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It's tempting
to dismiss the coup in Mali as just another banana
republic doing what banana republics do best. That
would be a mistake. Until Thursday morning, Mali
was one of Africa's most promising democracies,
tantalisingly close to holding another strong
election, and in a bitter irony its president
ultimately fell because he was doing everything
right. SIMON ALLISON explains what
happened, and how - even in death - a certain
Colonel Gaddafi is intricately involved.
Amadou Toumani Toure - or ATT as he's
usually known - may or may not be Mali's
president. He has been for the last 10 years, but
on Wednesday night something strange happened. Some
soldiers from his army,
the institution which gave ATT his power in the
first place, decided that they'd had enough of
what they described as his "incompetent regime",
and stormed Mali's capital Bamako, taking control
of the presidential palace and the state
broadcasting centre, among other significant
buildings.
By Thursday morning, this group
had taken power, or so they told the nation in a
clumsy broadcast on state television. Led by a
mid-ranking officer, Captain Amadou Sanogo, they
styled themselves the National Committee for the
Return of Democracy and the Restoration of the
State (using the French acronym CNRDR), and
promised to re-establish democracy just as soon as
"the country is re-unified and its integrity no
longer threatened" - heedless, naturally, of the
fact that probably the biggest threat to Mali's
unity and integrity was the coup-plotters
themselves.
What the CNRDR was actually
referring to was the incipient rebellion in Mali's
sparsely-inhabited northern regions, where a
heavily armed movement led by the historically
fractious Tuaregs has comprehensively out-fought
the Malian army, inflicting heavy casualties and
causing mass desertions. According to the CNRDR,
this is not because the Tuaregs are simply better
fighters, but because the Malian army is being
held back by the peacenik strategies of President
ATT, who openly prefers to solve the problem
through dialogue and mediation rather than more
violence. It's an unpopular stance with much of
the army, and with plenty of citizens too, who
can't see why Malian soldiers are coming back in
body bags while the government prevaricates over
giving the troops on the frontline more
reinforcements and firepower. Ultimately, his
commitment to peace over violence is what cost him
his job.
Or did it? Even though the CNRDR
have claimed power, and the government has been
conspicuous by its silence, all is not yet lost
for ATT and his allies. For a start, the president
himself remains at large, thought to be holed-up
in an air force base that he once commanded,
surrounded there by crack troops who have remained
loyal. As long as he's alive and uncaptured, he
remains Mali's legal president. And there has been
lots of speculation that this coup was instigated
by mid-level officers, meaning much of the top
brass is still with ATT, as well as all the best
units of the Malian military, such as the
paratroopers. There could be a fight back yet,
presuming ATT doesn't try and negotiate his way
out of it; but it doesn't look good for the
president.
However, ATT can't complain too
much about losing power in a coup; after all, he
himself led a military coup in 1991 which unseated
Mali's long-term dictator. But he spent the rest
of his career atoning for that, earning himself
the friendly nickname "soldier of democracy".
After gaining power, he organised a conference to
draw up a new constitution for Mali, and then
refused to participate in the democratic elections
held in 1992. He only returned to power in 2002,
this time via the ballot box, and his second term
was due to expire in April. He'd already made it
clear that he would not be standing again, as per
the term limits imposed by the constitution, and
neither did he push some kind of puppet to control
from behind the scenes. This was a truly
democratic president, steering one of the world's
poorest countries in the right direction, and this
is not how he wanted to leave office.
"ATT
was hoping to leave a legacy of a peaceful Mali
and a constitutional democracy, and give the new
president the opportunity to choose how he wanted
to respond to the rebellion in the north," said
David Zounmenou, senior researcher at the
Institute for Security Studies. "He certainly
wanted to preserve his reputation as a peaceful
man of dialogue - if he has to choose between Mali
and war, he would choose Mali. This position was
not met with universal consent."
This is
all Muammar Gaddafi's fault, of course. Zounmenou
described the current Tuareg rebellion as
"collateral damage" from the Libyan revolution, as
it was the collapse of the Libyan dictator's
regime that sparked the uprising in northern Mali.
Thousands of Tuareg soldiers in Gaddafi's employ
fled Libya as fast as they could, usually in
convoys laden with money and weapons, many
returning home to Mali. By the end of 2011, a new
rebel group was born, fighting for the
independence of "Azawad", or northern Mali. This
isn't the first Tuareg-led rebellion in Mali or
surrounding countries, and it won't be the last.
But it is the most organised, and so far the most
unified - therefore, the most dangerous.
The Tuareg rebels are delighted at the
chaos in the capital, and have already announced
their intention to take advantage. Given that the
Malian army is in no state right now to offer any
resistance, and that any international support for
Mali will dry up in the wake of the coup, it seems
the rebels will have the upper hand over the
coup-plotters, for now.
All this is bad
news for the region as a whole. The government of
Niger, especially, will be terrified that the
success of a Tuareg rebellion in Mali will
embolden the Tuaregs in Niger to do the same
thing. The Americans will be worried that al-Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb, already active in the
region, will feed off the instability and emerge
stronger than ever before. But most serious is the
already dire humanitarian situation - the violence
in the area, coupled with terrible crops, is
creating conditions which could lead to famine if
not urgently addressed. Already, hundreds of
thousands of people have been displaced, but if
the problems do spread to neighbouring countries
then they will have nowhere else to go.
The coup in Mali - presuming it succeeds -
will be a defining moment for the country and for
the region as a whole, and not in a good way. It's
a massive step backwards which the people of the
Sahel - already some of the poorest in the world -
are in no position to afford. DM
This
article is run courtesy of Daily Maverick. To
visit their site, please click here.
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