By Roger Annis
December 13, 2012–For the second time in less than a year, the governing regime in Mali has been overthrow by the country’s military. This time, the prime minister of the “transitional government” established following the first coup in March has been placed under house arrest. Below are three news articles describing the coup.
It is possible that the coup was prompted by discussions taking place in Burkina Faso with two of the Touareg national rights groups that toppled the Mali government’s neo-colonial rule over the north of the country in early 2012.
The coup is causing problems for the efforts of France, Germany and Mali’s neighbouring, neo-colonial regimes (grouped in the ECOWAS alliance) to mount a military intervention in the north of the country against the long-standing national rights struggle of the nomadic peoples there, the Touareg. That intervention is disguised as a war on “terrorists and Islamists” who have arguably occupied an important part of the political and military space in the region since the collapse of the Mali army’s interventionism in the north earlier this year.
The United States is reportedly less warm to the idea of a military intervention. There is evidence that it is seeking a Rwanda-type alliance with the Touareg groups.
Important sections of left and middle class opinion in Mali, France and elsewhere internationally back a war in the north. The hypocrisy of the war project is inadvertently described in a pro-war editorial that appears yesterday in the UK Guardian (full editorial below):
… the Malian army has upset the fragile democratic institutions upon which a successful intervention in the north depends. A military reoccupation of the north could only be the first chapter in such an intervention. It would have to be followed by an intensive civilian effort to repair the neglect of decades of misrule by independent governments, and by the colonial power, France, before then.
The “decades of misrule” by the former colonial power France and its neo-colonial successor is the last thing one sees in news coverage of events in Mali, including in Canada’s Globe and Mail where staff writer Geoffrey York’s selection of fact and expression of opinion is heightening the rush to war against the Touareg. As to The Guardian‘s call for an “intensive civilian effort” by foreign invaders to repair the damage and neglect of colonial and neo-colonial rule, can you say, “Afghanistan”?
Here are additional selections from the news articles enclosed further below:
On Monday (December 10), EU foreign ministers approved training for a mission involving Malian and other African troops.
In response to [Mali Interim Prime Minister] Diarra’s resignation (sic), Philippe Lalliot, a French foreign ministry spokesman, said: “These developments underline the need for the rapid deployment of an African stabilization force.” But the Bamako-based diplomat warned: “All the things we’ve talked about are on ice, at least. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens next.”
That view was echoed by the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle. “One thing is clear: our offers of help come with the condition that the process of restoring constitutional order in Mali be conducted credibly. And it is only that way that the crisis in northern Mali can be resolved. “Interim president [Dioncounda] Traoré and all the country’s political leaders must now act responsibly so that Mali returns to stability,” he said.
Talks with the Touareg representatives took place earlier this month, which may be a factor in the Dec. 11 coup. Here is an excerpt from a Dec 12, 2012 analysis published on Relief Web:
ECOWAS has been urging the UN Security Council to authorize an urgent military intervention to retake northern Mali from the Islamist Ansar Dine militia which controls swathes of territory alongside the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI).
The regional body has also opened talks with the some of the forces in the north. On 4 December, ECOWAS mediator and Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré led talks in Ouagadougou between Mali government representatives and those of Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a separatist Tuareg movement that initially captured key towns in northern Mali before being uprooted by Islamist forces.
While the UN and ECOWAS seem to disagree on the timing of a military intervention, the threat of force may have already helped in opening up talks with Ansar Dine and the MNLA, according to analysts who stress that diplomacy and force are mutually inclusive. “There isn’t a choice to be made between a military option to retake the north and a negotiated settlement,” said the International Crisis Group’s Yabi. “The crisis is complex and calls for a strategy that combines the different security, military and political aspects. What’s important is having a comprehensive strategy.”
The ECOWAS Council of Ministers on 1 December said it was “disturbed by the seeming lack of urgency” in deploying forces to Mali. The comments were in response to UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s report days earlier in which he said a military solution should be a “last resort” to deal with hardline extremists and criminals in the north and that negotiations should take precedence.
Compromise possible?
