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Mali: ECOWAS warns junta – may re-impose sanctions
Sanogo’s National Committee for the Reestablishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State has yet to be dissolved. Sanogo still announces important decisions and forces loyal to him have carried out numerous arrests.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland issued a stinging rebuke last week, describing Sanogo’s role as “interference.”
“The United States is deeply concerned about the deteriorating political situation in Mali,” Nuland said. “We call on the junta leader Sanogo to step aside and allow for the return of full civilian rule. The junta’s continued interference in the government has undermined democracy in Mali … We hold the junta directly responsible for the increasing suffering of the Malian people. The military needs to stand aside completely.”
Sanogo hinted Monday that he might be willing to return his soldiers completely to their barracks.
“We are doing this with the best interests of the nation in mind, which we have always strongly advocated for, and even if it means the end of our own existence,” Sanogo said.
Monday’s ECOWAS statement referred to the fact that the north of Mali is currently under the control of Tuareg rebel forces and Islamist groups which took advantage of the coup in the capital to launch a major military offensive. The group condemned what it described as Sanogo’s “persistent refusal … to concentrate their efforts on the recovery of the territorial integrity of the nation and their continued interference with the transition, in particular the attempts to sideline the transitional government.”
Once a model of democratic stability, Mali’s political order was upended in March’s mutiny at the Kati military barracks. The mutineers led by Sanogo initially only wanted to express their grievances, but after easily taking over the presidential palace, they realized there was no one standing in the way of a power grab.
