“On August 18, 2020, the Mali Tribune, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, whose regime is fiercely opposed by a motley movement, resigned in the evening to the soldiers who had taken him manu militari to the Kati camp. A year after its fall, the status quo is there, I think Mali Tribune. The same evil still remains. (…) No significant change. (…) The security situation under the old regime remains under the new authorities under Colonel Goïta and further tightens. The insecurity reached its paroxysm throughout the territory while the military’s arrival in power had aroused much enthusiasm among the people who saw Goïta and his men as the messiah who could put an end to the rise of violence. of the country, along the roads, but also the repeated massacres in some areas.
On the social level, the Mali Tribune continues, the situation is terrible. The population has a clear impression of a public act without purpose, without visibility, of an exercise of power which means that the housewife’s basket is emptied and which no longer meets the needs of the family. The price increase has become widespread. Everything is expensive in our markets. “In addition,” the opposition between the teachers’ unions and the government is as tense as ever. ” In short, the Mali Tribune concludes, a year after the fall of IBK, “the picture is both gloomy and catastrophic.”
The 2022 presidential election postponed to Greek calendars? But for The country in neighboring Burkina, “the biggest disillusionment of Malians is now the uncertain horizon of elections that would restore the constitutional order in the country. Although the Prime Minister, Choguel Maïga, has not yet given up his promise to keep international commitments, the political maneuvers will certainly be under way, Le Pays estimates, that the February 2022 meeting will not be held. And there is much to fear that with this missed meeting to come, Mali will isolate itself more on the international stage with the thinly veiled threats of political and economic sanctions from the international community, especially that the regime seems to be taking liberties with human rights ( …). ”
In any case, Le Pays still points out, “if there is success in attributing Assimi Goïta, it is first and foremost his diplomatic skills that have so far enabled him to free Mali from sanctions. From ECOWAS. But it is also and above all its “Surfing the anti-French sentiment that is developing within African peoples, he put on the revolutionary’s costume to approach in collective imagination legendary figures like Thomas Sankara and progress masked by his catastrophic design. Of sustainability in power.”
Afghanistan-Mali: the debate continues … Even on the front page, a debate that continues: will Mali follow the Afghan path? For The world Africa, the answer is no: “unlike the United States in Afghanistan, France is not about to withdraw from the Sahel. On June 10, Emmanuel Macron announced the end of the Barkhane mission as an external operation, but a “profound transformation” of the French military presence in the Sahel will begin, the French president said. The withdrawal of the withdrawal, at the end of 2021, will take place gradually. If at any given time, at least 40% of the troops, at least 40 to 2,500 troops should remain on the ground, as part of an internationalized fight against terrorism. But acknowledges Le Monde Afrique, the closure of French military bases in northern Mali (Timbuktu, Kidal and Tessalit) by 2022, is worrying. At the beginning of the war in 2012, Malian soldiers were forced to hand over some of their positions to the enemy, a coalition of rebel jihadist and separatist groups. Ten years later, will these cities be taken over by the jihadists, when the French bases are closed? The question plagues observers, as the Malian army, despite nine years of Western infusion (training, armaments, funding), still seems incapable of competing with an enemy that continues to spread its influence to the south. “
Finally, if there is one lesson to be learned from the Afghan scenario, it is this, according to researcher Elie Tenenbaum, quoted by Le Monde Afrique: “to be modest in your ambitions. It is necessary that the international actors who will legitimately protect their “interests are trying to get a perimeter reduced to a reasonable adequacy. The rest must depend on local actors.”
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