security studies in europe are a gentleman crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want michael if i could go to you first i mean if you read western media it's the worst fighting terrorism jihadism in africa is that the worst problem africa has right now. it's definitely one of the key problems africa is grappling with at the moment particularly to deal with. mali and the fact that the whole of north of mali had until recently been occupied by terrorist jihadist islamist groups which basically had serious potential for destabilizing the whole civilian region and of course the state of mali michael but does that justify interventions military interventions you think. it becomes a problem for the international community and our smiley the state of mali is unable to do with it obviously there has to be international support and

that can sometimes mean foreign intervention depending on the scenario i mean in the case of mali at the ninth of january they its national committee had to really give it out and had postponed every action till september two thousand and thirteen but then the jihadist decided to make an incursion and were heading towards but michael on the ninth of january when france decided that they were going to intervene on the tenth of january to stalk the question and it got violence towards but marco so actually the jihadist. go to by michael is more or less a blessing in disguise because if they hadn't done that the whole war that given up on marley and had left to its fate until september twenty third take a miracle it's a. blessing and a spark disguised as kind of odd adel where you can. you know this it's

a development issues of terrorism going to have to be in to a geographic and historic perspective. as we. understand jihadist threat to establishing bases in the whole of the region which actually extends from mali sub-saharan africa all the way to somalia in every single case it would be if you had this who actually started the at it was thought that terrorism was thought that the challenge the legitimacy of governments that. when the us intervention even if you go back to nine eleven and new york which triggered the afghanistan war it was al qaida that. chips in aid in the am and it was you had this who actually started.

the stability in somalia which led to piracy so what some people would call intervention came as a result of jihadist terrorist attacks not the other way around ok you wouldn't say mali was an example of that though would you. well mally malley was a classic example like afghanistan somalia and yemen where you have if you have a snake problem in. a spree and the central government did not respond you have a very large vast space with. sort of weak asunta loss already and then you have military you've already admitted we in mali it was you know i just it's. it seems clotted that cool and that is in. the end so in order to sort of learn from that it's not afghanistan and somalia and so. and you have to rush to fill the

vacuum out fortunately the only sort of reasonable three in power with democratic accountability that had bases in the region were the french and. most logical french by admired the eight hundred. the perfectly in the issue is which is a different issue anyway not to leave them when they're on the whole african sort of community have to or i will let you mention france it's going to emanuel in paris ok go ahead in many paris react to what you just heard. well i would have come from to compliment three points of you stating what you mention saying that is terrorism is judges the major negative effect affecting the. afghan population let's have in mind that's what is going on so here is a long jewing instability and the jihadists are there because there is in

the beginning the weakening of a certain number of states that's the first issue the second issue is saying that africa is nine hundred million inhabitants and that's a hell gaza's only one hundred fifty billion inhabitants so what is happening now is hell and it's dreadful of course and i'm grateful that france has been capable of intervening is a more wider problem it's a problem of the weakening of the states and the people who are replacing what normally should be the legitimacy of a state the legitimacy of an army and the legitimate stakeholders for the major issue that is facing africa is weakening of state institution that's one side second of all the lack of. african sort of diety which is also something that most . put into interest and put in debate concerning the million and the syrian crisis and the third parts more than jihad ism is to link between jettison big criminality

and the drug smuggling agenda which is huge in this part of africa but can also be . located in other parts of the let me let me finish the let me go to michael i mean why are these countries weak in the first place and you think military interventions are a good idea. well in this country is weak first of all because it's a former colony of france and haven't kept iraq together since independence. it's a bit of a pep plex city that you know are these cuts. are trying to say they're free france is interested in states' legitimation or democrats for that matter if we look across africa apart from uganda which is an unlawful order and equatorial guinea which is loose a phone if you find any state in africa where the head of state has been there for a very long time and where the maximum limits of the presidency has been exceeded

constitutionally. derail would always francophone and we're talking about congo brazzaville come a room booking office so chad. tunisia until recently got on to recently jail until recently until recently all nine cases are francophone and the reason that happens because all these states have military paths with france where both france has special forces stationed in the capitals and the areas that if the head of state is in trouble let's see if there's a coup d'etat or france will jump to the aid of the person which actually means that they can rule with impunity they don't care about governance they don't care about they did to me ok ok did you mean to imply there emmanuel jal. let's go to paris go ahead and let's go to paris to jump in on that specific specific point of you saying that france as you know in february two thousand and nine decided to.

