian capital united the heads of intelligence agencies from six African

countries Mali, Niger, Chad, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, where they have agreed on the theme of

security in the Sahel-Sahara: to coordinate their own efforts to fight against al-Qaeda, and against

terrorism in the area.49

But in others, there is a wrong perception that the security issue strict government, which limits

access of information from civil society and media preventing and combating terrorism.

Fight against terrorism must have a solid foundation and this approach is not only assured the

military dimension of security, but also other aspects, good governance and political, economic, social and

environmental impacts. Increased military and security assistance is likely to aggravate issues by

approaching the region's problems exclusively as a problem of global terrorism and trans-national crime

rather than in terms of democratization and development.

"If you treat it from a solely security perspective, you're producing more jihadists," Yahia H.

Zoubir50

.

47 Afrobarometer (2009) „Neither Consolidating Nor Fully Democratic: The evolution of African Political regimes, 1999-

2008‖, Afrobarometer Briefing Paper No.67. 48 Afrol News (2010) ―Joint Sahara forces to fight terrorism‖, 20 April 2010.

49Walid Ramzi and Hamdi Ould Cheikh, ―The Sahel-Saharan countries coordinate their efforts in the fight against terrorism‖,

28 September 2010, Maghaerbia.

50 Dorsey, James M. (2010) “Drugs money fills al Qaeda coffers in West Africa”, January 20, 2010, Deutsche Welle.

18

In Africa, there is no common and operational African perspective on preventing and combating

terrorism. Therefore it does not have a specific framework for prevention and control in terms of

collective security, although the UN Strategy provides a framework for developing a comprehensive

strategy and a couterterrorism subregional action plan.

But, Mohamed Benhammou, of the African Federation for Strategic Studies said that:

„Countries across the region, who have a common destiny, must unite their efforts with a view to

drawing up a strategy to deal with the various threats, particularly terrorism.‖51

Trans-african countries must find their own operational strategy to combat terrorism and other

transnational threats, concentrate on the realities and priorities of Africa. They must found their own body

at the subregional level who coordonate all this efforts. This type of partnership could expand across

Africa. They are operationally ready for this step, given the many international missions in the civil and

military training to states and continuing international support for African efforts.

To achieve sub-regional cooperation it must overcome some obstacles, such as highly personalized

nature of governance and the policy states, which hinder the development of institutionalized forms of

cooperation; stopping and clarifying the proliferation of regional groupings with overlapping

memberships and/or mandates, which has resulted in duplication of effort, wastage of resources and

conflicting spheres of jurisdiction52

; building national counterterrorist integrated structures, etc.

Of those presented so far we can claim that there is sufficient counter-terrorist activity in Africa to

create an African voice, but the lack of coordination, this voice was not heard globally.

51 Sarah Touahri, ― Sahel, West African states urge co-operation to tackle terrorism‖, 7 February 2010, Magharebia. 52 For exemple ECOWAS is in competition with West African Economic and Monetary Union and Mano River Union.

19

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*acknowledgements: This work is supported by the project POSDRU/88/1.5/S/47646 "Doctoral

Studies: portal to a career of excellence in research and knowledge society", coordinated by professor PhD

Ovidiu Gabriel Iancu. The project is won in competition in September 2009 and is funded by the

European Social Fund.

22