Winning the peace in Mali

The first fully-trained battalion of Malian troops is due to be operational by July, and the entire army must be ready in 15 months. Given the decade or more it has taken to prepare the Afghan Army for similar duties, the timeline is nothing short of laughable.

So what is the best way forward? The new Government in Bamako should open negotiations with the northern Tuaregs with a view to meeting at least some of their demands. A semi-autonomous northern entity bound to the south in a loose federation might be one answer.

The Tuaregs, traditional desert dwellers whose customs and hierarchies reach back into the mists of history, have no great interest in the aims of such groups as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Indeed some of them readily defected to the French and helped to root out their former 'allies'. If they can be persuaded to be part of the solution rather than the problem, they might prove to be an effective police force against further militant incursions.

Mali also has significant natural resources – gold, iron ore and natural gas are among its riches – but lack of access to a port has been a deterrent to large-scale development. This is one area where other African nations can help.

Lifting the majority of the population out of abject poverty is a sure way of curbing militant tendencies among the 48 per cent of Malians who are 15 or under. A British social anthropologist at All Souls College, Oxford, Judith Scheele, who has first-hand experience of Mali, told the BBC that gaining access to weapons was an easy way of raising a person's social status in the country.

Dr Scheele said the best way to gain those weapons was to join a group that had the al-Qaeda logo, even though its activities might be more directed to kidnapping for ransom or other banditry rather than the spread of militant Islam.

She said many observers believe that while Mali presents challenges, they are not the same ones as the West continues to face in Afghanistan, and comments by world leaders such as British Prime Minister David Cameron linking the two are simplistic and counter-productive.

Worse still, any attempts to use the same methods that have been employed in Afghanistan might result in a self-fulfilling prophecy, uniting the currently disparate and often warring factions that operate in the area.

The Malian insurgency is a demonstration of what can happen when local grievances are ignored and opportunists cross porous borders to fuel and profit from the conflict. The initial response from the French has been appropriate and effective.

What happens next is once again going to demonstrate that peace is always harder to wage than war. The West cannot afford another Afghanistan-style situation in North Africa. It should therefore do everything possible to avoid creating one.