Madness in Mali

Free and in Mali. Good sign if you ask me.

Pity about him. An African president willing to respect a two terms limit, who did not want to run again in the coming elections? The Malians had such a nice thing going on...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-mali-idUSBRE82S0OG20120329

Four presidents were about to go and talk to the junta, but now have turned back.

Things just got worse.

[1]

ECOWAS has decided to seal their borders from Mali and place some of the harshest sanctions ever imposed in West Africa. That includes suspending Mali's use of ports for goods, no more fuel from Cote d'Ivoire, suspension from the West African Central Bank, including the ability to transfer funds to local banks. Already in Bamako, people have been making a run on the banks, and this will likely increase with this announcement.

Meanwhile, more bad news: Negotiations in Kidal have ceased it seems, as the Tuareg seperatist army has now launched its assault on the northern city. They are fighting as I type this.

A whole lot of people are going to suffer thanks to these sanctions... all because a few thugs with guns couldn't wait a month for elections.

To be fair, they haven't been enacted yet. But they will if (at the time these were announced), the junta didn't leave in 72 hours....

EDIT-

Kidal has fallen.

edited 30th Mar '12 7:50:36 AM by FFShinra

Reports are coming in that Timbuktu is surrounded, and that the road between Gao (main northern military garrison town) and Niamey (capital of neighboring Niger) has been seized.

If they are successful in this particular push, the only question then will not be IF they get a homeland, but when. And in relation to that, where does the border between Mali and Azawad end. Would they stop and just the three provinces? Will the bifuricate the province that connects them to Mali proper? Seize it entirely? Leave it alone and move on to Niger or Algeria?

So many questions.

Quite frankly, "confused mess" would be a neat way of describing the situation in Mali. Is there any news at all regarding popular support for the deposed government? Or if the Mali army is doing any fighting against the Tuaregs?

Or, for a question that might be easier to answer: has any previous Tuareg rebellion gotten this far in territorial gains?

With regards to popular support, part of the reason those four presidents abruptly turned around was because a pro-junta rally stampeded onto the tarmac of Bamako's airport. So there is some support (in that, they believe the nation can only be saved by getting rid of democracy), but there are also anti-junta protests going on at the same time. Whether or not this becomes anything more than rival political views remains to be seem but yes, the junta seems to have its proponents though with these sanctions, I don't think it'd be likely to last once the fuel and bank shortages start to bite.

The Malian Army hasn't been putting up much of a fight (there were some gunbattles in Kidal before it fell, but obviously not enough to make a difference since they had it under their command by the next day). They've been trying to negotiate and call on international assistance.

As for the rebellion? No, they've never made it THIS far before. Kidal has been the first time Tuaregs have been able to seize a major city.

And now the Tuareg rebels are attacking Gao with heavy weapons.

So that'll make it two of the three major towns captured under the junta's watch may it fall.

edited 31st Mar '12 11:20:43 AM by EarlOfSandvich

By now the junta must be looking for that quote from Emperor Hirohito. You know the one:

President Ouattara (of Cote d'Ivoire) has promised 2000 troops to handle the situation in Mali. Both the coupmakers AND the rebels, it seems. If others also pledge, we may see intervention...

edited 31st Mar '12 11:17:02 AM by FFShinra

...the irony is thick.

@Best Of: ...dear lord, for a moment you confused the hell out of me. So are Maddy and the rest of the mods trolling around disguised as Eddie, too?

Anyway, the AU has traditionally not looked with favor upon coups and separatism, which either makes sense or is ironic considering the nature of the continent that they're on. The local neighbors might make the same argument, but from the perspective of, say, Algeria, defeating the Tuareg rebellion would take precedence over undoing the coup. From the perspective of the AU it might be the reverse.

I might as well explain this as you could just as easily look for posts by each of the mods: we each picked someone among us whose avatar, title, location and sig line we'd carry for about 48 hours (from the moment it's April 1st anywhere to the moment it's April 1st nowhere.) For instance, Katrika has mine.

I might as well leak some insider info: in the mod only discussions, there has already been some confusion about who's talking to who, which has led to some hilarity. So at least we fooled ourselves!

God I'm too drunk to deal with all this mix up D:

Maybe you should just, you know, find a link to the home page (such as the one at the top of every page) and click it repeatedly?

WHAT IS THIS BLACK MAGIC?

You got a calendar handy?

Yeah, 31 March

Is that SATANIC BLACK WIZARD MAGIC DAY? Huh? Huh?!

Anyway, let's get back on topic.

(I could thump your off-topic posts as a joke, but that would be a rather poor joke 'cause it wouldn't be funny - and you'd be saddled with thumps you didn't really deserve. Anyway, just wanted to remind you all of my evil side.)

Yes. Let us get back on topic.

I'm frankly surprised ECOWAS has started to muscle up since there mostly just economic in nature, but then it seems these organizations in general are becoming more active.

And some news: [1]

It seems the Malian Army has abandoned at least one (reports are conflicting if its one or both) military base near Gao (there is no fighting in Gao proper) and is heading toward Bamako. There is a powerful local militia in the city itself though, so we'll see what happens...

So who's rebelling now? I got the feeling the military was rebelling via coup, but I keep hearing about Tuaregs!

This is such a confusing mess...

In short: the Tuaregs up in the north of Mali had a rebellion going since December. This wasn't surprising, since there have been several Tuareg rebellions so far, none successful.

Just recently, though, a faction of the Malian Army complained that the government was not giving them enough support, and seized power in a coup. There are probably three factions: the deposed Mali government, the new Mali government, and the rebels, none of which like each other.

So it seems to me that if the Tuaregs can organise a functioning government and secure their position then they might actually win. Storming into southern Mali will probably provoke a reaction from Mali's neighbours.