and that would lead me into the. best chamber. which trade building for three days. at three thirty pm moscow time these are your headlines on party moscow says the sentencing of russian businessman victor boot by u.s. court is unacceptable biased and politically motivated who received twenty five years for conspiring to sell weapons to terrorists and americans. the word security council issues its toughest statement yet on syria calling on the government and the opposition to lay down arms unconditionally within a week as seen in kofi annan peace plan mascot's has agreed but wants guarantees in

return that the armed rebels won't attempt to make gains and peace is declared. french president nicolas sarkozy wins public support with his crackdown on islamic radicals but you lose the faith of young muslims who say they feel rejected by their own country. coming up the uprising in mali what's in store for the country and how much should the rebellion contribute to the fall of colonel gadhafi in libya crosstalk debates that next on our cheek. filmmaker. and. the. director's cut it was a real long days in prison on charges. you

can. start. to. flow and welcome across from time people about molly in a mess in the wake of the recent military coup there are growing fears it is however the state could plunge into protracted civil strife that could result in a failed state and a safe haven for terrorists for the people of mali what is it state security or democracy or night. taking a stand. to cross out the recent military coup in mali i'm joined by peter pham in washington he is the director of the atlantic council's michael and sorry africa center and in london we go to james snyder he is the editor in chief of think africa press all right gentlemen this is cross talk you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it peter if i

go to you in washington first what is in play here let's before we talk about what's going on with the coup now and afterwards let's talk about how we got there i mean there seems to be this rule of thumb is that critics of the libya intervention say i told you so the law of unintended consequences if you shake up the regime forcefully and impose order there you're going to have. a fact and we've got one in mali is that a fair reading a fair narrative. well i think there's a great deal of truth in it the fact is for all his faults colonel gadhafi was more or less in his box in recent years and he kept by himself all sorts of undesirable actors once that regime collapsed some of these actors including some of the toerags who are now causing the problems in northern mali returned home bringing with them weapons and fighters and that has spread throughout the saheli region and we're going to be dealing with these outflows from libya in the next year or two

several years all across the sub region ok beautify can stay with you could this have been predicted should have been predicted i think you wrote about it before this happened i wrote about it over a year ago saying that these are second third order consequences that are inevitably going to flow so if you're going to intervene in libya you better have a contingency plan to deal with this for sure that was drowned out in the period of the conflict but even after the conflict the governments of this region spoke up in november last year i host of the foreign minister of mali who is now being held prisoner by the junta in watch a good as he came and made a personal plea for assistance to deal with the situation that was engulfing his country already and he saw this very clearly several months ago ok james what do you think about that narrative because you can say also a lot of people say this coup was in the making for a very very long time and we've had these kind of disturbances for decades since

independence. i don't think that the uprising was too much directly for the gadhafi actually. helps for the particular timing and the intensity of this rebellion but this rebellion was planned for. before the uprising bankcards him before nato intervention in libya the political arm of the m. and a was formed in october two thousand and ten long before the uprising in benghazi timbuktu the military plans had been laid by the hunger who was in libya at the time but he'd been planning this from two thousand and nine onward so i i think that the fall of gadhafi. sped up the rebellion the time of the rebellion and possibly causing more arms but i don't think that this is a direct consequence i don't think that narrative is from ok peter what do you think about that in washington it's an atmosphere nominal i think of

a direct result. certainly the the the the tensions in the northeast grievances legitimate or not you can debate. those are all ongoing problems but certainly there was a new empathy sport with full fires that's why the m.l.o. u.s. military commander. is a colonel in the libyan army maybe he would have been sent anyway but the fact is he had to the fighters that form the the tip of the spear here in the skiff the latest on the use of military you had james jump in he defected from the libyan military. a hunk of what he was doing in having been chased out by government allied militia from from mali in two thousand and nine was trying to encourage. members of the gadhafi military to come back to join them in a way and to bring with them. because which they. which they did and it's