“It is possible to imagine an agreement over enhanced autonomy and development spending for the north that could satisfy the MNLA, which is the latest manifestation of a decades old pattern of Tuareg uprisings to support demand for better treatment of the north,” Chatham House’s Melly said. “Such a compromise could also have attractions for Ansar Dine’s leader Iyad Ag Ghaly, who has long been a major figure in northern Malian affairs.”
MUJAO and AQMI are not involved in the negotiations.
ECOWAS says it has 3,300 troops from regional countries it plans to deploy to Mali, but the UN has raised questions about how such a mission would be led, sustained, trained, equipped and financed. In his report, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that “if a military intervention in the north is not well conceived and executed, it could worsen an already extremely fragile humanitarian situation and also result in severe human rights abuses.”
At the start of December, 353,745 Malians still remained displaced due to the crisis and a severe drought that struck the Sahel region this year which forced them to flee to other regions of the country or to neighbouring states.
Mali PM resigns after being arrested by troops
By Baba Ahmed And Rukmini Callimache, Reuters, Globe and Mail, Dec. 11, 2012
Mali’s [interim] president [Dioncounda Traoré] has named a longtime public servant as the country’s new prime minister, hours after the position’s former occupant was arrested and forced to resign by the soldiers behind a spring coup. The presidential decree read on state television said Django Sissoko, the republic’s ombudsman and a former administrator of the presidential palace, is the new premier.
Ex-Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra, dressed in a dark suit and his forehead glistening with sweat, appeared on state television at 4 a.m. to announce his resignation, hours after soldiers stormed his house and forced him into their vehicle. “Our country is living through a period of crisis. Men and women who are worried about the future of our nation are hoping for peace,” he said on television. “It’s for this reason that I, Cheikh Modibo Diarra, am resigning along with my entire government on this day, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012. I apologize before the entire population of Mali.”
The prime minister’s ouster comes as the United Nations considers backing a military intervention in Mali, a once-stable country now in constant turmoil. The development raises questions about the viability of the operation, which would use the country’s military in an attempt to take back Mali’s north from Islamic extremists.
The 60-year-old Diarra is an astrophysicist who previously led NASA’s Mars exploration education program. He is now under house arrest, said a spokesman for the junta, Bakary Mariko. The government remains technically under the control of the interim president, but in a further sign of how confused the situation remains, the nation’s constitutional leader has not made a statement since the premier’s forced resignation.
The shake-up in Bamako is already looking like it may endanger plans for the military intervention. The African Union is proposing sending several thousand African troops to help the Malian military take back the north, which fell to al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in the chaos that followed the March 21 coup.
The military’s constant meddling in state affairs has concerned the international community. And many worry that supporting the operation will simply further arm and embolden the very officers responsible for Mali’s current state. The junta leaders have already been implicated in atrocities including the sexual torture of their opponents.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned Tuesday that Mr. Diarra’s forced resignation makes Western countries wary of getting involved in a military incursion – even one which officials have insisted will not include Western troops. “One thing is clear: Our offers of help come with the condition that the process of restoring constitutional order in Mali be conducted credibly,” Mr. Westerwelle said.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called Mr. Diarra’s arrest a setback for Mali’s efforts to reinstate constitutional rule. “We need Sanogo and his brothers-in-arms to stay out of politics,” Ms. Nuland told reporters, referring to coup leader Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo.
Already the United States and France are at odds on the best way forward. France’s diplomats at the UN are pushing for a quick intervention in order to expel the extremists, while the U.S. is arguing for a more gradual approach, starting with negotiations.
The now-ousted prime minister was arrested late Monday by the military at his home, forced into a car and driven to the Kati military camp, the sprawling base where the March 21 coup was launched. Two security officials, including a police officer and an intelligence agent, confirmed that Capt. Sanogo had ordered the prime minister’s arrest. At the moment of his arrest, the aging leader was getting ready to leave for the airport for a medical trip to Paris, said the police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. “The plane that was to take the prime minister to France was on the point of departure,” said the policeman, who was on duty at the airport. “It was stopped by people from the Yerewoloton group who invaded the airport,” he said.
Yerewoloton is a group of civilians believed to be backed by Capt. Sanogo who have carried out violent actions on the military’s behalf. This same group in May invaded the presidential palace, as soldiers looked on, and beat the country’s interim president Dioncounda Traore, until he lost consciousness. That incident increased international pressure on Mali’s junta. Capt. Sanogo signed a lengthy accord agreeing to step down and retreated from public life. But even so, the signs have long suggested that the military still calls the shots in Bamako.
