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Mali – one more victim of the Western “peace crusade” ?

By Dmitry Babich | The Voice of Russia | July 18, 2012

The situation in Mali, the country most closely located to the “zone of stability and security” purportedly created by NATO in Libya, is far from being stable or secure. The international news agencies and world press are reporting horror stories about the rule of terror, established by the jihadist movements in the north-east of this country, previously dominated by the local Tuaregs.

There are two interesting conclusions that the world’s politicians and experts draw from the developments in Mali. First, it is recognized that destabilization of Mali was one of the results of the military intervention of NATO in Libya (the Tuaregs, who in fact unleashed the military action, were armed by weapons from colonel Qaddafi’s ransacked arsenals). Second, the proposed solution to the crisis, heavily lobbied by France, is… another military intervention, this time in Mali. Obviously, the “zone of stability and security” has for some reason got a unique ability to spawn new conflicts.

The only “political heavyweight” on the world stage who predicted undesirable developments in Mali in the immediate aftermath of the Libyan coup was the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. In April this year, during a visit to Azerbaijan, he sketched the negative scenario which unfortunately proved to be true: “The Libyan story is far from over. We see how the statehood of Mali is being destroyed under our very eyes. What is the reason for that? Besides the unending skirmishes in Libya itself, instability is flowing into neighboring states via arms smuggling, infiltration of fighters. What we see in Mali is just the result of these processes.”

What is indeed astounding is the fact that the NATO countries continue to trumpet their operation in Libya as a great success. State secretary Hillary Clinton, for example, praised the victory of “secular liberals” at recently held elections in Libya (which would indeed be great, if “secularists” had not had a discussion on an innocent point – whether sharia should be the main law of the country or, even better, the only law). In her comments, Mrs. Clinton carefully avoids making a link between the destruction of Qaddafi’s regime and the sudden replenishment of the arsenals of AQMI (the French abbreviation for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) and Ansar Dine, the two most violent groups of the jihadist movement in Northern Africa, which ultimately took control of north-eastern Mali.

“During Qaddafi’s rule, we did not know about these groups,” says from Mali’s capital Bamako Caroline Tuina-Ouanre, a journalist from neighboring Burkina Fasso, specializing on covering the developments in Sahel, a region in Africa where both Mali and Burkina Fasso belong. “Obviously, they did not get their arms from nowhere. They got them profiting from the collapse of the Libyan regime, which in itself was a result of the Western intervention. It made AQMI much stronger, this is a proven fact, long reported by the French-language press of Africa, from Morocco to Burkina.”

France, the country that actually engineered the Western intervention in Libya, is now the primary supporter of an intervention in Mali. However, the French president Francois Hollande said that “for obvious reasons” (meaning, obviously, the history of French colonialism in the region) France was unwilling to intervene on its own. “The intervention should take place in the framework of the African Union and under the auspices of the United Nations.” Hollande said.

The irony of the situation is that the African Union was resolutely opposed to the Western intervention in Libya in 2011, saying that such an intervention would undermine regional security. The South African leader Jacob Zuma, a key figure in the AU, and the Algerian president Abdelaziz Buteflica were among the most vocal opponents of the physical destruction of colonel Qaddafi. And now France wants Buteflica’s Algeria to spearhead the eventual intervention in Mali. In 2011, both U.S. and the EU ignored the African Union’s protests, trumpeting the removal of Qaddafi as a 100 percent positive development, a “victory for democracy.” So, now France is asking the African Union to make up for its misdeeds in the area – misdeeds that the AU never approved.

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July 19, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO blamed for Mali unrest

By Toivo Ndjebela | New Era | April 13, 2012

WINDHOEK – Namibia has blamed the architects of last year’s overthrow of the Libyan government for the civil strife and the recent coup against a democratically elected government in Mali.

Tuareg rebels in Mali have proclaimed independence for the country’s northern part after capturing key towns this week.

Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi administration fell last year after local rebels, with the help of NATO forces – and initially France, Britain and the USA – drove the long-serving leader out of the capital Tripoli and ultimately killed him after months in hiding.

The Namibian government believes the events in Libya are now bearing sour fruit within the western and northern parts of Africa, in what is known as the Sahel region.

“The profoundly retrogressive developments in Mali are a direct consequence of the unstable security and political situation in Libya, created by the precipitous military overthrow of the government of Libya in 2011,” a government statement, released Tuesday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, states.

