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Coups that are increasingly tolerated by the African Union, the sub-regional organizations and some African friends, it will be necessary to stop putting their authors in the position of having to account.
Emmanuel Macron, who announced the end of Operation Barkhane, says France does not need to replace African states forever. “We can not secure areas that fall back into anomie, because states decide not to take responsibility,” he explained. Why then do some minds turn to Mali, where Colonel Assimi Goïta invested last Monday as head of state, appointed a civilian prime minister and reassured the ECOWAS mediator? If France had interrupted military cooperation, would we not have said that the situation in Mali is normalizing?
A second coup in nine months could really irritate those who send their soldiers to die in the desert of Mali. This second coup has actually liberated the word. And the tone in which Emmanuel Macron addressed these states was taken in some capitals, as more specifically intended for Mali. But this is the place to remember that the African peoples are ambassadors for each other. And some behaviors inevitably reflect others. “States that decide not to take responsibility”, it is all but a compliment. And the idea of intentional liability involves a certain amount of flippancy, and that’s what’s annoying.
After all, in the current whirlwind, the Malian people no longer know what to consider a normal situation. Let us forget the gloss of lubrication given by ECOWAS, which thus believes in saving the face, while at the same time satisfying a situation which it considered to be completely unacceptable, in the same country, not a year ago.
We must now explain to the Malians on what sacred principles this calendar is based, with this period of eighteen months, half of which, consumed by the overthrown team, must be deducted. With what planet can these people therefore have a time in February 2022, so that the election at this deadline is so decisive when it is the very fate of the nation that is at stake? And why these deadlines, set, before the fundamental question of the inability of opponents and Malian soldiers to wait until the end of the second presidential term, to let the head of state go?
Perhaps this is the condition for coups to be tolerated in Africa.
Yes maybe. But coup is by definition reprehensible and even in some constitutions indescribable. So it may be necessary at some point to think about letting the putschists exercise full power and adopt their balance sheet when the time comes. When they went to Accra, in September 2020, to explain themselves to Nana Akufo-Addo, the Bamako Putschists had paid a small visit to Captain Jerry John Rawlings, who was still alive. If he is their model, we can hope they prepare Mali to become, as the Rawlings did of Ghana, a country where democratic institutions are strong enough to allow nearly thirty years of regular exchanges., With an army that stays away political life.
He had taken power to stop the descent into the hell of his people, humiliated by his own leaders. His regime, between 1981 and 1992, was anything but democratic. But history today shows that he is right and in retrospect, his people have mostly forgiven him for the extreme harshness of his regime.
What lessons for Mali?
In the immediate future, the millers would do better to give a thoughtful content to their transition by correcting the shortcomings that led to these people twice shortening a final presidential term that ended. With regard to the tasks to be performed, they set deadlines. But rushing through the work would be for them an assurance of being invited to another coup, in eight years or even earlier.
Also read our article:Mali: a new government formed, soldiers in key positions
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