Junta spokesman Bakary Mariko acknowledged that soldiers allied with Capt. Sanogo detained the prime minister and have him under house arrest. Mr. Mariko said Mr. Diarra was “not getting along” with either the interim president or Capt. Sanogo. “He says he’s going to Paris for medical tests … but we know better and realize that he is trying to flee in order to go and create a blockage in the Mali situation ….It’s the reason why Mali’s army has taken things into their own hands and told Cheikh Modibo Diarra to resign for the good of Mali,” Mr. Mariko said.
Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher for West Africa, Corinne Dufka, condemned the military’s intervention, saying it fits with the pattern of abuse by the soldiers ever since the coup eight months ago. “They’ve arrested, beaten and intimidated journalists; tortured and disappeared military rivals; and now, apparently, arbitrarily detained the prime minister. None of these incidents have been investigated and those responsible appear to have been emboldened by the shameful lack of accountability,” Ms. Dufka said.
Mr. Diarra was initially seen as in-step with Capt. Sanogo. Critics lambasted him for frequently driving to the Kati barracks to see the coup leader, long after Capt. Sanogo was supposed to have handed power to civilians. In recent weeks though, Mr. Diarra has taken stances that sometimes conflict with Capt. Sanogo.
Bamako remained calm on Tuesday, despite waking up to what is being called a “mini-coup.” People went about their daily lives, but with a sense of deep disappointment in this nation, which was once held up as a model democracy in Africa. “I really am struggling to understand – so if the prime minister is not doing his job properly, it’s up to the junta to come and arrest him?” said Aboubacrine Assadek Ag Hamahady, a university professor. “Based on what law, on what legal text can the junta justify this arrest?”
Mali names new PM after predecessor was placed under house arrest
International community condemns move by leaders of March coup and urges them to return Mali to constitutional order
Associated Press in Bamako, published by The Guardian, Dec. 12, 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/12/mali-pm-house-arrest?INTCMP=SRCH
Mali’s interim president [Dioncounda Traoré] has named a replacement prime minister less than a day after his predecessor was forced out and put under house arrest, provoking international condemnation.
The arrest has deepened concerns about Mali’s stability at a time when the international community was considering backing a military intervention, including Malian soldiers, to claim the country’s north from the hands of radical Islamists. The president of neighbouring Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaore, who has served as a mediator, said on Wednesday that the latest developments threatened to worsen the Malian crisis.
Longtime civil servant Diango Cissoko was chosen late Tuesday as the new prime minister in Mali’s transitional government, first set up after the military coup in March.
The military ousting of his predecessor Cheikh Modibo Diarra has prompted fierce criticism from the UN, US and African Union, among others. The president of the AU commission strongly condemned recent events in Mali and called for the “complete subordination of the army and security forces to civilian rule.” German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle also warned that the forced resignation made western countries wary of getting involved in a military incursion in the north. “One thing is clear: our offers of help come with the condition that the process of restoring constitutional order in Mali be conducted credibly,” he said.
The latest developments have also raised concerns among ordinary Malians. Maouloud Daou, who lives in Hombori, a city under the control of radical Islamists, said: “We don’t really understand the reaction of Captain Sanogo [the coup leader]. Instead of creating an atmosphere of understanding between politicians in Bamako to resolve our problem in the north, Sanogo still continues to create trouble in Bamako.”
Cissoko, 62, held a number of positions under the administration of longtime president Amadou Toumani Touré, who was overthrown by mutinous soldiers in March. Coup leader Sanogo never relinquished control despite pledges to do so, and on Monday forces loyal to him arrested Diarra at his home.
Junta spokesman Bakary Mariko acknowledged that soldiers allied with the coup leader had detained the previous prime minister and had him under house arrest. Mariko said Diarra was “not getting along” with either the interim president or Sanogo. Two security officials, including a police officer and an intelligence agent, confirmed that Sanogo had ordered the prime minister’s arrest.
