Security

Guy Lankester

Tel: +44 (0)7970 050549

The world’s view of security issues in Africa depict just how far behind globalisation has left that continent. Rather than lifting Africa out of the realm of myth and placing it on a more real, transparent and honest footing with the rest of the world, international politics and specifically the “war on terror” have encouraged a new mythology around security in “the dark continent”.

The very fact that you are reading this page proves my point. Travel to a western country in the current world climate poses many more issues of security than traveling to the far flung forgotten places to which I will take you. And yet I bet if you were roaming a site for trips to Europe or the USA or Australia you’d probably not dream of clicking on the “Security” tab for fear of death by boredom. You don’t need anyone to tell you about looking after your belongings or to overstate the risks of terrorist attack when you get on a plane or on public transport. You know that any major western city could be the target for an Al Qaeda attack.

But you may have heard of a Briton being murdered deep in the Sahara, or read the travel advice on the FCO site and been alarmed.

So what follows is intended to put the risks of travel to Africa in a more realistic context.

Personal security (theft or aggression to your person)

African society is built around the community and as a guest you are highly valued wherever you go. It is this ubiquitous community of people which guards your welfare.

Of course when traveling anywhere you have money and luxury goods on you, more in value than many African people will ever see in their hands in a lifetime, so normal vigilance is required.

The risk of terrorist attack

Which of these places are you most likely to find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time?

• the World Trade Centre, New York
• the railways in Madrid;
• the public transport system in London
• a tourist bar in a popular tourist destination in Bali
• the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
• a naval barracks in Algeria
• outside the French Embassy in Mauritania
• the house of a government official, Timbuktu.

(the hostage taking in Mali in January 2009, and subsequent murder of Edwin Dyer

in May 2009 is not included here as it was not a planned terrorist attack, see below)

International travel advisories

What follows is my personal opinion.

My view on the British Foreign Commonwealth Office and other government travel advice is that it is hard to know what to listen to and what to treat with a pinch of salt. So much of it is politically motivated, over generalized and more to do with covering backs than protecting citizens. For regular travellers it is actually dangerous because of the cry wolf syndrome.

A couple of anecdotes:

1. Before my first trip to Mali in 2006 I looked up the FCO page for travel advice. It said “High risk of terrorism. Attacks can be indiscriminate.” My bullshit sensors were alarmed by the latter phrase - surely that is the nature of terrorism anywhere, it is indiscriminate! So I googled “terrorist attacks Mali”. Not one incident came up.

The same thing was written on the FCO Mauritania web page before my first trip there in 2008. The first ever terrorist incident in Mauritania was in 2009 when a lone suicide bomber blew himself up a few hundred yards from the French Embassy in Nouakchott killing one other person.

(A little task for you: find an African country where it does not say:

There is a general threat from terrorism in *****. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers. You should be aware that there is a threat of kidnapping in the immediate and wider regions and particular care should be taken in remote regions and border areas. You should have confidence in your individual security arrangements and maintain a high level of vigilance. See the Terrorism section of this advice for more details.

Now trawl through the news pages of the BBC and see how many incidents of terrorism you can find in Africa outside regions of conflict like Sudan or Somalia.)

2. Two days before the Festival In the Desert 2009, with 14 tourists already in Timbuktu eagerly awaiting the festival, I was alerted by a friend about an FCO travel warning which had just been posted on the Mali page. It stated that the Festival In The Desert was going to be targeted by Al Qaeda. The inference was that they were linked to Tuareg rebel groups. A few things didn’t stack up.

1)Why would Tuareg rebels attack their own festival?
2)How come there was no overt security presence in Timbuktu?
3)How come the organisers and Malian officials seemed completely in the dark?

I went to the FCO Mali page. I sent emails to the email address listed for British consular services in Bamako. I called the various telephone numbers listed and left messages saying that I was taking 14 tourists (mainly British) to the Festival and needed more information. I even got hold of the consul’s private mobile number and left a message there. Oddly, at this time of crisis for Mali’s premier tourist attraction, nobody seemed to be looking into emails or answering phones or responding to messages on answer machines. Perhaps the British consulate was inundated by all the British tourists in this francophone country or perhaps they were concentrating on the only other British company that takes tourists to the Festival. In the end I put the case to my tourists. They opted to go to the festival and of course we had a trouble free time with no special security presence.