interesting to see that it was long before they actually fell ok after the uprising before gadhafi fell and also importantly before the no fly zone that senior commander started to leave people with was taken with. heading back towards the north and normally in order to in the end. jane let me jump in right here i mean the military in mali said to be done with they have done because the civil authorities didn't give them the arms they needed to fight the rebellion uprising so i mean in a way and i might just define cool here but the military saying we have to protect the sovereignty of this country because a civil government is not doing that and that story is beginning to come out now i mean you're talking about weaponry going into the country because of the libyan situation and then we have the military in mali saying we have to protect sovereignty i mean it's not so clear cut is it. because the the fall of

gadhafi as i said did have some effect but it's not the prime driver. who was already building up weaponry and they could have got from elsewhere as well as before the fall of gadhafi. coincidental in terms of timing and then it is helped intensify it and speed up operations but this has. to take place at some point and at some point reasonably soon anyway with or without the fall of gadhafi peter what about the legitimacy of protecting the state sovereignty ok i mean the justification we can talk about the the merits of the democracy in their country if we want but they came out and said we have to protect the borders of this country and their arms coming in we have a minority they've been trying to break away for of where a long time now i mean what are the justifications there i mean it's security versus democracy versus constitutional order etc etc again it's not black and white

. you know it's not black and white although i would say this much about the actual home to the took power the justifications they're advancing now are just occasions which have a reason behind them and certainly a certain cretin's but they're invented ex post facto and the fact is the coup that occurred on the night between the twenty first and twenty second march was for all intents and purposes an accidental coup which started out as a small mutiny and it cascaded before too long into a full fledged rebellion it was not planned out it was junior level officers acting up and because the state was actually so inefficient. they turned into a coup so now they're advancing these just like asians which ought to be taken seriously but we also hold a little suspect the timing now as for the government that was overthrown all right certainly as you just said the timing and i think you're getting at the upcoming election that's going to happen right there and again we have the one to saying

they're going to have they want to democratic order but we have elections just around the corner i mean but if they waited a couple of weeks well that's why i think this is like all this the accidental coup they certainly had grievances they had problems with the government that was in power and i'm not sure they planned out to overthrow it but it cascaded very quickly got out of control and they ended up with a coup and now they have a whole into so i think the timing was probably indicates that this was not a well thought out conspiracy if it was actually preplanned at all to begin with but that being said now they've got it and now they have and they and the the rest of the world have to deal with the situation ok as we have it today not as we would like to do busines it sounds like an accidental mess for everybody. i absolutely agree it's not. exactly the same thing i think i agree entirely with peter's narrative i think it was something that went awry and it's happened in terms of going back to a previous question about the merits of security versus democracy and so on be the

see an orgy henri. has been remarkably unsuccessful at securing clearing the territorial integrity of mali which is what they went for which is which was the original reason for their justification for that and you can see this because they can negotiate with the m.l.a. that he. sought negotiation in the past and as a way in which he can see war in the north and uprisings in the world as part of a part of a long ago station which has been taking place sort of fifty years between. governments and accept this. so it is an accidental situation but they. failed dismally in getting a security they can't negotiate and they won't be negotiated with and they can't be a negotiation in till there is a legitimate government that is able to actually get to negotiation table and make

some forms of concessions peter if you look at the rebels have been remarkably successful why would you want to negotiate they've got wind of it right now you succeeded with what beyond your wildest imaginations a. few months ago. no certainly there is a good position and as the confusion continues with the one to flailing away and go there are only going to consolidate their hold on the north so they're going to be in a very strong negotiating position when we have an interlocutor to represent the government of mali they can talk to them so i think they've they've certainly scored a strategic success very much so now they're going to consolidate that and that's something that the international community has to watch and i think the responsible thing to do to encourage is the fact that there are legitimate grievances and and desires in the north especially among the torah eggs but other peoples in the north as well that they have to be met in some way shape or form what is preoccupying is

the presence of the islamist forces that i want to get to that point. i want to go to that next point in the next president james real quick before we go to the break how they are the claims for independence for the rebels right now how legitimate. definitely i'm not so far saying that they necessarily have interest in a cause for independence but they certainly have grievances that have not. concessions that are being made to them in the previous peace accords just a few years ago and again in the early ninety's were not entirely met and they do have legitimate grievances and it is clear that some form of increased autonomy and integration of. the price international life is required and it is ok we'll talk about the security element in the next part of the program after a short break we'll continue our discussion on the situation in mali state.

