WEST African leaders, meeting in a regional summit Sunday, suspended Mali from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) bodies after a second coup by the Malian military.
“The suspension from ECOWAS takes immediate effect until the deadline of the end of February 2022 when they are supposed to hand over to a democratically elected government,” Ghana’s Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey told reporters.
“One of the decisions of the heads of state is that they should ensure that in the next few days a civilian prime minister is put in place to form the next government,” she added.
After the takeover, the military agreed to appoint civilians as interim president and prime minister under pressure from ECOWAS.
But on Monday, soldiers detained transitional president Bah Ndaw and prime minister Moctar Ouane, releasing them on Thursday while saying that they had resigned.
The twin arrests triggered a diplomatic uproar and marked Mali’s second apparent coup within a year.
Mali’s constitutional court completed Goita’s rise to full power on Friday by naming him transitional president.
With the junta going back on its previous commitment to civilian political leaders, doubts have been raised about its other pledges, including a promise to hold elections in early 2022.
The junta said this week it would continue to respect that timetable, but added that it could be subject to change.
Five dead in fresh attack
Mali’s presidency said on its Facebook page that Goita would hold one-on-one talks with Akufo-Addo in Accra “as well as bilateral meetings with partners and friends of Mali”.
ECOWAS issued sanctions against Mali after the August coup before lifting them when the transitional government was put in place.
The 15-nation bloc has warned of reimposing sanctions on the country, as have the United States and former colonial power France.
French leader Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper published Sunday that Paris “could not stay by the side of a country where there is no longer democratic legitimacy or a transition”.
And he warned that France would pull its troops out of Mali if the country lurches towards radical Islamism under Goita’s leadership.
France has around 5,100 troops in the region under its anti-jihadist operation Barkhane, which spans five countries in the Sahel — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
Four civilians and a police officer were killed Sunday by suspected jihadists in southern Mali, a region that has previously been mostly spared from the country’s Islamist unrest, a security official said on condition of anonymity.
The unidentified men attacked a checkpoint near the town of Bougouni, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Mali’s borders with Ivory Coast and Guinea between 3:30 am (0330 GMT) and 4:00 am, the official said. A local lawmaker confirmed the attack.
Mali is among the world’s poorest countries, and the previous ECOWAS sanctions hit hard.
- (AFP)
