Re-colonizing Africa

Mali:

Re-colonizing Africa

Toni Solo

Enviado por tortilla en Vie, 07/13/2012 - 19:19

toni solo, July 13th 2012

Contradictions are worsening between the Economic Community of West African States and the authorities of the transitional government in Mali. The fundamental issue dividing the two sides is the issue of a possible intervention in Mali by foreign troops from the ECOWAS and other countries. Accompanying that issue is the insistence by the ECOWAS countries on a new government of national unity to replace the current transitional government under Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra.

Following the framework agreement between ECOWAS and Mali of April 6th, Diocounda Traoré became President and Modiba Diarra Prime Minister. ECOWAS has persistently reneged on various strands of that original framework agreement. First the regional body insisted that President Traoré be given a whole year in order to facilitate political transition to a new government following elections. Now they are insisting on a new government of national unity to be approved by ECOWAS itself.

The pretext for an ECOWAS military intervention, possibly with UN support, is twofold . The alleged main purpose is to assist Mali's army in military operations to recover Malian national territory lost to insurgent Islamic and Tuareg forces. But an important second purpose, according to ECOWAS representatives, is to guarantee the stability of the political transition in Mali.

Two forces are obviously at work in this self-evidently disingenuous process. European countries, mainly France, and the United States are using mass murdering proxies like President Ouatarra of Ivory Coast and President Compaoré of Burkina Faso to advance foreign military intervention in Mali. That process is fervently supported by the corrupt Malian political elite that supported ousted ex-President Amadou Toumani Touré, mostly grouped in the Front for Democracy and the Republic (FDR, formerly, soon after the coup, known as FUSADER).

For their part, both President Traoré, who tends to sympathise with the FDR, and Prime Minister Modiba Diarra, who sympathises more with the leaders of the March 22nd coup, are very reluctant to sanction formally an ECOWAS military intervention. On the other hand, President Traoré might well accept the imposition of an ECOWAS-approved government of national unity. But Prime Minister Modiba Diarra is firmly opposed to such a move.

US ambassador to Mali, Mary Beth Leonard, has expressed support for the ECOWAS proposal for a national unity government. So has the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who also supports an ECOWAS or UN military intervention in Mali. But majority opinion in Mali is against any such intervention and also against the imposition by Mali's neighbours of a national unity government.

Over the last few days, Prime Minister Modibo Diarra has announced the creation of a special force of 1200 police and soldiers to ensure the personal safety of government leaders and legislators. That announcement renders moot the ECOWAS proposal for a force to oversee Mali's political transition. It also answers domestic critics who argue in favour of a foreign military intervention using as their pretext injuries suffered by President Traoré when his presidential office was taken over by protestors in May this year.

Prime Minister Modibo Diarra has also visited 500 Malian troops who retreated into neighbouring Niger after the takeover by insurgents of important towns across northern Mali. The Malian army has regrouped and is preparing its campaign to retake the areas lost to the insurgents between January and April this year. But at the same time an ECOWAS technical team is visiting Bamako to assess the situation prior to any possible intervention by an ECOWAS or UN military force.

So the transitional government and the Malian army have to balance the need to protect Mali's political integrity from ECOWAS impositions against their determination to recapture national territory lost to the insurgents. They are up against the corrupt Malian elite that opposed the coup, that elite's ECOWAS allies and, ultimately, the imperialist designs of the Western powers. Following the colonial wars that installed NATO puppet regimes in the Ivory Coast and Libya, the governments of the European Union and the United States obviously expect, in Mali, to clear a path for a general recolonization of North Africa and the mineral-rich Sahara.

http://www.albared.org/node/689