Estonian special forces soldiers infecting Malians with confidence

Estonian special forces in Mali. Photo: Prantsuse kaitsejõud

While Malian soldiers are skillful, they lack confidence. They have been delivered a series of defeats and their base has been overrun or taken away from them put simply.

That is the message of two special forces soldiers who served in the Takuba Task Force as part of the first Estonian rotation. They cannot be photographed and begin by saying that they will not be talking about themselves before offering up typical Estonian first names Andres and Indrek.

Mali has around 20 million inhabitants from more than ten nations. Andres says that the Malian unit that served with the Estonians was also ethnically diverse. He describes it as surprising that even though they had been told there are racial tensions between the Tuaregs and Arabians and the Bambara, Fula and other black Malian groups, the Estonian soldiers did not see it.

“I do not know whether the Malian army (FaMa) leadership was able to manage that risk somehow or whether we just got lucky,” Andres reasons.

Indrek recalls that before the Jihadists entered play, Mali had an ethnic conflict where the Arabians and Tuaregs wanted their own country. His guess is that the sides have been brought together by having a common enemy.

“I never saw racial discrimination in the group we worked with,” he said. “There were people of different ethnic groups working toward a common goal.”

Because black FaMa soldiers are usually from the south of the country, they were in essence mission soldiers just like the Estonians, Andres says. “If we are 5,000 kilometers from home, theirs lies 1,000 kilometers away.”

“It is quite difficult for them. Even if they are granted leave, the time they are given is usually not enough to travel back and forth. They spend a lot of time away from home,” Andres says.

The role of Estonian special forces soldiers in Mali is to instruct and support the local armed forces in cooperation with French colleagues. However, unlike instructors serving in the EUTM training mission near the capital Bamako, they no longer oversee basic training.

“It is like a test with open answers,” Indrek describes. “We can go over certain things when we get back from assignments. Whether particular skills when you see that something is lacking or more generally the ability to solve situations.”

Everything on paper at first

Ethnical diversity also meant that FaMa soldiers could run into trouble talking to their fellow countrymen. “The head of our local partner unit was forced to find translators from time to time to be able to talk to the locals,” Andres says.

He gives the example of a Tuareg commander who while able to speak French and English in addition to his own native tongue had to find a subordinate who speaks Fulani when in that area.

“It is the same for us that if you have someone who is from Põlva accompanying someone not from Põlva, the locals will automatically talk to the one who is from there. It was the same in Mali. Whoever knew the area better did the talking.

Andres has previously served in Afghanistan and says that Mali has greater diversity of ethnicity and lifestyles.

Asked about how local civilians see soldiers, Andres says that Islamist groups are active in parts where FaMa has not been seen for a while.

“They always come back, much more frequently and terrorize local residents. One never knows when the army man will be back to restore order. People live under Islamic terror. This means that locals can be afraid to tell the army about the situation in fear of retaliation in the form of something burnt down, a family member kidnapped etc.,” Andres says.

When asked for an example, he recalls operation Bourrasque from last fall. One of two major villages the soldiers visited was completely empty. There were dozens of uninhabited clay huts, while the area only had a few travelling herdsmen who lived in their leather tents.

“It came as a surprise to us that the village was uninhabited. The people had been driven away. It is likely they refused to cooperate with terrorists,” Andres recalls.

Indrek says that he felt the locals were rather positively inclined toward soldiers. “Mali is almost the size of half of Europe. The authority in Bamako does not reach certain regions and soldiers are not seen often. The greater people’s surprise when they do turn up,” he says.

“This positive attitude could have very practical reasons. Barkhane, EUTM and [United Nations] MINUSMA units are major employers. The people are intelligent in Mali,” Indrek remarks. “They may not be able to explain the latest developments in computer science, but they are proud and smart people.”

The media in the Czech Republic has been speculating over what their special forces soldiers will be doing as part of Takuba for a few months now, while the press in Italy and Sweden has been preoccupied with the same question for a few weeks. There are also rumors of other countries’ – from Greece to Portugal and from Denmark to Ukraine – future participation.

When the first Estonian special forces rotation arrived in Mali last summer, they only found French and Estonians Scouts Battalion troops waiting for them. They were expected to lay the foundation of the Takuba Task Force together with the French who are in charge of Barkhane.

“Absolutely everything only existed on paper when we got there. There were no living quarters, work areas. Infrastructure was straight out missing. The base was still being built half the time we spent there. Some things were finished by the time our rotation ended,” Andres says. “We were the ones who established contact with Malians. We assessed their general level to determine which activities would follow. The unit was just being formed when we arrived.”

