SUMMARY
CMA (Coordination des Mouvements de l’Azawad: Coordination of Azawad Movements) – originally MNLA: Mouvement national de libération de l'Azawad: National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad – was a mainly Tuareg separatist rebel group active in northern Mali from 2012. While the group attempted to portray itself as a revolutionary movement for the liberation of all the peoples of northern Mali (called ‘Azawad’ by the Tuareg), i.e. Tuareg, Songhoi, Arab and Peul, analysts agree that its main support base was among the Tuareg population in general and the Kel Adagh confederation of clans in particular. There is a long history of tensions between the ethnic groups inhabiting northern Mali, and most non-Tuareg groups are opposed to the idea of an independent Azawad. Also the Tuareg population is split on the issue. Internal divisions along clan lines have long impeded Tuareg efforts of opposition to Bamako and the south; this was the case during the rebellions in the 1990s and 2007-09 and this remained so in 2012. MNLA was by and large led by certain sub-clans within the Kel Adagh confederation, especially the Ifoghas and Idnan, based in the Kidal area. While the group strived for broad-based support among the Tuareg, especially one clan (also within the Kel Adagh confederation) remained in opposition to the new organization: the Imghad, who stayed loyal to the idea of a unified Mali and fought on the side of the Bamako regime. Furthermore, large segments of the Tuaregs chose to follow competing rebel group Ansar Dine, who fought for the imposition of sharia in all of Mali.
While MNLA was created only three months before it launched its rebellion in January 2012, its roots can be traced both far back in Mali’s history and to more recent regional developments. To understand how regional developments could influence developments in Mali one needs to return to the long-standing relationship between the Tuaregs and Libyan President Muammar Gadaffi. Already in the 1970s, large numbers of young Tuaregs migrated to Libya due to severe droughts. Many received military training, as Gadaffi incorporated some into his regular military forces and others into a Libyan-sponsored ‘Islamic Legion’. The latter was subsequently dispatched to Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan, where numerous Tuaregs acquired considerable combat experience. When, in the late 1980s, economic conditions deteriorated, it was only those Tuaregs who had been able to obtain Libyan citizenship that were able to stay. Those returning subsequently launched a separatist rebellion in Mali (see Mali: Azawad). With the signing of the 1992 National Pact some more hardline fighters, disillusioned with the turn of events in Mali, returned to Libya and became senior officers in the Libyan army. As the Arab Spring swept across North Africa in early 2011 and the Gadaffi regime began to crumble, well-armed and battle-hardened Tuaregs returned to Mali, and entered an already volatile situation. Northern Mali, on the eve of the 2012 Tuareg rebellion, was characterized by a lack of economic development, limited presence of administrative structures and a general resentment with the central government; many of the same grievances that had bred earlier Tuareg uprisings. Furthermore, insecurity was rife, with the region serving as a haven for smugglers, traffickers and the transnational militant AQIM. The president at the time, Amadou Toumani Touré ruled the north through a network of alliances with rival and opportunist elites. In this context, many of the returning fighters chose not to disarm, but withdrew to the hills of Tin-Assalak, north of Kidal in Northern Mali. In October 2011 they, together with remnants from the ATNMC (a Tuareg rebel group active in 2007-09) and a Tuareg political organization called MNA, (Mouvement national de l'Azawad: National Movement of Azawad) formed MNLA.
The new group, under leaders such as Bilal Ag Acherif, a cousin of late ATNMC-leader Ibrahim Ag Bahanga (Secretary General) and Mohammed Ag Najem, a former professional officer in the Libyan army (Head of Military Operations), immediately made it clear that their objective was to free 'the people of Azawad from the illegal occupation of their territory by Mali, which has been the cause of decades of insecurity in the region'. Furthermore, in an interview with the media official for the new movement, he stated that the rebels were preparing to declare a state in northern Mali and to launch military operations against the Malian military if they were not granted self-rule.
Estimates on the number of MNLA fighters vary greatly. Sources indicate that some 400 Tuareg fighters returning from Libya and joining MNLA. However, the newly formed group also included remnants of ATNMC, the group fighting the Malian government between 2007 and 2009, but there is no information on how many they numbered. As Tuaregs soldiers that had deserted the Mali army and young recruits from the region joined it, the group grew further. Credible estimates eventually put the number at around 3000, whereas MNLA itself at its height claimed to number 9000-10000 men. However, as fellow rebel group Ansar Dine claimed a string of military victories, MNLA fighters began defecting to the latter, whereby MNLA became increasingly weak on the ground.In 2016, the group was estimated to have some 2000 fighters.
MNLA’s relationship with other armed actors in northern Mali has shifted during the tumultuous years since its inception. At the outset, the group cooperated militarily with Ansar Dine. While solely tactical, the cooperation was successful in that the two groups succeeded in driving the Malian armed forces from northern Mali by April 2012. However, Ansar Dine was simultaneously communicating with two fellow Islamist groups in the region, AQIM and MUJAO and gradually shifted its allegiances to them. During April and May 2012 it became clear that the Islamists had created a joint alliance against MNLA and the latter was pushed out of all main towns. MNLA for its part gained new allies over the following years. While the number of armed groups has increased, so have attempts to unify their positions, so that a negotiation process can bear fruit. Between February and June 2014, consultations were held in Algeria, intended to bring together the many disparate groupings of the north under one unified front. Divisions were too deep, however – both between Tuareg groups and other ethnic groups, and within the Tuareg community – and the attempt failed. In June the various northern groups eventually grouped themselves into two main camps: Platform (a number of organizations that seek national unity) and CMA (several pro-independence movements, the main one being MNLA). It was at this point that MNLA changed its name to CMA in UCDP data. With the formation of CMA, the military forces of the member organizations MNLA, HCUA (Le Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad: High Council of the unit of Azawad) and MAA (Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad: Arab Movement of Azawad), established a military coordination, and a joint staff, under the command of Colonel Mohamed Ag Najim of MNLA. In line with UCDP coding rules, this is seen as a name change for MNLA, as they joined a coalition where none of the other participating movements had previously been recorded in UCDP data (for more information UCDP coding rules pertaining to actors, see the codebook for the Actor dataset).
After the signing of the Algiers peace agreement in 2015, a difficult implementation process commenced. In 2021, CSP-PSD was launched; a broad umbrella bringing together groups that had previously been divided between the CMA and Platform camps. Initially, the new alliance was merely intended to strengthen the northern groups’ bargaining position in the fledging peace process. However, as the process reached a deadlock in late 2022, the groups within CSP grew increasingly close. The main chasm between CMA on the one hand, and the largest among the Platform groups, GATIA and MSA on the other, appeared to be on the verge of being bridged, mainly due to the latter’s loss of faith in the country’s new junta. In January and February 2023, the alliances’ military Chiefs of Staff subsequently made moves to establish a joint command structure and shared headquarters, as well as permanent military bases, and with that CSP became an actor in UCDP data, whereas CMA ceased to be one.