The statement continued: “Accordingly, those countries that rushed to use military force in Libya, had underestimated the severe repercussions of their actions in the Sahel region.”

“They should thus bear some responsibility for the instability in Mali and the general insecurity in the region.”

Nomadic Tuaregs have harboured ambitions to secede Mali’s northern part since the country’s independence from France in 1960, but lack of foreign support for this idea meant the dream would only be realized 52 years later.

Namibia herself survived a secession attempt in 1999 when a self-styled rebel group, led by former Swapo and DTA politician Mishake Muyongo, now exiled in Denmark, attempted to separate the Caprivi Region from the rest of Namibia.

The Mali situation already cost Amadou Toumani Toure his job last month, when junior army officers overthrew him for what they say was his reluctance to avail resources needed to fight the advancing Tuareg rebels.

Speaker of Mali’s parliament, Doincounda Traore, was expected to be sworn in as president yesterday morning, a development that would restore civilian rule in the humanitarian crisis-hit West African country.

Traore is inheriting control of only half of the country, with northern Mali now falling under control of Tuareg rebels and Islamists.

Namibia said those tearing Mali into administrative pieces should have observed the African Union’s principle of inviolability of borders of the African countries.

“This principle of indivisibility of borders has served Africa well since its adoption by the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) Summit in Cairo in 1964,” the statement further reads.

It further stated: “The Government of Namibia reiterates its unequivocal rejection of any attempt to dismember any African country and unreservedly condemns all manner of secessionist aspirations.”

Namibia is yet to officially recognize the new Libyan government, whose local embassy held a ‘revolution anniversary’ in February without attendance of any notable officials of the Namibian government.

April 14, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mali: A Scramble for Power

By Al-Mokhtar Ould Mohammad and Othman Tazghart | Al Akhbar | April 7, 2012

Within the span of two weeks Mali experienced a military coup followed by a declaration of independence by the Tuareg in the north, leaving regional and international powers divided over who to support.

Tuareg revolutionaries claimed they had complete control of north Mali from Kidal to Gao last week, including the capital of their historical homeland Azawad and Timbuktu.

The general secretary of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), Bilal Ag Acherif, announced the creation of the “independent state of Azawad” yesterday.

The president of its politburo Mahmoud Ag Ali spoke to Al-Akhbar after they had captured the lands populated by a majority of Tuareg and Arabs in the north on Thursday.

He said that “the announcement of the independent state of Azawad is ready. Its capital will be the historical city of Timbuktu that celebrated its third millennium two years ago.”

He added that “the Tuareg revolutionaries will put an end to military operations after the liberation of the north is complete.” They will then focus on “establishing and building the state.”

He refuted claims in the Western media that the Tuareg rebels intend to continue their military campaign, in conjunction with the Sahara branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic West, until the fall of the capital Bamako.

The independence announcement surprised many observers and became an obvious embarrassment to international and regional powers.

The governments of West Africa are still trying to decide how to deal with the military junta in the country that toppled the country’s president in March.

 

Should the military rebels be pressured to return to their barracks and hand over power to the “legitimate” government, or should they be given more time and indirect support in order to recapture the areas held by the Tuareg revolutionaries?

 

On the surface there seems to be a consensus among the “international community” to reject the announcement of Azawad independence.

The US, for example, has already announced its categorical rejection of the separatists’ demands.

The French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that the declaration of independence is “null and of no value.”

For her part, EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton said that “the EU has made clear throughout the crisis that it respects the territorial integrity of Mali.”

African Union President Jean Ping expressed the bloc’s “total rejection” of the Tuareg declaration of a homeland in the north and condemned this announcement in a statement saying it was “null and of no value whatsoever.”

Nevertheless, negotiations between African and Western diplomats are heating up.

On one side of the debate over how to deal with the situation in Mali there is the majority of West African countries, in addition to Algeria, Niger, and Cote d’Ivoire, who are supported by the US. They favor the new regime in Mali, hoping that it can put an end to the Tuareg secession.

They want the new junta to sign on a “declaration of principles” for a return to constitutional legitimacy and hand power back to a civilian government immediately. At the same time, they want to negotiate with Tuareg activists to form a national unity government and give the north extensive autonomy.

 

On the other side, there are those who call for supporting the Tuareg separatists, on the condition that they commit to fighting Al-Qaeda and expel the militant Islamist group from territories under MNLA control.

