The West Africa bloc ECOWAS on Tuesday condemned a military putsch in Mali and pledged a range of retaliatory actions, including financial sanctions.
Rebel soldiers arrested Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse on Tuesday afternoon following weeks of political tension in the country.
The dramatic move followed the seizure of an army base near the capital Bamako that morning.
In a statement, the Economic Community for West African States said that its members would close land and air borders to Mali and pledged to demand sanctions against “all the putschists and their partners and collaborators”.
The 15-nation bloc — which includes Mali — also said that it would suspend the country from its internal decision-making bodies.
“ECOWAS has noted with great concern the seizure of power by Malian military putschists,” said the statement, which was originally published in French.
Mali has been in the grip of a deep political impasse since June, with President Keita facing increasingly strident demands for his resignation.
The opposition June 5 Movement, named for the date of its first protest, has been channelling deep anger over a dire economy, perceived government corruption and a brutal jihadist conflict.
The opposition alliance’s anti-Keita campaign veered into crisis last month when at least 11 people were killed over three days of unrest that followed a protest.
In an effort to avoid chaos in notoriously unstable Mali, ECOWAS then stepped in to mediate.
The bloc suggested the formation of a unity government and other measures late last month, but stuck by Keita.
But the June 5 Movement has repeatedly spurned compromise proposals, and has continued to demand Keita’s departure.
The political opposition declared a new phase of anti-government rallies on Monday.
Keita has however resigned some hours after ECOWAS threat. According to Mali’s president, he was resigning to avoid “bloodshed” early Wednesday, hours after his arrest by troops in a sudden coup that followed a months-long political crisis in the fragile West African nation.
Rebel soldiers detained Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse on Tuesday afternoon and drove the pair to a military base in the town of Kati, near the capital Bamako, which they had seized that morning.
Jubilant crowds in the city centre, gathered to demand Keita’s resignation, had cheered the rebels as they made their way to the 75-year-old’s official residence.
Keita appeared calm as he appeared in a state television broadcast after midnight to declare the dissolution of the government and national assembly, and said he had no choice but to resign with immediate effect.
“If it pleased certain elements of our military to decide this should end with their intervention, do I really have a choice?” he said of the day’s events.
“(I must) submit to it, because I don’t want any bloodshed.”
[AFP]
