“Who destroyed Libya to spread weapons everywhere, bring mercenaries, divide Mali in half?
It is not we who are saying this, but French officials who have said that Mali must be divided. I have names. Everything is documented,” said the Malian Prime Minister, ChoguelKokallaMaiga, during an interview with the Malian channel ORTM 1.
It should also be noted that Bamako had previously accused France of being at the origin of the sanctions of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) against Mali.
During this interview, the Minister recalled that terrorism has left the far north of Mali to deploy in 80% of the country.
In fact, Mali had requested, through ECOWAS and the African Union, the creation of an international force, called the MISMA (African-led International Support Mission to Mali). The MISMA, which included soldiers from 14 African countries, was established in January 2013, authorized by a UN Security Council resolution. As soon as it was created, French diplomats began to denigrate the MISMA.
He returned to the ECOWAS summit in Dakar in 2012 when the Malian “crisis” had begun. “As if by chance, the French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe had come to this summit. And when the ECOWAS had decided on a waiting force of 3,000 men to liberate Mali (from terrorist groups), Mr Juppe had said “no, 3,000 men was too much compared to 500 irredentist fighters,” he stressed.
Regarding the division of Mali, the minister said: “officials of former rebel movements who clearly say that it was France who told them: “we will divide Mali and give you independence”. They later understood that France wanted to use them to weaken the Malian state and do what it wants”.
ChoguelKokallaMaiga argued that when the French military operation “Serval” was launched on January 11, 2013, the French president had mentioned three objectives: “to destroy terrorism, to help restore the integrity of Malian territory and to implement United Nations resolutions”. “Nine years later, terrorism has left the far north of Mali to spread to 80% of the country. The integrity of the territory has not been restored, and the UN resolutions change every year to the point that this year we opposed one of them. Do you even draw the conclusion,” he insisted.
For ChoguelKokallaMaiga, the ECOWAS sanctions are influenced by extra-African positions. “We’re having a bad war. If we remove foreign influences, which have other agendas, we, Africans, can understand each other. The destiny of Africa is at stake in Mali. We are not a people that can be vassalized, that can be made a slave by proxy. There is a process of subservience of the Malian state through the ECOWAS,” he accused.
“We want that at the end of the transition we will have a rehabilitated country and a stable state. The new officials will have a country to govern, not fires to put out. We must give ourselves time to organize a responsible transition,” he cuncluded.
