Day 14 - Office is still closed. We are waiting for an answer today and have been assured that we should be back in our offices sometime today. It is still 10 a.m., so still hopeful.
Read the news today about the French hostages in neighboring Mali and Niger and the failed rescue attempt that again resulted in the hostages being killed. The culprits call themselves "Al Qaeda in the Maghreb" or AQMI as it is known in its French acronym. The group is an off-shoot of the very poorly managed conflict in Algeria that resulted in generating more and more economically and politically disenfranchised youth who turned to Islam as a vehicle for political justice. That is the very summarized version. I am no expert on Algeria's political history. Only really started paying attention during the elections in the early 1990s when the candidates for the Islamic Salvation Front were denied the right to participate in the second round of elections, after they had done exceedingly well and stood a good chance of winning power. The country spiraled into unrest and Islamic fundamentalism really took hold in many areas outside the capital. The violence, oppression, and suppression lasted a decade and took its toll on Algerian society and eventually on the surrounding nations in north Africa especially.
Two days after I arrived in Senegal, I read an article in which the President of Senegal was threatened for having helped facilitate the arrest of AQMI members. AQMI claims to be developing ties and strength in Senegal but thus far the U.S. Embassy has not issued any warnings about potential abductions or terrorist threats. The matter has more or less been brushed aside as a situation that could not affect us here in Senegal.
But the longer-term impact of poorly planned or short-sighted political and military solutions to conflicts is a phenomenon that the United States has been grappling with in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also a widespread problem in many parts of Asia, Latin America, and, yes, Africa too. The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is linked to the yet unresolved conflict in Rwanda. The war in Casamance was able to gain some momentum from the wars in neighboring Guinea Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Each time you leave disgruntled groups outside of some acceptable arrangement, you leave room for greater unrest elsewhere. Sweeping the unresolved problems under the rug amounts basically to dumping your problems into someone else's backyard to fester and develop into full blown violent conflicts of another kind altogether with no one to take ownership for them.
This is yet another reality that I find myself grappling with as I seek a possible path forward. I am finding it hard to swallow the prospect that I may have to accept a majority of the willing participants to some form of negotiated agreement and allow the resistant outliers to be somebody else's problem further down the line. Not an option where I stand now. Let's see how principled I remain as this work develops and difficult decisions have to be made.
Today is Michael's birthday. A very wise old soul who believes in the human spirit, the power of prayer, and the grace of God in all matters large and small. I am proud to call him my brother. Have a good one bro.
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