CIAO DATE: 08/2012
July 2012
Mali: Avoiding Escalation, the latest report by the International Crisis Group, urges Mali's main actors, regional organisations and the international community to seek a political rather than military solution to its woes. Although French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius did not rule out a "military option" during his visit to Algiers last Sunday, an armed intervention in the current political and security conditions would do more harm than good. It is urgent to restore state political, institutional and security foundations prior to working toward the north's reintegration into the republic. “Armed and unarmed actors in the north and south must engage in negotiations to achieve a political solution to the crisis”, says Gilles Yabi, Crisis Group's West Africa Project Director. “The relations between the centre of power in Bamako and the periphery must be improved through radical rethinking of governance of the north, which has rested in the last few years on loose networks of patronage and personal alliances”. Mali was plunged into chaos after a Tuareg rebellion in the north, buoyed by the crisis in Libya, prompted rank-and-file army officers to lead a coup against President Amadou Toumani Touré on 22 March. In spite of ECOWAS's (Economic Community of West African States) mediation efforts, the transitional institutions' lack of credibility and junta leader Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo's refusal to stay on the sidelines hinder progress. Interim President Dioncounda Traoré is still in Paris, recovering from an attack against him by coup supporters on 21 May, and the government of Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra does not represent Mali's political and social diversity.
Resource link: Mali : éviter l'escalade [PDF] - 509