 

They include Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, and Burkina Faso and are supported by a strong current in the French foreign ministry.

“Dealing with the current situation cannot only be through good intentions and a declaration of principles,” a French diplomat in Paris told Al-Akhbar on Friday.

“Until now, all Western and regional efforts have failed against Al-Qaeda’s activities on the African coast, although they only have 500 armed men,” he said.

The French diplomat also explained that “for years, Tuareg activists have been expressing opinions…they are the only power that can expel Al-Qaeda from their lands if they are given the necessary political and military support…But this option was always rejected by the regional powers, who fear that the Tuareg will exploit such support to arm themselves and call for an independent state.”

He added that, “after the declaration of independence, regional and international powers have two choices. They can support the independence of Azawad on the condition that the Tuareg fight and expel Al-Qaeda or they can stand against the independent state…The second choice will push the Tuareg activists to ally themselves with Al-Qaeda against foreign intervention.”

Western powers fear that any reconsideration of borders inherited from colonialism could set a precedent that would launch an “African Spring” of secessionist movements in neighboring countries such as Libya, Niger, Algeria, and others.

April 7, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Mali coup leader seeks foreign help against advancing rebels

Press TV – March 31, 2012

Facing strong international criticism for toppling the legitimate government of Mali, the leader of the recent coup d’état in the African country has called for foreign help.

The plea comes hours after Tuareg separatist rebels entered the strategic town of Kidal, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the capital.

Speaking to the media outlets at a military barrack, which has now become the junta’s headquarters, the leader of the coup, Amadou Haya Sanogo, claimed, “Our army needs the help of Mali’s friends to save the civilian population and Mali’s territorial integrity.”

The coup junta is likely to face potential risk of being frozen out by the country’s foreign allies as the neighboring countries have threatened to impose possible economic sanctions on the landlocked country.

On March 22, renegade Malian soldiers led by Amadou Haya Sanogo toppled Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Toure in a coup and took control of government institutions.

The coup leaders said they mounted the coup out of anger at the government’s inability to contain the two-month-old Tuareg rebellion in north of the country.

Mali has been scene of rebellion by some separatist elements, namely Tuareg fighters in the north of the country, fighting the government to, in their terms “protect and progressively re-occupy the Azawad territory.”

Azawad is the tuareg name for the northern region of the country, covering the areas of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao.

The coup drew international condemnation. The African Union, the ECOWAS, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the International Crisis Group, and the United Nations have all denounced the military takeover of the government in the West African country.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mali renegade soldiers claim control of government

Press TV – March 22, 2012

Renegade Malian soldiers say they have toppled the government of President Amadou Toumani Toure and seized power in the West African state.

“We are in control of the presidential palace,” AFP quoted one of the rebels as saying on Thursday.

The rebellion ignited Wednesday afternoon over criticism against the government’s handling of a Tuareg insurrection in the north and turned into an apparent coup.

Following an armed conflict, the rebels seized the presidential palace and arrested several ministers, including Foreign Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and Interior Minister Kafouhouna Kone, the report said.

Toure, however, has managed to escape from the premises, an independent source said.

Lieutenant Amadou Konare, the spokesman of the soldiers, calling themselves National Committee for the Establishment of Democracy, appeared on television and announced the dissolution of state institutions and suspension of the constitution.

Konare also said a curfew will be in place from midnight to six a.m. local time.

He added that upon consultations with all the Malian political factions, a national unity cabinet will be formed in the coming days and the transitional government will run the country until power is ceded to a civilian government after “free and transparent” elections in near future.

The spokesman cited the former government’s security failures in northern Mali and its “inability” to fight terrorism as well as threats to national unity, and the uncertainty shadowing general elections in 2012 as some of the major reasons behind the mutiny.

March 22, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Mali: U.S. Africa Command’s New War?

By Rick Rozoff | Stop NATO | February 15, 2012

The press wires are reporting on intensified fighting in Mali between the nation’s military and ethnic Tuareg rebels of the Azawad National Liberation Movement in the north of the nation.

As the only news agencies with global sweep and the funds and infrastructure to maintain bureaus and correspondents throughout the world are those based in leading member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, BBC News and Deutsche Presse-Agentur – the coverage of ongoing developments in Mali, like those in most every other country, reflects a Western bias and a Western agenda.

