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Mali: ECOWAS issues ultimatum to Junta – threatens sanctions
The junior officer who grabbed power in a coup last week said Friday he plans to hold free elections and rapidly return Mali to its established order, falling short of demands by West African countries to hand power back to civilians in the next few days.
Mali’s neighbors late Thursday gave the captain a 72-hour deadline to hand power back to civilians, or else face the closing of borders with landlocked Mali and the freezing of the country’s account with the regional central bank. If they go into effect, the measures will be among the toughest imposed on a state in West Africa.
Coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo told reporters Friday that he “understands” the position of the regional body, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). However, he said that he invites ECOWAS “to deepen their analysis of the situation in Mali. We ask them to analyze the reasons that led to this coup.”
Sanogo grabbed power on March 21 after a mutiny at the military camp where he is based. The mutiny was sparked over the poor provisioning of soldiers sent to fight a nascent rebellion in the country’s north. Troops have been sent without enough equipment, and the junta claims that many were killed by the Tuareg separatists after running out of ammunition.
Sanogo asked the regional body to support him, saying the junta seized control of the country with the plan of “holding a rapid process of normalization, organizing free and transparent elections and a rapid restoration of the state.” He gave no timeline.
In downtown Bamako, lines 50-people deep formed on Friday outside commercial banks. In the Niarela neighborhood, the branch of Ecobank told patrons they could not take out more than 500,000 francs (approximately US$1,000).
Ibrahima Kante, an economist, was one of the people lined up outside the branch hoping to take out his savings to weather the coming sanctions.
