From Bamako to Niamey, via Paris and Washington, where the West African diaspora is significant, young demonstrators are storming the streets to support military transitions. Alongside the portraits of the “saviors” of the day and the hostile declarations against the West, the Russian flag is at the center of attention.
Paris, France – October 21, 2015: Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris decorated with flags for an official diplomatic visit (France/ Mali).
As if to celebrate the end of archaic France, many people like to chant what looks like the disordered and upside-down tricolor. Even if in reality, few of them can barely locate Vladimir Putin’s country on the map. Clearly, the Élysée will no longer be the only strategic partner of its former colonies.
Questions and concerns
In Mali, relations with the former colonizing power are more frosty than ever. In addition to the suspension of the airline Air France, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France 24 television, the ban on NGOs receiving aid from the French government, the dismissal of the French ambassador…, the immediate withdrawal of French soldiers from Operation Barkhane is a strong signal of the rupture.
Started in 2012, Operation Serval, ancestor of Barkhane, intervenes in a difficult security context. In addition to a new rebellion, recurring since the first decade of its independence, and a military coup, who overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touréthe country faces a lack of military equipment.
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Hailed by part of the political class, the French intervention had at the same time fueled questions and concerns within public opinion. Fearing an Afghan-style scenario, observers did not hesitate to mention a possible desire by Paris to permanently install its troops in the country. As was already the case in Niger, Chad and Ivory Coast.
Meanwhile, a program from the France 2 channel is making waves in Paris. Through a major investigation, the magazine “Crisis Unit” shows speakers who testify to the pressure that France would have exerted on the Malian authorities of the time with a view to immediately obtaining military intervention.
Demonstration of support in Bamako
“We give them the terms of the letter that would suit us,” still remembers Laurent Bigot, deputy director at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Then we ask them to send us another letter on the same day that Mali requests military support from France. » This concerns in particular a correspondence in which Koulouba (Malian presidency) requests air support from the French army in the face of the advance of the attackers who are approaching the capital.
Home stretch
By participating in the liberation of several Malian towns that fell into the hands of the invaders, the French operation will not allow the Malian army to retake its positions in Kidal. The time for the rebels to emerge from the hot and humid bowels of the caves, where they were hidden, when the followers of sharia were ruling the roost in town, to show off their new pick-ups, weapons and ammunition in the media French.
Credit: istockphotos
Besides this posture, the deployment of French soldiers coincides with the rise in power of rebel and terrorist troops. Some who rejoice with a new flag, others who carry out murderous attacks, making northern Mali a no-man’s land where the seed of terror germinates.
In 2014, a year after the election of the late President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the Prime Minister Moussa Mara and his delegation are targeted by a targeted attack in Kidal governorate. After intense fighting, involving Malian defense forces and heavily armed attackers, the separatists took control of several localities.
Despite the signing of the Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in 2015, hostilities will widen and reach the Mopti region, where farmers and pastoralists live together in centuries-old cohesion. Incessant attacks which target both the military and the peaceful peasants who are no longer able to go about their business in rural areas, are emerging a growing insecurity which rages all the way to the gates of Bamako.
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In a context of reconstruction of the Malian Armed and Security Forces (acquisition of new equipment, training and recruitment into the armed forces), the new authorities have finally decided to lead the way with Russia. Following the withdrawal of Western forces (Barkhane and Takuba), the long-awaited reconquest plan for Kidal is now active.
To the lastnew eras, the FAMa are advancing in giant steps towards the famous City of the Ifoghas. This is the final stretch, after the definitive and total return of Tessalit and Anefis to the Malian fold, two localities located a few dozen kilometers from Kidal.
Khaled