Unfortunately for the festival organisers 50% of the tourists already in Timbuktu pulled out, to the bafflement of the Malian government.

I have been reminded of the 1997 targeted attacks on tourists in Luxor,Egypt when on separate occasions a total of 70 tourists were gunned down. Shortly afterwards tourists were warned by the FCO to “be careful”. Of course we have close political relations with Egypt, it is better placed strategically so we don’t want to trouble relations there.

The upshot of FCO advice for seasoned travellers is that rather than protecting us it is quite dangerous because of the cry wolf syndrome. When they blanket safe countries with overstated security alerts, it is hard to guage, in a country where there are problems, where are the real danger spots.

Always in my experience it is local, on the ground knowledge which is the most reliable.

A word on the tragic murder of Edwin Dyer

( for a more detailed account please look at my Blog page Security in Mali)

In January 2009 four tourists,a Briton, 2 Germans and a Swiss national were taken hostage on the Niger/Mali border. In May 2009 Edwin Dyer was murdered. I was in Mali at the time. There was a lot of mis-information in the foreign media about this case.

• The hostages had crossed into Mali from Niger at a remote border crossing to go to a small Tuareg cultural festival (note: they had NOT been to the Festival In The Desert as many reports stated.). It seems likely that their attendance to the festival was incidental to their kidnapping.
•They were taken after they had crossed back into Niger.
•They were taken by non-political bandits who were not linked to the Tuareg rebellion or to any terrorist group.
•They were probably then sold on to an Algerian group who have issues with the Algerian government. This group have been labelled Al Qaeda of the Islamic Magreb (AQIM). Their actual links to Al Qaeda and its international terrorism principles are debatable. For a balanced account of AQIM see here.
• Ransoms were demanded. The German government paid up and their nationals were released. The British refused to pay and tragically Edwin Dyer was murdered in May 2009. The Swiss national remains a hostage.

What does this case say about security in Mali?

Events of this kind are thankfully extremely rare in the Sahara region. We are talking about an area the size of the USA. Historically it has been Mali, and the Tuareg of the northern region in particular, who have been instrumental in securing the release of western hostages, to the extent that this is the first ever murder of a hostage in the region.

The first thing to say is that this was not a planned terrorist attack. It was an opportunistic attack by bandits. Terrorists may have taken advantage of the situation, but they were not behind the initial attack.

Secondly, politically this case had more to do with Algeria and Niger than Mali. Mali’s territory was used but the sources of the groups involved were in Niger and Algeria.

In terms of tourist travel in Mali this has changed very little. The areas in which these groups operate are very remote border regions. Because the desert is so vast these regions are impossible to police. They cannot operate or penetrate into the countries because firstly they do not have support amongst the Tuareg which is crucial for anyone in their desert, and secondly the further into Mali territory the more police, army and civilians are encountered.

Mali has always been and remains a very safe place to travel. In September 2009 I was in Mali. I drove fro the east to the west and up to the north, back down to Timbuktu and back to Bamako, a journey of over 3000 km. I was not stopped once by the police or the army, nobody warned me off going to any region and I felt as safe as i always feel there. In the north, the Tuareg region the situation was even calmer and safer than it had been on my previous visits when a small faction of the rebellion had resurfaced. This had meant that my guides had to keep in touch with rebel groups to let them know who we were. Now all that is over.

While i was there the Minister of Tourism invited all Ambassadors and consular staff to Timbuktu to see for themselves the situation there.

And still, because one person was tragically killed, and because of a small cell of terrorists holed up in remote nowhere land region the size of the United States of America, the world has written off this wonderful country to tourists. If only the UK had lost only one person to terrorism, if only the USA or Europe had had only one terrorist incident on its territory.

I will end by stating with confidence that you are safer in Mali than you are at home, and that the biggest risk of terrorism you will be taking on your trip to Mali will be in the airport from which you fly.

Security