have a more transparent more. let's say more. to really build to reshape its relation with a certain number of countries where they had military agreements i have to say that money is not one of the states where from outside the military agreements child was neither one of the states would be very conscious on saying what my colleague has just said that special forces are here to intervene in case of a rebellion in case of domestic internal. misbehavior of militaries or rebels again france in this case in mali is intervening on behalf of a resolution united nations resolution twenty eighty five it is intervening on behalf of a follow up of african led mission i feel now and again it is only doing what others were willing to do but did not have the capability of doing as it was

mentioned we do have bases in africa three bases one in when you have also when in djibouti and when you charge so that that has to be taken in consideration one last bit have in mind that many too many too late when you took power in one thousand nine hundred one was very democratic and that those other examples were democracy in francophone states is also a reality i would take the example of syria ok del go ahead jump in you want to jump in before go ahead. yes i was just going to say we should not really confuse. the reaction with the action or the cause. of the actions of the cause so the had actually been a stable democracy there would be a need for the french to intervene if we cast our mind back like twenty years ago or what happened in rwanda. which was actually a mega mega tragedy i mean do we really want to wait. until another tragedy like

rwanda actually happened and then we'll say oh well you know why didn't we intervene so actually ok michael i what we're hearing and hearing we're hearing you know this africans can't rule themselves limp sounds like to me go ahead no i'm not i'm not going to i'm asking michael now go ahead and cause and effect michael. is essentially you know. it would appear that france went in and that's all well and good because of the cover of the u.n. resolution but the underlying current really is that france intervene because of their special interests in mali and of course about the backlash of the growth of terrorism which will in the end affect france if it does not intervene so it's not necessarily i mean the great gentlemen i'm going to jump in here and we have to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on africa stay

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you. hold it. hold it. to cut. the speed. of her. wish. to bomb it good. luck. and i'm a. little. welcome

back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter a little to remind you we're talking about africa and the major powers. ok i'd like to go back to paris manual why does france have to be so involved in africa i thought colonialism was over well well it is actually a well again look at. the way it looks like a neo colonial project is that is that because we intervene when we were asked to do so it was the first time that we were doing that so i think it's a it's a rupture well you can say that sounds like it looks like moral hazard to me ok

just call the french they'll take care of it well just call the french because we're the only ones who have bases there and it's. it's brought the the the answer i could give to you is that we have. disposed to intervene because we are present throughout. the mission. we have. a thousand four hundred soldiers now in charge and we are present in central africa again history is something you have to take into account and we are in a francophone area and most of these countries do have in mind that fifty percent of the currency of these countries is backed up by the. defense and the forces are is also something we have to take in consideration as a legacy of story but let me just if you. please little please do please do respond to your question what is the interest that france is defending or the under agenda

the secret agenda that france me have i would just have in mind that if that is the case then we should have intervened in asia when there was a rebellion and there was a coup in two thousand and ten because obviously most of the french interest if there is that is to be summarized in the jail in the lead where we have rain your extraction we have very few. mining gold or oil or or gas extraction in the italians do so in the northern western part of many but not the french ok adele lot of people would say it's an asset grab you know africa's the last great place to grab assets go ahead. well how i'm always sort of quiet and used by all these clear. neo colonialism

and grabbing africa would be very interesting to see if any of those people who are on these columns which only has spread sheets where for example the cost of french prisons in bases the cost of british intervention in libya and france. how much that cost of the british taxpayer french taxpayer any taxpayer going purred with the money on the sources coming out from this country whether it's a mineral export and it imports taking out of that the local employment and tax collected by the government of the country if actually someone comes up with this is a spreadsheet and shore me that french presence or british intervention of adel western powers are in and different. people are going to do it with those guys

people then he convinced by in some other countries two things out of interest michael go ahead jump in. well i mean you have to ask yourself where was france post-independence mali where the central government in bamako had several agreements over the decades with the other words with the turks north and kept breaking these agreements to the extent that decided that they wanted independence where i was friends in the jail where the president had basically stayed for too long and exceeded their limits where was france and all these other cases it's quite clear that there's a pattern that france is only interested in its interests in the natural resources and doesn't care too much about good governance and then when it comes to the critical point france into vain is to look and appear are safe where the savior but they're actually condoned the whole process to the due to the situation