Typical headlines on the topic, then, include the following:

“Arms and men out of Libya fortify Mali rebellion” Reuters

President: Tuareg fighters from Libya stoke violence in Mali” CNN

“Colonel Gaddafi armed Tuaregs pound Mali” The Scotsman

“France denounces killings in Mali rebel offensive” Agence France-Presse

“Mali, France Condemn Alleged Tuareg Rebel Atrocities” Voice of America

To reach Mali from Libya is at least a 500-mile journey through Algeria and/or Niger. As the rebels of course don’t have an air force, don’t have military transport aircraft, the above headlines and the propaganda they synopsize imply that Tuareg fighters marched the entire distance from Libya to their homeland in convoys containing heavy weapons through at least one other nation without being detected or deterred by local authorities. And that, moreover, to launch an offensive three months following the murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi after his convoy was struck by French bombs and a U.S. Hellfire missile last October. But the implication that Algeria and Niger, especially the first, are complicit in the transit of Tuareg fighters and arms from Libya to Mali is ominous in terms of expanding Western accusations – and actions – in the region.

Armed rebellions are handled differently in Western-dominated world news reporting depending on how the rebels and the governments they oppose are viewed by leading NATO members.

In recent years the latter have provided military and logistical support to armed rebel formations – in most instances engaged in cross-border attacks and with separatist and irredentist agendas – in Kosovo, Macedonia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Libya and now Syria, and on the intelligence and “diplomatic” fronts in Russia, China, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, Indonesia, Congo, Myanmar, Laos and Bolivia.

However, major NATO powers have adopted the opposite tack when it comes to Turkey, Morocco (with its 37-year occupation of the Western Sahara), Colombia, the Philippines, the Central African Republic, Chad and other nations that are their military clients or territory controlled by them, where the U.S. and its Western allies supply weapons, advisers, special forces and so-called peacekeeping forces.

The drumbeat of alarmist news concerning Mali is a signal that the West intends to open another military front on the African continent following last year’s seven-month air, naval and special operations campaign against Libya and ongoing operations in Somalia and Central Africa with the recent deployment of American special forces to Uganda, Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan. In Ivory Coast, Mali’s neighbor to the south, last February the French military with compliant United Nations troops – “peacekeepers” – fired rockets into the presidential residence and forcibly abducted standing president Laurent Gbagbo.

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) first became operational as the war fighting force it was intended to be from the beginning in running the first two weeks of the war against Libya last March with Operation Odyssey Dawn before turning the campaign over to NATO for seven more months of relentless bombing and missile strikes.

Mali may be the second military operation conducted by AFRICOM.

The landlocked country is the hub of the wheel of former French West Africa, bordered by every other member except Benin: Burkina Faso, Guinea (Conakry), Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. It also shares a border with Algeria, another former French possession, to its north.

Mali is Africa’s third largest producer of gold after South Africa and Ghana. It possesses sizable uranium deposits run by French concessions in the north of the country, the scene of the current fighting. Tuareg demands include granting some control over the uranium mines and the revenue they generate. Major explorations for oil and natural gas, also in the north, have been conducted in recent years as well.

The nation is also a key pivot for the U.S.’s Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership established in 2005 (initially as the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative), which grew out of the Pan Sahel Initiative of 2003-2004.

In May of 2005 U.S. Special Operations Command Europe inaugurated the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative by dispatching 1,000 special forces troops to Northwest Africa for Operation Flintlock to train the armed forces of Mali, Algeria, Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia, the seven original African members of the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative, which in its current format also includes Burkina Faso, Morocco and Nigeria. Libya will soon be brought into that format as it will the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue military partnership.

The American special forces led the first of what have now become annual Operation Flintlock counterinsurgency exercises with the above nations of the Sahel and Magreb. The following year NATO conducted the large-scale Steadfast Jaguar war games in the West African island nation of Cape Verde to launch the NATO Response Force, after which the African Standby Force has been modeled.

Flintlock 07 and 08 were held in Mali. Flintlock 10 was held in several African nations, including Mali.

On February 7 of this year the U.S. and Mali began the Atlas Accord 12 joint air delivery exercise in the African nation, but Flintlock 12, scheduled for later in the month, was postponed because of the fighting in the north. Sixteen nations were to have participated, including several of the U.S.’s major NATO allies.

Last year’s Flintlock included military units from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Nigeria and Senegal.

