Tag Archives: coup

Escape from Timbuktu: Foreigners Flee as Mali’s Rebels Declare Independence

Posted by Julius Cavendish on

A handout picture released by Azawad National Liberation Movement (MLNA) on April 2, 2012 and taken in February 2012 reportedly shows MNLA fighters gathering in an undisclosed location in Mali. AFP / GETTY IMAGES

TIME.com

Caked in dust and bristling with weaponry, the Tuareg rebels smiled at Neil Whitehead and Diane English. “It’s okay, we’re here for your protection,” one of the veiled warriors grinned at the nervous couple. Caught up in the middle of a war after Tuareg separatists advanced hundreds of miles in a matter of hours, the hotel-owners had tried twice already to leave their adopted home of Timbuktu. At first, retreating army columns had blocked their way. Then, when the road eventually cleared, English and Whitehead ran straight into a firefight. “There were guns going off all around us and tracer going past the cab windows, and we thought, ‘This isn’t good’,” English says, with a flash of understatement.

Yet the real threat came not from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (known by its French acronym, MLNA)—the 1,000 or so secular Tuareg separatists who Friday declared independence—but Islamist militants and al-Qaeda emirs busy hijacking their campaign. As Timbuktu fell, French diplomats brokered a deal to spirit English, Whitehead, their “leggy, Saharan desert dog” Lily, and a French citizen also trapped in the fabled city to safety. Wearing turbans to disguise themselves and taking only those belongings they could carry, the fugitives piled into Tuareg pickups—and then camped and drove, camped and drove, “belting through the desert hell for leather,” English says.  The rebels “really were fantastic… From the time we put ourselves in their hands… although I knew we weren’t yet safe, I wasn’t really concerned.”

(READ: Gaddafi’s Gift to Mali: The Tuareg Seize Timbuktu.)

Two days and 850 miles of hard driving later, they arrived in Mauritania’s seaside capital of Nouakchott—dusty, tired, rattled—and relieved. “Having a shower and a change of clothes was an absolute luxury,” says English. Yet happy ending aside, the flight through the desert underscores one of the most unsettling aspects of Mali’s Tuareg revolt: how al-Qaeda’s regional franchise has been able to exploit the instability in northern Mali much more, and much faster, than almost anyone anticipated. The first worrying signs emerged Monday with reports that Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the Algerian-born leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had been spotted in Timbuktu, alongside two other prominent AQIM commanders, Abou Zeid and Yahya Abou al-Hammam. “It’s extremely difficult to evaluate the claims and reports coming out of Timbuktu,” says to Andrew Lebovich, an analyst with the Navanti Group who focuses on Sahelian issues. But “multiple sources cite eyewitnesses who say they saw one or several AQIM leaders.” As civilians fleeing Timbuktu impart fresh accounts of what is happening in the desert city, the number of claims is growing steadily. Continue reading →

Mali à l’aise

Posted by Julius Cavendish on

The Economist

Mali’s coup leaders tighten their hold but inspire little confidence

IF ANYONE knows what is happening in Mali, it should be Captain Amadou Sanogo. Sliding forward on the shiny beige sofa into which he has sunk, he insists that things are moving “as I want. Moving as I prepared…allowing me to engage, to start with my processes.” Yet the 40-year-old officer with a sandpaper rasp seems to be putting a brave face on what looks, in fact, like an accidental coup that was almost invited by the government it toppled.

Captain Sanogo is the leader of the putsch that deposed Amadou Toumani Touré, a two-term president, on March 22nd. In the cantonment town of Kati, in the hills north of Bamako, new furniture is going into freshly whitewashed buildings, and visitors jostle to meet members of the ponderously named National Committee for the Recovery of Democracy and Restoration of the State.

The junta appears to be making up policy as it goes. It speaks of building a stronger army capable of serving the wider Sahel region, and has issued a 69-article constitution that empowers a council of 26 soldiers and 15 civilians to rule for a transition period of undefined length. Although protesters took to Bamako’s streets demanding a return to democracy, and various public figures connected to the upturned political system have denounced the coup, counter-demonstrations have voiced enthusiastic support. There seems to be enough disillusionment with Mr Touré’s government for many Malians to withhold judgment on the junta. Graft, increased perceptions of corruption and allegations of government involvement in smuggling drugs and arms mean that few are sad to see the back of Mr Touré, who had already foiled two earlier coup plots in 2010. Continue reading →

West’s ally in volatile region is rocked by soldier’s revolt

Posted by Julius Cavendish on

The Times

Within 24 hours Mali’s stable democracy has reached the brink of civil war, reports Julius Cavendish in Bamako

Mali was on the brink of civil war last night after mutinous soldiers led by a cadre of young officers seized the capital, Bamako, but failed to corner President Touré, who regrouped outside the city with a crack unit of paratroopers.

The renegade soldiers, angered by the Government’s failure to arm them to fight Tuareg rebels, stormed the presidential palace overnight, arresting senior members of the Cabinet.

Some troops fuelled by alcohol then went on a rampage, looting the palace, which bestrides limestone cliffs overlooking the centre of Bamako, and carting off flat-screen televisions, computer monitors and photocopiers. Continue reading →

Mali: Big Trouble in a Poor Country Awash in Post-Gaddafi Weapons

Posted by Julius Cavendish on

TIME.com

Renegade soldiers claim to have overthrown the government as the president claims otherwise. Meanwhile, rebels armed with Libyan firepower watch and wait

To the clatter of gunfire and under the cover of darkness the president who ushered Mali into an unprecedented era of multiparty democracy fled the West African country’s sleepy capital Bamako last night as an army mutiny rapidly escalated into a full-blown coup attempt. The renegade soldiers had claimed to have seized the country after storming the presidential palace during the night. But President Amadou Toumani Toure’s reappearance at a nearby military cantonment, apparently at the head of a crack bodyguard of ‘Red Beret’ paratroopers, now leaves Mali on the brink of a civil war — apart dealing with the thorny Tuareg rebellion that helped precipitate the military uprising. In less than 24 hours one of Africa’s most stable democracies has turned upside down.

Across Bamako, growing numbers of the military, gendarmerie and police switched sides, locking down the capital, firing sporadically and establishing roadblocks. Shops stayed shuttered, crowds stood uneasily on street corners, and old men in traditional robes lounged in deck chairs as they waited for news. “Pow, pow-pow,” said Abdoulai, a taxi driver, mimicking gunfire as troops insouciantly loosed off rounds to cow the population. Gendarmes commandeered a silver station wagon; a soldier strolled casually down a half-deserted street, can of coke in his hand; and a policeman riding pillion behind a driver on a moped flashed a V-sign and shouted: “We’ve won.”(MORE: On the Scene as Soldiers Target the Government)

In fact, the situation is a lot less certain than that. Around noon on Thursday, news emerged that President Toure had successfully slipped past the renegade assault on the presidential palace, which bestrides a limestone cliff overlooking the center of Bamako, and was regrouping at Kati, the barracks where the mutiny began Wednesday morning. He is, however, without several key senior government members who are under lock and key Meanwhile, mutinies continue to take place across the country. Former colonial power France, which retains close links to Mali, said it was suspending military assistance and called for the restoration of the constitution, which the mutineers suspended overnight. The U.S. and the European Union echoed that call, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for grievances to be settled democratically. The African Union said it was “deeply concerned by the reprehensible acts currently being perpetrated by some elements of the Malian army.” Continue reading →