War for the Agacher Strip
| date | December 14, 1985 to December 30, 1985 |
|---|---|
| place | Border between Mali and Burkina Faso ( Province Oudalan ) |
| output | Judgment of the International Court of Justice in The Hague |
| Territorial changes | Division of the border strip |
| consequences | Monitoring of compliance with the peace provisions by a commission made up of representatives from African states |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Captain Thomas Sankara |
Genéral Moussa Traoré |
| Troop strength | |
| 4,600 men | 7,600 men |
| losses | |
|
141 dead (?) |
38 dead (?) |
The war over the Agacher Strip (also Christmas War and Mali-Burkinabe border conflict , French Guerre de la Bande d'Agacher ) was a border war waged from December 25 to 30, 1985 by the two West African states of Mali and Burkina Faso .
Causes of war
The border conflict was rooted in decades-old disputes over four villages in the 160 km long and 30 km wide Agacher desert strip, which Mali controlled and is believed to be rich in natural resources (such as natural gas , manganese , titanium and uranium ). After the border was drawn up by France during the colonial period, the area belonged to Burkina Faso, but Mali tried to revise the border militarily.
Prehistory (first Agacher conflict)
Already in December 1974 there was a border conflict between Mali and Burkina Faso (at that time still Upper Volta ), in which the later Burkinabe President Thomas Sankara commanded the units of Upper Volta as captain. Since there were only sporadic exchanges of fire at the time, this conflict is not considered a war.
Through the mediation of Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor , Mali and Upper Volta agreed to set up a mediation commission made up of representatives of the governments of Togo , Niger , Guinea and Senegal. For its part, this commission decided to set up a joint expert commission ( commission technique neutre ) consisting of three cartographers, an ethnologist, a lawyer and a secretary to determine the course of the border . But it did not get to that.
The "Christmas War"
On the occasion of a nationwide census in Burkina Faso on December 14, 1985, some of the officers entrusted with it entered a settlement that the Malian government believed to be part of their territory. Therefore, Malian border guards took action against the census takers. Burkinabe soldiers came to the aid of the compatriots. The Malian President, General Moussa Traoré , called on his Burkinabe counterpart Thomas Sankara to withdraw his troops. It happened on December 20th. Nonetheless, Malian troops attacked on December 25, 1985. Thereupon the government of Burkina Faso ordered the general mobilization . Several skirmishes broke out along the border for six days, ending December 30, 1985. The number of victims is unknown; it is estimated at more than 100. Most of the dead were among the civilian population who died in the bombing or shelling of the Burkinabe places of Ouahigouya, Nassoumbo and Djibo on the one hand and the Malian town of Sikasso on the other.
armistice
On December 26 and 27, 1985, two attempts by the Libyan Minister for African Unity, Ali Abdel Salam al-Traiki, and the Organization for African Unity (OAU) to reach a ceasefire agreement failed . The West African defense pact Accord de non-agression et de défense (ANAD) made a third attempt, to which the states Senegal, Ivory Coast , Mauritania , Niger and Togo belonged as well as the two conflicting parties . This initiative finally succeeded on December 30, 1985.
Award of the International Court of Justice
Mali and Burkina Faso called together to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to stabilize the situation. On January 10, 1986, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling calling on both sides to voluntarily withdraw their troops. At an ANAD conference on January 17, 1986 in Yamoussoukro (Ivory Coast), the heads of state of Burkina Faso and Mali declared themselves ready to take their troops back to their respective starting positions. A commission made up of representatives from Libya, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and the OAU should monitor compliance with the agreements.
On December 22, 1986, the ICJ announced the verdict according to which Burkina Faso was awarded the southern part of the disputed border strip, the so-called "three rivers area", while Mali received the northern area around the "four villages". Both states accepted the judgment.
See also
literature
- Frank Pfetsch (Ed.): Conflicts since 1945 - Black Africa. Data - facts - background. Ploetz Verlag, Freiburg 1990, ISBN 978-3-87640-357-1 .
- Emmanuel Salliot: A review of past security events in the Sahel 1967 . OECD, Paris 2007; therein Chapter 5: Border dispute and the "Christmas war" between Mali and Burkina Faso 1985–86 , pp. 22–25.
- International Court of Justice: Affaire du différend frontalier (Burkina Faso / République du Mali). Accord, compromis, mémoire du Burkina Faso et annexes au mémoire . United Nations Publications, The Hague 2007, ISBN 978-92-1-070829-6 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Frank Pfetsch (Ed.): Conflicts since 1945 - Black Africa. Data - facts - background. Ploetz Verlag, Freiburg 1990
- ↑ Gustav Fochler-Hauke (Ed.): Der Fischer Weltalmanach 1987 . Frankfurt am Main 1986, p. 693.
- ↑ Revue génerale de droit international public , Vol. 79 (1975), p. 834.
- ↑ International Court of Justice: Affaire du différend frontalier (Burkina Faso / République du Mali) . The Hague 2007, p. 58.
- ^ Pierre Englebert: La révolution burkinabè . L'Harmattan, Paris 1986, ISBN 2-85802-756-0 , p. 194.
- ↑ a b c Emmanuel Salliot: A review of past security events in the Sahel 1967 . P. 22.
- ^ Arès , published by the Société pour le développement des études de défense et de sécurité international (SDEDSI), Lyon, vol. 8 (1986), p. 187.
- ↑ International Court of Justice: Case Concerning The Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso / Republic Of Mali). Judgment of 22 December 1986, Archived copy ( Memento of January 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive )