The International Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict.
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"Mali has descended into a serious and difficult political situation… .Nothing would be worse for the country and the entire sub-region than to replace efforts to make an informed analysis with a uniform approach of anti-terrorist repression that ignores the nuances and the often legitimate political demands of Malian political actors in the north and south."
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Crisis Group’s latest report on Mali, recently translated into English.
Gilles Yabi on The Interview : Mali Crisis: Is there a way out? | FRANCE 24
Armen Georgian meets Gilles Yabi, the West Africa Project director of the International Crisis Group, to discuss about the deteriorating situation in Mali. The Islamists have chased the Tuareg out of key towns, imposed sharia law, and last week destroyed ancient Muslim shrines they deemed un-Islamic in the UN world heritage-listed desert city of Timbuktu.
The Interview | France 24
Armen Georgian meets Gilles Yabi, the West Africa Project director of the International Crisis Group, to discuss about the deteriorating situation in Mali. The Islamists have chased the Tuareg out of key towns, imposed sharia law, and last week destroyed ancient Muslim shrines they deemed un-Islamic in the UN world heritage-listed desert city of Timbuktu.
Analysis: Intervention options in northern Mali | IRIN
The African Union (AU) and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) have been taking a dual-track approach in Mali in recent weeks - diplomatic negotiations with the rebels and Islamist groups who have taken over the north, while calling on the UN Security Council to draft a resolution and approve a military mission. Analysts question whether either option is likely to work, and if so, which?
“Using force is not the first option. The first option remains to get results through negotiations with the ones with legitimate demands,” ECOWAS Commission President Kadré Désiré Ouédrogo said last week.
Photo: US Army Africa
BAMAKO — Businesses reopened and children returned to school Tuesday as Malians heeded a call by the junta to return to work, but the putschists faced further pressure as west African leaders held emergency talks.
The military rulers were trying to restore order as they fought off opprobrium at home and abroad for their ouster of President Amadou Toumani Toure on March 22 in anger over the regime’s handling of a northern Tuareg rebellion.
Toure’s situation has been unclear since he was forced to flee when mutineering soldiers shot their way to his palace but France said its ambassador had had a reassuring phone conversation with the ousted leader.
Desert nomads fighting for the independence of their Tuareg homeland have exploited the disarray in Bamako to make gains on the battlefield, prompting the junta to call for a ceasefire and negotiations.
“We call on them to cease hostilities and to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible,” junta leader Captain Amadou Sanogo said late Monday.
“Everything is negotiable except national territorial integrity and the unity of our country,” he added.
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The International Crisis Group said Monday that the anger among the army runs deeper than its losses, both human and military, in the north.
“The end of President Toure’s term has been marked by an inconsistent security policy in the north. High army commanders have also been regularly accused of nepotism, corruption, inefficiency and lack of accountability,” the thinktank said in a statement.
Photo: FIFLAOUS/Wikimedia Commons
LA Times: Mali coup decried by Western and African leaders
Giles Yabi, West Africa analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the uprising came as no surprise given the depth of anger within the military over the issue of government provisions to fight the Tuareg rebels, as well as other complaints. What happens next depends at least in part on Toure’s fate, he said.
“If the president is in a military camp with some of the loyalists, the situation can still evolve,” Yabi said.
He said dissatisfaction was rife even before the Tuareg rebellion, with rumors of a possible military coup circulating last year.
“The frustration in the army was not only about the immediate reaction to the crisis in the north and the lack of military equipment,” he said. “There were complaints about corruption amongst senior officials in the military. There were some complaints about favoritism in the army and the way soldiers were chosen to go to fight in the north.”
Mali’s army has launched an air-and-land offensive to try to crush a new Tuareg rebellion that was inspired by the return from Libya of fighters who had served under Muammer Gaddafi.
FULL ARTICLE (Financial Times)
Photo: bbcworldservice/Flickr