On state television on Tuesday, Sanogo accused Diarra of pursuing his personal ambitions rather than the good of the country. “We didn’t force him. We facilitated [his resignation]. A few weeks ago, he himself told us that if we really wanted him to leave, that he would hand in [his resignation] but not to the president of the republic, nor to any other authority – only to us,” said Sanogo. “Yesterday we realized that it was really necessary for him to resign. And it’s for this reason that we brought him to Kati.”
Diarra was initially seen as being in-step with Sanogo. Critics lambasted him for frequently driving to the Kati barracks to see the coup leader, long after Sanogo was supposed to have handed power to civilians. In recent weeks though, Diarra has taken stances that sometimes conflicted with Sanogo. Cissoko won favour with Sanogo by giving him equal standing with the interim president and prime minister during mediation efforts to resolve Mali’s political crisis.
The military’s meddling in state affairs has concerned the international community. Many worry that supporting the operation will simply further arm and embolden the very officers responsible for Mali’s current state. US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called Diarra’s arrest a setback for Mali. “We need Sanogo and his brothers-in-arms to stay out of politics,” she told reporters.
The UN security council threatened to impose sanctions against those blocking a return to constitutional order in Mali and called on the armed forces to stop interfering in state affairs.
Mali prime minister resigns amid ‘period of crisis’
UN-backed plan to combat Islamist insurgents put on hold as Cheikh Modibo Diarra quits following arrest by military junta
By David Smith, Africa Correspondent, The Guardian, Dec 11, 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/11/mali-prime-minister-apology-resignation?INTCMP=SRCH
Wearing a dark suit and sweating before the cameras, Mali’s prime minister, Cheikh Modibo Diarra, announced his resignation on Tuesday in a live 4am broadcast on state television, admitting: “Our country is living through a period of crisis.” The 60-year-old former astrophysicist, who worked for Nasa and Microsoft, had been arrested hours earlier and forced to quit by the country’s military junta.
France called for a new government to be formed quickly and said the turn of events enhanced the case for foreign military intervention. But observers warned that plans for a UN-backed force to combat Islamist insurgents in northern Mali were now “on ice”.
Diarra was preparing to leave for France when soldiers reportedly smashed down the door of his home, bundled him into a car and drove to the Kati military camp, a sprawling base where a coup was launched on 21 March.
Hours later, a bare wall behind him, he addressed the nation (video) with an apology. “Our country is living through a period of crisis,” he said. “Men and women who are worried about the future of our nation are hoping for peace. It’s for this reason that I, Cheikh Modibo Diarra, am resigning along with my entire government on this day, Tuesday, 11 December 2012. I apologise before the entire population of Mali.”
For several weeks tension has been mounting between the officers who led the coup and Diarra, the civilian prime minister whom they were forced to appoint when they handed power back to a transitional government. Bakary Mariko, a spokesman for the junta, said Diarra was forced out because he was “not getting along” with the interim president or coup leader captain Amadou Haya Sanogo. “It’s the reason why Mali’s army has taken things into their own hands and told Cheikh Modibo Diarra to resign for the good of Mali,” Mariko told the Associated Press.
He added: “For several days now, Cheikh Modibo Diarra has mobilised his supporters and boycotted the national conference [currently being held to discuss Mali’s future]. And now he says he’s going to Paris for medical tests … but we know better and realise that he is trying to flee in order to go and create a blockage in the Mali situation.”
In a separate interview with Reuters, Mariko said: “The country is in crisis but he was blocking the institutions. This is not a coup. The president is still in place but the prime minister was no longer working in the interests of the country.”
A foreign diplomat, who did not wish to be named, said Diarra’s claim that he was going to Paris for medical tests rang true. “Enough people have told me he was genuinely ill.”
Diarra remained under house arrest and military guard on Tuesday. The Mali capital, Bamako, appeared calm but the humiliating exit illustrated how the junta still calls the shots, even though the soldiers made a show in April of handing power back to civilians.
Last weekend Diarra helped organise a demonstration calling for a UN-backed military intervention in north Mali, which fell to Islamist militants in the wake of the coup and provides a haven for al-Qaida affiliates. On Monday (December 10), EU foreign ministers approved training for a mission involving Malian and other African troops.
