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| Mali; Coup d'état and rebel uprising | |
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| Topic Started: 22 Mar 2012, 08:36 PM (176 Views) | |
| daib0 | 22 Mar 2012, 08:36 PM Post #1 |
A thousand miles away, but just round the corner in spirit
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Who's aware of events in Mali yesterday and today?? And what does our French-born Malian footballer who plays for Reading F.C. as a winger think about it? Jimmy Kébé of course ... (Reuters) - Renegade soldiers said they seized power in Mali on Thursday and ordered its borders closed, threatening to reignite instability in a Saharan region shaken by the conflict in Libya. The overnight coup bid was led by low-ranking soldiers angry at the government's failure to stamp out a two-month-old separatist rebellion in the north of the west African state. Heavy weapons fire rang out throughout the night as the presidential palace came under attack. The whereabouts of President Amadou Toumani Toure, who oversaw a decade of relative stability, are unknown. Mali's neighbors, the United Nations and world powers from Paris to Washington called for a return to constitutional rule. The 7,000-strong army has for weeks sought better weapons to fight northern Tuareg rebels bolstered by heavily armed ethnic allies who fled Libya after fighting for ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi. Members of the newly formed National Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of the State (CNRDR) read a statement on state television saying they had taken over. "The CNRDR ... has decided to assume its responsibilities by putting an end to the incompetent regime of Amadou Toumani Toure," said Lieutenant Amadou Konare, spokesman for the CNRDR. "We promise to hand power back to a democratically elected president as soon as the country is reunified and its integrity is no longer threatened," said Konare, flanked by about two dozen soldiers, in a statement marred by sound problems. Government and military sources told Reuters the mutineers entered the presidential palace overnight after it was vacated by Toure and his entourage. A loyalist military source and two diplomats told Reuters they believed Toure was sheltering in a military camp run by soldiers still loyal to him. The 63-year-old was due to stand down at an election set for April. The CNRDR declared all land and air borders shut and a subsequent statement by Captain Amadou Sanogo - described as president of the CNRDR - called for an immediate curfew that was widely flouted in the capital Bamako. Little is known about Sanogo except that he is an instructor at a military college. While no deaths were reported, an official at the Gabriel Toure hospital in central Bamako said around 20 people had been admitted with bullet wounds, with some in a serious condition. Locals complained of soldiers pillaging gas stations for fuel. "They came, they starting shooting live bullets to make people leave so they can refill their tanks with unleaded and diesel. There, look, the concrete proof," said airport worker Ibrahima Konte, pointing to bullet wounds in his hand. The northern rebels vowed to exploit the confusion in the capital to make new advances in its bid to carve out a desert homeland twice the size of France. "The situation (in Bamako) will allow us to take advantage of the chaos to gain more ground," Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, a Paris-based spokesman for the MNLA rebellion said by telephone. Asked when they would seek to advance on key northern towns such as Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao, he said: "I don't think it will be long. We are preparing this." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for calm and 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". French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in a statement that Paris was suspending some security cooperation with Mali while the United States called on the army to place itself under civilian rule. France and the United States have encouraged efforts by regional governments to combat local al Qaeda agents who have carried out a spate of kidnappings of Westerners. Investor nerves over Mali's gold sector - a key export earner for the country - sent shares in London-listed miner Randgold Resources down 15 percent, despite a company statement that its operations there were not affected. Heavy weapons and tracer fire rang out in Bamako through the night. As day broke, a Reuters correspondent saw soldiers still shooting in the air on the streets of Bamako where, despite the curfew, there were a number of motorists and motorcyclists. "The people are with the (mutinous) soldiers," said one Bamako resident, Adama Tiarra. "We want a government that can sort things out." Others, however, said they were firmly against the attempt to unseat Toure's government. In a sign of the breadth of the army mutiny, two military sources in the northern town of Gao confirmed the arrests of several senior officers in the town, a regional operations centre for the military. A military source said an initial trigger for the mutiny was a visit on Wednesday by the defence minister to a barracks in the town of Kati about 20 km (13 miles) north of Bamako. "The minister went to speak to troops but the talks went badly," the source said. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/22/us-mali-army-idUSBRE82L09C20120322 and .. Already in Wiki! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Mali_coup_d'%C3%A9tat_attempt Edited by daib0, 22 Mar 2012, 08:42 PM.