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a potential failed state. live t.v. . live ok if you go back to our guest in washington peter you know there seems another facet we haven't discussed and i want to put in this part of the program is the presence of al qaeda and other islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups whatever you want to toggle you want to put them on to what degree is that being overestimated and underestimated as events play out in mali. well peter i think you hit the nail right on the head it's both over and underestimated overestimated in the sense that some media reports talk about al-qaeda in the islamic magreb as if we're dealing with a monolithic organization or a parameter of a structure when in fact it's a very diffuse organization increasingly factionalized with with some of its components engaging more criminal activities for enrichment then terrorist

activities but it does also clearly also contain a hard life element as well so it's a very diffuse entity on the other hand i think there's a very there's an opposite tendency to dismiss the islamists and focus on the nationalist element of the uprising while the majority of torak are clearly. not pursuing an islamist agenda there is a component among them which has been asserting itself since the fall of the three regional capitals in the north in the administration of those cities we see it in kid doll we see in timbuktu we see it in golf where this group of islands are d.n.a. led by this long connected character agai is clearly asserting itself well i think there could be a struggle within the the toerag movement but so we shouldn't overestimate the danger but we certainly shouldn't dismiss it out of hand either james do you stand on that because they you know when you through when they all cried aliment and then it becomes a much broader picture story it's not you know poor little molly struggling here

becomes an international story certainly a regional story i mean to what degree is it over underestimate in your mind. i think it's overestimated for the same reasons that peter said i disagree with what he just said. there is going to be a struggle between b.m. and i lay an answer in which there always was going to be regardless of whether there is an islamic tinge to answer being the secular nationalists change for the m.l.a. let's not forget that the leader of the garley was the leader of the toerag uprising in the early ninety's he also tried to become a leader in october of last year of the m.l.a. but was rejected because it was thought by many toric nationalists that he betrayed the cause and was too close to mali in the peace negotiations in the early ninety's so he then went off after failing to become leader of the m.l.a.

to go to his tribal areas tribal group in northern could reach and to see if they would allow him to be their leader but they. didn't happen so he set up his his own group and his own group has a more islamic ten g. it's also less radical in terms of the mons for independence and statements coming out from many commanders suggest that yes once. the northern the northern territory there will be some sort of struggle between the two that has been the response and got risings is there is disunity between between competing factions i also don't completely agree that. being are really trying to gain the upper hand in the three towns once they've been taken in actually probably is that the m.

and a have left and so are being to garrison the towns was taken to teaching positions against invasion or. attack from forces i think it's quite. to say that. certain cells as in it's in the schools ok peter it's very interesting because he the mollies been seen as a important player to one degree or another depending on who you want to believe in america's war on terror against al qaeda and other groups in africa i mean how much is this strategy been disturbed because we have the head of the hunter was trained by americans. yes as were most officers of his grade or above in mali but certainly i think the partnership that the us has had with mali for over a decade on color terrorism had its ups and downs certainly the emphasis on counterterrorism . helped build up a certain capacity within the bali military but it also made it somewhat unique

demential they were good at hunting terrorists but they clearly were pretty well prepared to fight a counterinsurgency and so i think that strategy is a little more your version of a really preemptive beyond the point. they think it's a very interesting point james i think it's a very interesting point and that's what i was trying to kind of lead all of us down to is that the americans have their agenda for the region against certain groups and then you have the local officials there in military in mali saying well we want to control our own country's borders but there are these outsiders americans who just want to go after these islamic figures if it's al qaeda and others and they are they're not the same so in some ways a kind of reminds me a little bit of pakistan on a minor scale go ahead james i think if you look at the bunch of wiki leaks cables from two thousand and six two thousand and ten from mali which came out and you can see from those two very interesting things one is that the

