The Dozo and the Fulani

                                                                             
On Saturday 23rd of June 32 Fulani herdsmen were assassinated in the village of Koumaga in the Circle of Djenne according to Reuters. The Malian government gives the figure as 16. 'Murdered in cold blood' writes Malijet. It appears they were attacked by the Dozo, the traditional hunters.

This is an escalation of a new situation that I reported in this  blog on March 29th - Stuck in Sevare.
This serious  incident is reported as tribal feuding because of ancient gripes concerning rights of grazing and cultivation. This is not entirely the truth of the matter: It goes deeper than that.
The Malian state presence is virtually nil in Central Mali which has led to a  break down in law and order. The Dozo have taken up their antiquated weapons in an attempt to protect their village populations from the attacks by those Fulani that adhere to the Macina group- which now goes under the name of  JNIM since March 2017 it when it  merged with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar Dine and al-Mourabitoun . The Malian government is now accused of encouraging the Dozo,  and indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians are taking place- on both side of the conflict.
The BBC described Saturday's attack as follows:  'The hunters, known locally as "Dozo", surrounded the village in the Mopti region and separated members of the Fula ethnic group from the other villagers before killing them.'
These Dozo hunters have normally served more of a ceremonial purpose in the villages during peaceful times, but in the current climate of increasing insecurity they have taken it upon themselves to act as a vigilante militia.

There is no doubt that this crisis is escalating in central Mali. But it may be worth looking at  northern Nigeria, : An article from July 16th 2016 throws light on a similar  feud  multiplying in a frightening manner at  the approximate time of the rise of the 'Front de Liberation de Macina.' in Central Mali:
http://venturesafrica.com/understanding-the-fulani-herdsmen-crisis-in-nigeria-what-you-need-to-know/

 'Before now, the herdsmen have been known to wreak havoc in certain communities in Nigeria, but now, the rate at which they commit these crimes has increased exponentially. According to statistics provided by the Institute for Economics and Peace, 1,229 people were killed in 2014, up from 63 in 2013 and Benue State seems to be the hardest hit in recent times.'
The article goes on to ask:
'Are Boko Haram members mistaken for the Fulani herdsmen?'
 Interestingly, the Macina Group have been called 'Mali's Boko Haram'. The Nigerian article goes on to report that

 'in the heat of the herdsmen crisis, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, advised Nigerians to stop attributing ethnicity and religion to the Fulani Herdsmen crisis, citing that such actions are not peculiar to the Fulanis.'

It is a little disingenuous of the  Sultan of Sokoto to is pretend  that these clashes have nothing to do with ethnicity. In doing so he is disregarding  a crucial ingredient in this scenario, specific to West Africa:
The Sultan of Sokoto  is traditionally a Fulani, and the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria was founded at the jihad of the Fulani War in 1809 by Usman dan Fodio. This was one of the first in the wave of  jihads that swept across west Africa in the nineteenth century with the dual purpose of purifying Islam and gaining political power.  The most important manifestation of this surge of Fulani power and influence in Mali was  Sekou Amadou's Fulani Empire of Macina: from its conquest of Djenne in 1819  to its demise by Scheik Oumar Tall, the crusading founder of another theocratic empire in 1862.
The rise of the Macina Liberation Front in Central Mali was directly inspired by the nineteenth century Fulani empires.  Whether the terrifying escalation of the Fulani attacks in northern Nigeria has anything to do with a harking back to the glory days of the Sokoto Caliphate is not proved but worth more than a fleeting thought. 
Maybe the time has come to stop  describing these phenomenons just as  as inter tribal clashes for grazing lands? Do we need to look at how the past influences the present in this particular instance?