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Royals Rendezvous - a friendly Reading forum // twitter: @johnstone_cello | |
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| Pea | 3 Apr 2012, 11:17 AM Post #2 |
Joseph/Joe
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Has anyone (David?) been following the events in Mali recently. A new rebel group formed after a number of Tuareg rebel groups were unsuccessful in campaigns for independence from the South in the past. The military overthrew the government in protest of lack of equipment and failure to tackle rebels, al-qaeda and organised crime. The Tuareg rebels seized the opportunity in the uncertainty to start taking control of small towns in the North and then seized several of the bigger towns before taking Timbuktu yesterday to have completely removed the military/interim government presence from the North. Good article on the BBC about how the Libya crisis had a knock-on effect after Tuareg mreturned from fighting in Libya for the Gaddaffi regime with a lot of looted weaponry which has put them in a better position to fight for independence than ever before: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17481114 It did not take long for the Libyan conflict to spill over borders in the Sahel region - and now Mali seems to have paid the highest price so far following a coup by disgruntled soldiers. The trouble began when hundreds of Malian combatants who had fought to defend the late Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, fled back home with weapons at the end of last year and formed the most powerful Tuareg-led rebel group the region has known - the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA). Mali's Tuaregs have long complained that they have been marginalised by the southern government and have staged several rebellions over the years. Joined by young recruits and former rebels who had been integrated into the Malian army in recent years, the MNLA fighters took over several key northern towns in just two months. Not only did they secure a large stretch of territory in the mountainous desert but they also triggered the mutiny, which later turned into a coup, in the capital, Bamako, on Wednesday night. While the Malian government had been busy claiming the situation in the north was under control, rank-and-file soldiers felt humiliated and abandoned in combat with not enough military resources and food. "The Libyan crisis didn't cause this coup but certainly revealed the malaise felt within the army," says Malian newspaper columnist Adam Thiam. "President Amadou Toumani Toure hasn't been active in tackling drug trafficking and al-Qaeda fighters, and the emergence of new rebel movements only added to the soldiers' frustration." Might we see a new country of Azawad in the near future? |
| Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur | |
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| loyalroyal99 | 3 Apr 2012, 11:46 AM Post #3 |
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The Jason Roberts stare...
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You know they've named themselves Timbuktu or something like that |
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| Pea | 3 Apr 2012, 11:54 AM Post #4 |
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Joseph/Joe
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They've named themselves the Azawad National Liberation Movement. Timbuktu is a town in the mid-North of the country that they seized yesterday. Not directly relevant but an interesting blog on the BBC site as well about why everyone knows of Timbuktu despite it being a rather isolated, globally unimportant town in Western Africa: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17583772 |
| Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur | |
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| daib0 | 3 Apr 2012, 11:58 AM Post #5 |
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A thousand miles away, but just round the corner in spirit
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Yep, I didn't know much about it, but did find this info a while back and put up a thread which didn't get too far - http://royalsrendezvous.co.uk/topic/9465470/1 Probably best to merge threads if you don't mind?!  But won't do so unless pemission given! 
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Royals Rendezvous - a friendly Reading forum // twitter: @johnstone_cello | |
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| Pea | 3 Apr 2012, 01:05 PM Post #6 |
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Joseph/Joe
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Thanks David, hadn't realised. Do you still check on the site you were getting Libya updates from? |
| Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur | |
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| daib0 | 3 Apr 2012, 01:13 PM Post #7 |
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A thousand miles away, but just round the corner in spirit
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cheers, and no the truth is I hardly go on Al Jazeera nowadays. As others have warned of danger long before I saw it, it's all got depressing with the lack of law and order. So many guns from the late Gadaffi days that many big towns STILL have no-go areas 
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Royals Rendezvous - a friendly Reading forum // twitter: @johnstone_cello | |
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| Hayes | 3 Apr 2012, 03:26 PM Post #8 |
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In fact,we helped create a disaster,at the end of the day ,like Egypt ,Libya extremist will be in power,people who hate the west more then the previous regimes.Like minded people did warn us ,but we went ahead anyway,now we have a situation where they are smashing up our war graves. |
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| SuffolkRoyal | 3 Apr 2012, 05:42 PM Post #9 |
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Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, North Korea, The Falklands and now Mali (which I haven't got a clue where it is). I wish I had the will to keep up with all these world hotspots but, the honest truth is, I couldn't care less! It might sound callous but we've got enough problems in this country to worry about! |
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| loyalroyal99 | 3 Apr 2012, 05:58 PM Post #10 |
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The Jason Roberts stare...
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Ah silly me I misread that! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17583772 If you're interested |
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3:34 AM Jun 20