A Malian soldier at the entrance of a G5 Sahel building in Sévaré (Mali), May 30, 2018. SEBASTIEN RIEUSSEC / AFP
Mali is becoming a little more isolated. Bamako announced on Sunday May 15 his withdrawal from the G5 Sahel and its anti-jihadist force to protest the refusal to take over the presidency of this regional organization made up of Mauritania, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger consists. “The Government of Mali decides to withdraw from all organs and bodies of the G5 Sahel, including the Joint Force,” the statement said. The G5 Sahel was formed in 2014 and its anti-jihad force launched in 2017.
Since January 9, Mali has been the subject of economic and diplomatic sanctions from West African states accusing the junta of wanting to stay in power for several more years after two coups in August 2020 and then in May 2021.
This new decision comes after the junta announced in early May the end of the 2014 cooperation treaty with France, as well as the 2013 and 2020 agreements that provide the legal framework for the presence of the anti-jihadist force Barkhane and the French-initiated grouping of European Special Forces Takuba.
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At the origin of Bamako’s anger against the G5 Sahel: the conference of the heads of state of the organization initially scheduled for February in Bamako, which was to “inaugurate the start of the Malian presidency of the G5”. But “almost a quarter after the specified deadline”, this meeting “still has not taken place,” according to the press release from the Malian authorities.
The Malian government “strongly rejects the argument of a G5 Sahel member state, which is driving the national domestic situation, to oppose Mali’s exercise of the G5 Sahel presidency,” without citing that state. “The opposition of certain G5 Sahel countries to the Mali presidency is linked to the maneuvers of a supra-regional state desperately aiming to isolate Mali,” the press release said, without naming that state.
Relations between Mali and European countries, starting with France, have deteriorated significantly in recent months. France and its allies have accused the junta of having secured the services of the private Russian security company Wagner through controversial actions, which Bamako denies.
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concern of the United Nations
Bilateral relations with the G5 Sahel countries “remain intact,” Mali’s Minister for Territorial Administration, Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, said on Malian public television on Sunday evening.
The five countries of the G5 Sahel founded this organization in 2014 and then launched their armed forces in 2017, while the noose of jihadists with under-equipped armies tightened around these states. The G5 Sahel consisted of around 5,000 soldiers. The coups in Mali and Burkina Faso are undermining their operational capability, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently assessed in a May 11 report submitted to the Security Council.
“I am deeply concerned by the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the Sahel and the potentially adverse impact that the uncertain political situation in Mali, Burkina Faso and beyond will have on efforts to make the G5 joint Sahel forces more operational .” he said in this document.
Since 2012, Mali has been the scene of operations by jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization, as well as violence of all kinds by self-proclaimed self-defense militias and bandits.
This violence, which began in the north in 2012, spread to the center and then to neighboring countries Burkina Faso and Niger. They caused thousands of civilians and military and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, despite the deployment of UN, French and African forces.
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