When AFRICOM became an independent Unified Combatant Command on October 1, 2008, the first new overseas U.S. regional military command established in the post-Cold War era, AFRICOM and Special Operations Command Africa’s Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara took control of the Flintlock exercises from U.S. European Command and U.S. Special Operations Command Europe.

In 2010 AFRICOM announced that Special Operations Command Africa “will gain control over Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara (JSOTF-TS) and Special Operations Command and Control Element–Horn of Africa (SOCCE-HOA).”

Last year the AFRICOM website wrote:

“Conducted by Special Operations Command Africa, Flintlock is a joint multinational exercise to improve information sharing at the operational and tactical levels across the Saharan region while fostering increased collaboration and coordination. It’s focused on military interoperability and capacity-building for U.S., North American and European Partner Nations, and select units in Northern and Western Africa.”

Although the stated purposed of the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership and its Flintlock multinational exercises is to train the military forces of nations in the Sahel and Magreb to combat Islamist extremist groups in the region, in fact the U.S. and its allies waged war against the government of Libya last year in support of similar elements, and the practical application of Pentagon military training and deployment in Northwest Africa has been to fight Tuareg militias rather than outfits like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb or Nigeria’s Boko Haram.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have also conducted and supported other military exercises in the area for similar purposes. In 2008 the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional economic group from which the U.S.- and NATO-backed West African Standby Force was formed, held a military exercise named Jigui 2008 in Mali, which was “supported by the host governments as well as France, Denmark, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the European Union,” as the Ghana News Agency reported at the time.

AFRICOM also runs annual Africa Endeavor multinational communications interoperability exercises primarily in West Africa. Last year’s planning conference was held in the Malian capital of Bamako and, according to U.S. Army Africa, “brought together more than 180 participants from 41 African, European and North American nations, as well as observers from Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Eastern African Standby Force and NATO to plan interoperability testing of communications and information systems of participating nations.” The main exercise was also held in Mali.

The U.S. military has been ensconced in the nation since at least 2005 and Voice of America revealed in that year that the Pentagon had “established a temporary operations center on a Malian air force base near Bamako. The facility is to provide logistical support and emergency services for U.S. troops training with local forces in five countries in the region.”

The following year U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Command Europe chief Marine General James Jones, subsequently the Obama administration’s first national security advisor, “made the disclosure [that] the Pentagon was seeking to acquire access to… bases in Senegal, Ghana, Mali and Kenya and other African countries,” according to a story published on Ghana Web.

In 2007 a soldier with the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group based in Stuttgart, Germany, where AFRICOM headquarters are based, died in Kidal, Mali, where fighting is currently occurring. His death was attributed to a “non-combat related incident.” The next year a soldier with the Canadian Forces Military Training Assistance Programme also lost his life in Mali.

Last year the Canadian Special Operations Regiment deployed troops to the northern Mali conflict zone for what was described “an ongoing mission.” Canadian Special Operations Regiment forces also participated in the Flintlock 11 exercise in Senegal.

In September of 2007 an American C-130 Hercules military transport plane was hit by rifle fire while dropping supplies to Malian troops under siege by Tuareg forces.

According to Stars and Stripes:

“The plane and its crew, which belong to the 67th Special Operations Squadron, were in Mali as part of a previously scheduled exercise called Flintlock 2007…Malian troops had become surrounded at their base in the Tin-Zaouatene region near the Algerian border by armed fighters and couldn’t get supplies…[T]he Mali government asked the U.S. forces to perform the airdrops…”

In 2009 the U.S. announced it was providing the government of Mali with over $5 million in new vehicles and other equipment.

Later in the year the website of U.S. Air Forces in Europe reported:

“The first C-130J Super Hercules mission in support of U.S. Air Forces Africa, or 17th Air Force, opened up doors to a future partnership of support between the 86th Airlift Wing and upcoming missions into Africa.

“The mission’s aircraft commander, Maj. Robert May of the 37th Airlift Squadron, and his crew were tasked to fly into Mali Dec. 19 to bring home 17 troops who were assisting with training Malian forces.”

The U.S. has been involved in the war in Mali for almost twelve years. Recent atrocity stories in the Western press will fuel demands for a “Responsibility to Protect” intervention after the fashion of those in Ivory Coast and Libya a year ago and will provide the pretext for American and NATO military involvement in the country.

AFRICOM may be planning its next war.

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February 19, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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