THE WAR IN MALI

This document deals with two key points: the geopolitics of Mali’s armed conflicts, and possible perspectives for the effective management of Mali’s armed conflicts. In the wake of the Libyan insurrection and the 'Arab Spring', Mali is witnessing the reaffirmation of 'ethnic' identities, the re-emergence of territorial issues and demands for political representativeness and social justice. The geopolitics of Mali’s armed conflicts is characterized by the separatist armed conflict embodied by the politico-military groups (GPM), which include : Mouvement Nationale de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA); Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA); the Haut Conseil pour l’Unicité de l’Azawad (HCUA), Mouvement Populaire pour le Salut de l’Azawad (MPSA), Coordination des mouvements de l’entente (CME), Coalition du Peuple pour l’Azawad (CPA), which later became the Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad (CMA), and what contemporary polemicists describe as the so-called war on terrorism waged against 'Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb', Jama’at nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) or Groupe de Soutien à l’Islam et aux