that brought us to trouble. a lot of said i'm not listed so many cases the ask the obvious of what role has france been playing implicitly or explicitly see to bring this to the us to this point ok menu on paris you want to respond to that. well it's an everlasting debate as a frenchman i'm always obliged to defend the french policy and i would have to take basic facts france has been doing three weeks operation a counter terrorist operation it is not a stab releasing operation. a few days ago our minister of french ministry of foreign affairs of abuse centers france once the mission is accomplished and there is a debate of what is the mission are we going to stop where once the major northern cities are liberated as go and to move to have been in the in the past days or are we going to pass. the mission to other

actors and this is exactly what we're going to do again. do you have in mind the schedule normally the words jew to intervene in next september we were obliged to intervene because no one at the military capability to stop the two thousand. armed jihadist column which was heading from from from the north from the north to more and maybe to bamako or elsewhere book enough or so or western part of news here and do have in mind that now we are into legit to mitt legal intervention and this is precisely the fact why we are calling for a united nation why france is calling for united nations mission observation of there to be mission if france had been on the new agenda then we would do like we have done in the recent years and of course as an analyst i have to say that there

is a shift in the nature of the. operations we do not have any more defense agreement we have shared such a partnership with francophone countries and with other countries which which we did not have contacts i will take the example of nigeria where we are training. patrol in order to enhance a more secure area in the gulf of guinea ok well military training doesn't always work out we saw that with mali i tell if i can ask you i mean do you see the militarization of africa i mean the united states the united states is arming and training a lot of armies on the continent is this worrying. well i think you know why is that the united states is not taking a leadership an opportunity you have a president well it can only and so many countries at a time. oh he's very he's very good in making speeches

and the big bow is but when it comes to action it's zero. people especially on the left the use of the love making fun of president bush at least it was decisive. from obama we have not seen the leadership when it actually came to libya and gadhafi and his sons was threatening to slaughter people from house to house and street to swell i mean libya didn't work out too well french still hasn't worked out very well and listen i'm going to french actually action not american action the american skin didn't give logistics and i wish i wish the americans with some kind of leadership because what we will have modern as it is the french action the french do not have the capability to actually sustain a long campaign in there and it could be counterproductive the people of mali out applauding them and so on but the need finance and logistics support we don't want public opinion in france to turn against operation so you need some kind of

international force and the only history has proved with american leadership in this kind of intervention it doesn't quite work well therefore why don't we go into the how do you define the mission well how do you define what works well for the african union a did a backing from the united go ahead jump in does advocate need more or less interventions. africa needs. support worthy matus and i think i have to say that france ought to be congratulated for intervening on the tenth of january but part of it also it's because of the guilty complex on the back of the intervention in libya which actually caused a spillover of turkey's groups into mali itself. so i think that we need to sort of come to a situation where the union resolutions will be able to co-opt both international law international support to to actually mitigate the whole civilian problem i mean

just before the coup in march two thousand and twelve and with the whole international body has actually met in bamako to put together a package of humanitarian and economic and military package for the whole problem and a quitter up to this i think that it would be a good idea to get back on track on those terms and wow the u.n. is currently pushing for putting together a resolution to take forward a military operation to secure the territorial integrity of mali i think that of all the parties before the coup need to also come together on track to to to put together the whole package that will solve the problem. across mollies monies neighbors as well. so we'll have to wait and see you know the true role that you know dates national community i'm talking about africa eco wise the u.n. security council france of course the u.s. i mean we're aware that the u.s.

now wants to have a drone base. in we are also aware that there is of those already a drone base in birkenau for so and i mean i mean. you know i'm going to give you the last word in the program is that good now american drones are going to africa is a good. now we're out of time adel go ahead and i think drones from from from a tactical point of view sort of better making human errors because. pilots are humans after all to them i actually drove the road in you were was drawn . you know you don't have these fears are going to be ok man you well i have you know what we all have thirty seconds so many well go ahead you want to say something please do. just remind everyone that africa is not ok to do nothing but the strategy of the americans and they have this capability selling that as you mentioned noble was trained by the americans not by the french

i have to put that clearly in mind of the spectators is having a dual point of view concerning all right i wish we had another half an hour gentlemen we've run out of time many thanks today to my guests in london and in paris and thanks to our viewers for watching us here see you next time and remember cross talk rules. please. more news today. these are the images.

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