West African Leaders Hold Talks on Mali Military Coup
West African Leaders to Meet on Mali Coup as Condemnation Grows
(Bloomberg) -- West African leaders met Thursday to discuss the military coup that toppled Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, as international condemnation of the military takeover grows.
The Economic Community of West African States is trying to help resolve the crisis following earlier attempts to mediate between Keita’s government and a popular protest movement demanding his resignation. Further instability in Mali could be exploited by Islamist insurgents in the north that have staged increasingly violent attacks in the region despite the presence of a 15,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force.
“We have before us a serious situation that could destabilize security, not only in Mali, but in the entire region,” Niger’s President Mahamdou Issoufou said at the start of the Ecowas talks.
While the regional bloc has activated its standby force, it’s unlikely to intervene militarily as it did in 2017 to end a political crisis in Gambia, said Paul Ejime, an Abuja-based consultant to Ecowas on peace and security.
“The options open to it are dialog, consultation,” he said. “Deploying troops would require huge financial resources. With the pandemic, it will be difficult to assemble troops and Ecowas is already stretched with missions in Guinea Bissau and Gambia.”
Keita, 75, dissolved his government and resigned late Tuesday under pressure from soldiers who detained him hours after staging a mutiny at an army barracks on the outskirts of the capital. The junta, known as the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, has pledged to help form a transitional administration that will prepare new elections.
Army Colonel Assimi Goita, who on Wednesday presented himself as the junta’s leader, previously headed a special military unit based in central Mali, and has participated in U.S-led military exercises.
Keita assumed office in 2013 after winning an election on pledges to restore state authority nationwide, 16 months after a coup that ousted his predecessor, Amadou Toumani Toure.
The UN Security Council added to the chorus of international criticism of the army takeover, which was condemned by the U.S., France and the European Union, among others. Ivory Coast and Niger both closed borders with Mali and halted banking transactions and suspended accounts in line with restrictive measures announced by Ecowas on Aug. 18.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current chairman of the African Union, urged an “immediate return to civilian rule” and demanded the military release Keita and other government officials, including Prime Minister Boubou Cisse, who are still held at the barracks.
It’s not clear to what extent the junta has ties to the M5-RFP protest movement, an alliance of activists and opposition politicians supported by the conservative, Saudi-trained preacher Mahmoud Dicko that has called for Keita’s resignation.
Dicko said on hit Facebook page on Wednesday that he was taking a step back from the opposition movement. Calls to his phone didn’t connect when Bloomberg tried to reach him for comment.
The situation in Mali is reminiscent of the 2012 coup, which was staged from the same barracks where Tuesday’s mutiny started and organized by junior officers angry about the lack of resources needed to fight Tuareg separatists. The subsequent power vacuum was exploited by al-Qaeda-linked Islamist groups who seized control of the north.
A French military intervention pushed back the militants, but some groups later returned and expanded to carry out attacks on civilians and peacekeepers. The insurgency has since spread across the region to countries including Niger and Burkina Faso.
“A prolonged political crisis almost certainly will worsen security conditions in Mali, and it may hasten the conflict’s expansion,” said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.