The situation was made more complicated by the global coronavirus crisis that really broke out when Estonian and French troops were supposed to be practicing for the mission in Europe.

“We spent several weeks training with the Americans in a camp in Germany before shipping out to Afghanistan,” Andres recalls. Prior contact only took place on the level of command before Africa.

“The understanding of what needs to be done is generally shared. To be the best together, you need to know what Mart, Jüri and Pierre are doing at the same time. Training together before the mission is tradition. Covid meant we had to take care of that on location in Mali,” Indrek says.

He adds that they could rely on credit the Estonian Scouts Battalion earned participating in Barkhane before the special forces soldiers arrived. Indrek points to an incident from July of 2019 where insurgents attacked a base in Gao with a car packed with explosives. Estonian soldiers charged with the defense of the base at the time managed to prevent the worst and made sure only the attackers themselves were killed.

“It probably made things a lot easier for us that our brothers from the Scouts were in charge of the prep work and our reputation,” Indrek says.

Both special forces members say that the French were easy to talk to. “I had no prior experience working with them. Even though we are all part of NATO, every force does things a little differently. If they can explain why, it adds to the general understanding,” Indrek says.

“What I learned from their attitude is that you cannot outrun your future anyway. They seemed relatively carefree. Stress is useless,” Andres says.

“We communicated as equals,” Indrek adds.

“I think that one aspect of that was having to speak English,” Andres remarks. They tried to make us speak French, while we had them speaking English instead. They were afraid to at first but turned out to be rather good at it.”

Asked whether they also learned something from the Malians they were training, Indrek says they did. “They can give you first-hand information on how things are done in a given area or what one should keep in mind culturally. How to notice things that do not fit in with the general picture,” he says. “The details they provided are necessary in our line of work. They did their part very well as far as I had the honor of working with Malian troops,” Indrek says.

Head of the Estonian unit Andres says that the African heat was not too much of a problem. “You simply need to take some time to adjust at first. Special forces members want to be exercising all the time, while one really needs to rein it in at first to avoid exhausting oneself because the heat is imperceptible.”

Indigestion and bugs

Andres points out that the Jackals they drove in Mali are open-top, while the temperature peaks at around 50 degrees in the shade. “There are closed vehicles that have air conditioning and are very nice places to be in hot weather. We had such vehicles supplied by the Americans in Afghanistan,” he says.

“Even though it is hotter in Mali than it is in Afghanistan, open-top vehicles give us a much better overview of what is going on,” he adds. “Talking to FaMa – when you are sitting inside a metal cage behind very thick glass – it does not create a trusting atmosphere or allow you to get a good feel for your surroundings. Also, when it comes to talking to the locals, driving through a village. It is hot [in the open-top vehicles] but if you can fashion a makeshift shade for yourself, you’re fine.”

“If the Malians need a little spark, support and confidence, being open so to speak, which is what we did, can definitely inject them with some trust,” Indrek agrees.

Andres adds just in case: “Which is not to say we are going around in very light vehicles. The Jackal is no worse when you drive over an explosive device. It offers good protection from below. It is simply that its top part is lighter, is not a metal bunker.

One of the things the Estonians were warned against was indigestion. “The medics even told us that indigestion is not a question of if but rather when and how many,” Andres recalls. “Surprisingly, it was seldom a problem for us, affecting 30 percent of the men if that.”

Insects were a problem, however. “They went from bad to worse,” Indrek comments.

“Some just look nasty and they’re everywhere if you go to the toilet, falling on your head, in the toilet and all around you. But these do not bite or harm you in any way,” Andres continues and proceeds to describe a black beetle resembling an earwig that squirts acids when squashed that causes blisters as particularly irksome.

“There was a month when we had swarms of them of which a week or two were really bad. Imagine having one of those things crawl in somewhere when you are wearing your flak jacket,” Andres describes. Perhaps we were not hit as bad by them, but friends over in the Scouts guarding the base in Gao took quite a bit of damage because they are on guard duty also at night and the light attracts these things.”

The special forces were able to hand over a mission in full swing to the second Estonian rotation that arrived late last year. “When the rotation came, the part of Gao where we are was finished. The new shift could take over a full set – in terms of what we have here, how we do things, the nature of our Malian partner and what they are capable of,” Andres says in summary.

Indrek adds that a parallel mission is taking place at home. “A soldier can only be effective far away if things are well at home. I would like to thank our mission soldiers at home, our spouses and relatives. It is not easy, while it’s just as important.”