Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger signed the so-called Liptako-Gourma charter on September 12, 2023, with a view to creating an Alliance of Sahel States (AES). This charter aims to protect against any attack, including terrorist attacks or those orchestrated by third countries. The charter states in its article 2 that its objective is to establish an architecture of collective defense and assistance between signatory countries.
Article 4 of the said charter provides that “the contracting parties undertake to fight against terrorism in all its forms, and organized crime in the common area of the Alliance”. Article 5, for its part, gives the quintessence of this agreement. It specifies that: “the contracting parties also work to prevent, manage and resolve any armed rebellion or other threat affecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of each of the member countries of the Alliance, by favoring peaceful and diplomatic means and, if necessary, to use force to deal with situations of disruption of peace and stability. »
The solidarity which constitutes the basis of the charter, emerges from article 6 which specifies "any attack on the sovereignty and integrity of the territory of one or more contracting parties will be considered as an aggression against the other parties and will initiate a duty of assistance and relief of all parties, individually or collectively, including the use of armed force to restore and ensure security within the area covered by the Alliance.
Article 7, for its part, gives almost universal jurisdiction to the charter. It explains Article 6 in these terms: “aggression as referred to in Article 6 also includes any attack against the defense and security forces of one or more Contracting Parties, including when they they are deployed in a national capacity in a theater of operation outside the Alliance area; any attack and in any place against the ships or aircraft of one or more parties.
It should be noted that this Charter seals a political agreement, the implementation of which at the operational level was dictated by threats of all kinds orchestrated by powers external to the continent, aimed at imposing diktats on the military authorities in power in Niger. . Under the growing threat of a proxy war that ECOWAS intended to wage, the authorities of Niger and Burkina Faso had deployed military aircraft at Niamey airport as a preventive measure, to deter any air attack.
This means that the trio of Sahel countries, namely Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, now constitutes a triumvirate, which intends to be respected, including on a military level, in the concert of nations.
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