Mali: ECOWAS asks the junta to return power to civilians
The Community of West African States (ECOWAS) insisted on Friday August 28, at the opening of the extraordinary summit devoted to Mali, on the return to power of civilians after the coup d’état that overthrew the president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. The latter was released Thursday, August 27, by the military junta in power since the coup.
ECOWAS promises the “gradual” lifting of sanctions depending on progress and calls for “elections within 12 months” in Mali.
“If we can consider that the issue of IBK’s release has been resolved, it is not the same for that of the return to constitutional order which presupposes that all soldiers return to the barracks”, said in Niamey the Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou, also current president of ECOWAS, during his opening speech at the summit by videoconference.
“The junta intends to keep power for three years in order, she said, to restore state institutions on a basis guaranteeing their stability,” continued Mr. Issoufou.
“In other words, she refuses to return to the barracks while the country is at war (against jihadist groups, editor’s note), which requires, more than ever, that the army concentrate on its traditional mission, especially that the enemy is working out its weapons and seeking to exploit the institutional vacuum, ”said the Nigerien president.
Institutional blockade
On August 18, a group of officers overthrew Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, who has been at the helm since 2013 of a country which has been sinking for years into a security, economic and political crisis.
Mr. Keïta had the support of the international community and ECOWAS. But he faced growing contestation fueled by the apparent inability to deal with jihadist and inter-communal violence, a deep economic and social slump and a widespread sense of endemic corruption in power.
Mali was in a situation of institutional blockage when the military deposed the president, fulfilling the wish of a motley protest movement that demanded in the streets the resignation of Mr. Keïta since the legislative elections contested in March-April 2020.
ECOWAS demands the return of civilians to power. It has various grounds for concern relating to the legitimacy of West African leaders and to Sahelian stability that has already been undermined.
During a first videoconference summit on August 20, it denied any legitimacy to the putschists, suspended Mali from its decision-making bodies, ordered the closure of its member states’ borders with Mali, and stopped all financial and commercial flows. . It was due to review these sanctions on Friday August 28.
This embargo worries the colonels new masters of Bamako, so much the poor population of this vast landlocked country has a vital need for exchanges.
“For a country, putschism is a serious illness. To cure it, only one prescription: the sanctions. It is certainly bitter, but isn’t it so in medicine, for many diseases? This is what our common organization understood during its videoconference on August 20, 2020, by strongly condemning the coup d’etat “, recalled President Issoufou.
A transition of up to a year?
The military promised to return power to civilians. They expressed their willingness to compromise with the mediation mission dispatched by ECOWAS to Mali from Saturday to Monday. They acceded to the request of ECOWAS and let its emissaries meet the deposed president. Thursday August 27, the day before the summit, the junta announced that it had released him.
Tv5monde