In response to Diarra’s resignation, Philippe Lalliot, a French foreign ministry spokesman, said: “These developments underline the need for the rapid deployment of an African stabilisation force.” But the Bamako-based diplomat warned: “All the things we’ve talked about are on ice, at least. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens next.”
That view was echoed by the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle. “One thing is clear: our offers of help come with the condition that the process of restoring constitutional order in Mali be conducted credibly. And it is only that way that the crisis in northern Mali can be resolved. “Interim president [Dioncounda] Traoré and all the country’s political leaders must now act responsibly so that Mali returns to stability,” he said.
But there are doubts over whether Traoré can assert his authority. In May, Yerewoloton, a violent citizens’ movement believed to be backed by the junta, broke through the security cordon at the presidential palace and severely beat the 70-year-old.
A police officer who was on duty Monday night at Bamako’s international airport said the same group stormed the airport before the prime minister was to fly to Paris. “The plane that was to take the prime minister to France was on the point of departure,” he told AP. “It was stopped by people from the group Yerewoloton who invaded the airport. The people from Yerewoloton are still at the airport as we speak, searching cars.”
The developments did not surprise analysts such as Gilles Yabi, west Africa project director of the International Crisis Group. “There was clearly a lot of tension between the prime minister and the junta,” he said. “It was difficult to believe it could work for a long period; the situation wasn’t stable and anything could happen.”
A concerted effort to reclaim the north seems a distant prospect. “Even before this we were still very far from seeing a resolution in the north,” Yabi added. “This is delaying the process again. If we don’t have a real government in Bamako with a vision for the nation, you can’t expect the international community to make the commitment.”
Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher for west Africa, Corinne Dufka, condemned the military’s intervention, saying it fits with the pattern of abuse by the soldiers ever since the coup eight months ago. “They’ve arrested, beaten and intimidated journalists; tortured and disappeared military rivals; and now, apparently, arbitrarily detained the prime minister. None of these incidents have been investigated and those responsible appear to have been emboldened by the shameful lack of accountability.”
The US warned on Monday that Mali is “one of the potentially most explosive corners of the world”.
West Africa: a crisis compounded
Editorial, The Guardian, Dec. 12, 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/11/west-africa-crisis-compounded-editorial?INTCMP=SRCH
West Africa’s two futures flick on and off like contrasting slides in an old-style lantern show. On the one hand it is a rapidly urbanising region with many resources, it is in the process of acquiring better infrastructure, and it has in Nigeria a big power capable of underpinning its stability.
Politically, the process of renewal in Liberia and Sierra Leone and the recent peaceful transfer of the presidency in Ghana are all examples of encouraging developments. On the other hand, there is huge unemployment in the cities of the southern part of the region and dangerous dislocation and alienation in the long neglected Sahel belt in the north.
Above all there is Mali, which has lost control of the northern part of the country to Islamists and other dissidents, and, to make matters worse, has now lost what government it had been able to maintain in the south. Tuesday’s arrest and resignation of Mali’s prime minister, Cheikh Modibo Diarra, is yet to be fully explained, but it is certainly an indication of how flimsy the country’s political arrangements are. Mr Diarra seems to have been thrown out by the young army officers who staged a coup in March and ostensibly handed over to a civilian administration a few weeks later, but in fact kept their hands on the levers of power. Quite how they justify now having any role at all is unclear, since they have signally failed to discharge any army’s first duty, which is to defend the national territory.
The Malian officer corps had a reasonable argument when it said that this was because successive civilian governments, fearful of coups, had starved the army of resources. But the way to resolve that was to wait for neighbouring states and outside powers to provide the help with training, equipment, and logistics that they have all said in principle they are ready to provide.
Instead the Malian army has upset the fragile democratic institutions upon which a successful intervention in the north depends. A military reoccupation of the north could only be the first chapter in such an intervention. It would have to be followed by an intensive civilian effort to repair the neglect of decades of misrule by independent governments, and by the colonial power, France, before then.
The last few months have seen a stuttering process of consensus-building between regional states, the Mali government, outside powers like the United States and France, and the UN, about intervention in Mali. It has been hampered by differences over how to constitute a force, how to pay for it, and how to guarantee the necessary civilian follow-through. But there were indications that we were getting to the point where there could be a credible intervention. The Malian officers have now put that still tentative prospect in doubt.
