You make some very interesting points. I do indeed believe that NATO bears a large responsibility for this situation. You can read on my personal (nothing to do with Oxfam) blog my analysis of that: http://natomonitor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/daalder-stavridis-should-consider.html.

We concentrate here on Mali because that is where the security situation is worst. But AQIM are very active in Mauretania, and there is evidence of Libyan weapons deepening existing crises in Niger, Chad and the Sudans.

The food crisis is the result largely of the weather, but the increased conflict levels in the Sahel have made it much harder to deal with that situation – creating refugee flows that would not have existed otherwise; cutting off access to certain areas – generally making a bad situation worse. Thanks for your thoughts, Martin

I don’t agree with this point of view: “It is likely that, had an ATT been in place in the past twenty years, Libya would have been unable to build up the excessive stocks of arms that are now fuelling conflict in the Sahel.” NO.

The arms fuelling conflict in the Sahel from Libya, would never have been this available if NATO spurred by France and the UK had not decided to bomb Khadaffi out of power without thinking properly about the nature in which that state was built.

There is not state in Libya. Just puppets who have no control on whatever arsenal any state would legitimately acquire. Now, that is having an impact elsewhere. Let’s not run away from the truth. Would these Tuaregs have left Libya with such arsenal as described if the Libyan state was still functional?

As to the hunger in the Sahel, please…drought in a part of the world that depends almost entirely on rain-fed agriculture, in addition to insect infestations and a lack of resilience mechanisms are the main reasons for the food shortages. Those are the reasons, even Oxfam gave for the food crisis, well before war broke out in Mali.

Isn’t it stretching things to far to try to make a direct link between food crisis in all of the Sahel with the conflict in Mali in order to argue for the ATT?

Admittedly, there are some links. Food aid access to Mali’s north is tough due to the conflict, the refugees and internally displaced persons are piling pressure on the meagre food resources of the host areas which are already in the throes of the food crisis and, of course, the conflict in Libya sent lots of people packing out meaning an end to remittances that have often been of assistance to people in the Sahel during food problems (would this have happened without NATO/western backed destruction of the Libyan state?)

But, food and malnutrition troubles in Chad, northern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia were not the result of Tuaregs running around with weapons from Libya’s armouries