mali military. wasn't very good at all and also didn't really gauge very often. different elements of al qaida in the islamic magreb one and two were the attempts to target the m. and a with connection to a.q. and it was more the emmental a. pretty decisive groups led by britain right behind died in august last year who were actually fighting against a.q.i.m. elements is the one thing that the end of consistently said is that once they have taken as a while they were true either. out of the area ok peter what do you think about that because again i mean it looks like there are different agendas being played out here and we have to all wonder how they're going to deal with this one to there because i mean again you know the people of mali have to decide you know if it's democracy or security and put in the region has to think that in africa itself and then there's the outside players like the united states and nato when we look at

what happened in libya is this going to be another mission creep or that it's going to sit there and watch and see what happens because we have this really hemorrhaging issue from libya going into mali that's fueling this. right i think several points one is we are going to iraq for now both the united states and europe have caught i was all assistance to mali except for basic humanitarian assistance feeding people from the drought famine all the development assistance when cotton certainly military assistance has been cut so at some point they're going to have to make a decision whether coed hearing to the principle of no extra legal unconstitutional changes of government where that creates a tension with security concerns and i agree with we james there are other interests and we have to recognize not just the u.s. and europe interest but neighboring countries have their own interests and their own spins that they're going to put on this both in terms of defending themselves

and in the greater balance of power within the sub region so for example today general carter ham the commander of the u.s. africa command is in algeria meeting with the algerian president and his top advisors clearly the perspective they're going to get for algeria on this crisis is going to be entirely different from what they're going to get if they want to martina or needs air much less if they went in they could go on the ground in in mali and engage actually mali in society ok keynes but nobody wants to see a failed state in the center of africa do they i mean i know what i'm what i'm getting at here but it would be very wealthy to hear what peter said in washington you know there's going to be punishment of one thing to do certain things or not do certain things but a certain point you don't want to see to state collapse go ahead. i don't think we are going to see. also think currently the common sanctions that are being placed by us will have will have an effect and we're seeing about playing out now negotiations between sanogo is trying to play for time trying to work out his exit

strategy and i don't think that we're going to see state and so on it may take it may take a week it may take a month of may say six months maybe even take a year but there will be an end to the military coup and to return to some kind of constitutional government at some point elections and that really is the necessary precursor from the perspective of self amal if it wants to try to retake the north because it's going to require class assistance to do so in ecowas are just not going to help. change that they can stay with you james there's a big worry is of course is that this area that the rebels have control of in whatever affiliation they have with al-qaeda and other groups people worry that they're just going to turn into another afghanistan before nine eleven it's just going to turn into a haven for terrorists and drug dealers in crime i mean how long can you wait how long can you just watch now for i'm afraid that doesn't really i don't really think

that works as an argument because. i mean just just three months ago when mali technically had control. over the whole area you would still be able to have criminal and terrorist groups operating let's remember this is a desert it's a desert the size of france and it's got something like only one and a half million people or so. it's already going there already going to be zones that don't have come outside of really state control and so the ability for. terrorist groups and all the rest to operate in it has always been and i actually think it's interesting that the terrorist threat has emanated from mali in the last five is the grand scheme of things hasn't been that large and i don't think that that's about to intensify to any great degree ok peter i'm going to be a last program my last word on this program what your prognosis was for the next six months and next year look what it looked like. well i agree with james i think

we're going to move slowly out perhaps too slowly but we're going to eventually going to move to some sort of negotiated solution the one to have to step aside i'm not sure that the deposed president will raise necessarily going to be restored but some sort of transitional government elections and then greater engagement both on the part of the sub regional body ecowas and the international community to shore up government first in the south of mali and then eventually move through the north hopefully create the conditions for a negotiated settlement with the toerag and then with any problematic actors who are beyond the pale in the north you know there are other ways of dealing with can make it real sounds very simple thank you very much gentlemen many thanks and i guess the day in washington and in london thanks to our viewers for watching us here see you next time remember crosstalk.