Vol. 77/No. 9      March 11, 2013

Within these conflicts—unresolvable outside revolutionary struggle by the toilers—competing imperialist powers, chiefly Paris, as well as Washington, are looking to pacify the destabilizing threats to their interests.

After driving Islamist forces out of the major northern cities in Mali, French troops, backed by units of the Malian army and troops from Chad, face ongoing guerilla attacks. In Gao and Timbuktu, both under French military and Malian government control, virtually all Arabs and Tuaregs, often identifiable by their lighter skin, face reprisals and have fled into the desert or refugee camps across the border. Kidal remains under control of Tuareg nationalist forces.

Meanwhile, disagreements, including a firefight in Bamako, the capital, have broken out among factions in the Malian army. And the situation in the country is unnerving investors of foreign capital, from South Africa and Canadian gold mining to Chinese garment production.

The French “now risk being bogged down,” Reuters commented Feb. 21.

The most important thing for the country’s developing working class and other toilers is the fight for space to organize, discuss and assert their interests against both the emerging Malian bourgeoisie and international capital.

The borders of and peoples in Mali, like much of Africa, are the result not of the historical development of a nation, but of agreements reached by competing colonial powers in the 19th century. Paris took control over West Africa, including what are now Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Libya, Niger, Algeria and Cameroon. Mali, which appeared to French bosses to have limited resources, received little attention. When mass struggles against imperialist domination rocked Africa and much of the colonial world following World War II, Mali became independent in 1960.

The French left behind one of the least developed and poorest countries in the world.

Some 80 percent of the population is on the land, and more than 90 percent in subsistence farming with no relation to the market. The land is considered to belong to the family and there is no tradition of private property on the land.

The average life expectancy is 53 years. Nearly half of the population is under 15 years old. Because of the need for labor on the land, women on average have seven children. In farming areas, 144 out of every 1,000 die before they reach the age of one.

The overwhelming majority of farms, even in the rich Niger River Valley, are completely dependent on rainfall. Droughts, like struck in 1973 and 1982, are devastating.

Firewood serves as the sole source of energy for cooking and heating in more than 90 percent of households. In rural areas, electricity, outside occasional use of batteries and generators, is all but nonexistent and literacy is some 20 percent.

Under the impact of imperialist pressure, Bamako has been pressing to expand private ownership of land, most of which remains legally in government hands.

Many government land sales are to foreign investors. By December 2010, land officials in Bamako had negotiated the lease of more than 2 million acres to some 22 foreign investment firms, mainly from China, Libya and South Africa.

This process, which the U.S. Agency for International Development says is part of the “growing commoditization of land” in Mali, has spawned a growing peasant movement and public protests. In 2009, the Malian business group GDCM got a government land lease for 30 years to plant wheat and, with the support of the police, moved to push the peasants off the land. Many were injured. In November 2010, a coalition of newly organized peasant groups held a national meeting to protest land grabbing.

In November 2011, peasants joined the National Confederation of Peasant Organizations in the southern village of Nyéléni to protest land sales to foreign interests. They were joined by members of peasant groups from 30 countries to discuss how to fight such moves.

“We have seen an increase in land grabbing,” Ibrahim Coulibaly of the Malian peasant group told the gathering. “But these lands are not empty! People may not have legal titles, but they have been there for generations, even centuries.”

Most of these peasants backed the French troops’ offensive against the Islamist forces, in opposition to the brutal conditions they imposed. But they continue to confront the Malian government and its troops over rights to work the land.

An upcoming article will take up the developing working class in the country’s two export industries—cotton production and gold mining—as well as the roots of the country’s national, ethnic and religious conflicts.
 
 
Related articles:
Growing unrest, capitalist rivalries draw US military deeper into Africa
Capitalism and the Transformation of Africa
 
 
 
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