United Nations experts have accused senior army and intelligence officials in Mali of deliberately obstructing a shaky 2015 peace accord, originally designed to reduce violence in the war-torn West African country. The revelations appear in an expert report delivered to the UN Security Council on August 7, which AFP has obtained, and which come during a festering political crisis in the Sahel state. […]
Brokered in Algiers in 2015 between several armed groups and Mali’s government, the deal provided for rebels joining the national army again, among other measures. Its implementation has dragged on for years, however, despite international pressure for it to be fully applied. The report pointed to “mistrust, burden and confusion” caused by the discrepancy between the government’s statements and actions.
Schwere Vorwürfe werden gegen den ehemaigen Armeechef Keba Sangare erhoben. Der Report spricht von geplanten Irrtümern und Verzögerungstaktiken. Diese betreffen nicht nur die Sabotage des Algier-Abkommens, sondern auch das Geschehenlassen von Massakern an der Zivielbevölkerung.
Sangare went on to be sacked for his failure to stop a massacre in the Fulani village of Ogossagou in central Mali on February 14. That village had already been targeted in March 2019, when 160 people were killed in a suspected ethnically-motived attack. Malian troops were deployed to the village after the first massacre. But in a fateful move, they left the area hours before the February attack. A replacment unit failed to reach the village before some 35 defenceless residents had been killed.
Sangare, central Mali’s military commander, had been “called numerous times and received messages informing him of the threat,” the report said. He had also given “a false assurance to his hierarchy” that troops would not depart the village before replacements had arrived.
Darüber hinaus wird auch der malische Geheimdienst in Bezug auf das Algier-Abkommen bezeichnet als “institutional vector” of an “unofficial strategy aimed at obstructing through prolonged delay the implementation of the agreement”.
The North African Journal, 14.08.20