Rebel soldiers announced early today that they have seized control of Mali after a palace attack, the Associated Press reported. The whereabouts of the President, Amadou Toumani Toure, were unknown at press time.
The
soldiers, in a brief statement read on national television, said they
seized power in protest at the government’s failure to quell a nomad-led
rebellion in the north of the country that have claimed many lives and
left hundreds of thousands homeless in recent months. The coup has been
fronted by soldiers of the rank of captain or lower, Reuters said.
It
was learnt that the army has for weeks appealed to the government for
better weapons to fight the northern Tuareg rebels, now bolstered by
heavily-armed ethnic allies who fought on Gaddafi’s side last year but
have returned to Mali.
On national television, a group of around
20 soldiers in military fatigues were shown crowding around a desk,
facing the camera. They announced that the country is under the control
of the military’s National Committee for the Reestablishment of
Democracy and the Restoration of the State, or CNRDR. They said they
were suspending Mali’s constitution and dissolving its institutions, AP
said.
“The CNRDR representing all the elements of the armed
forces, defensive forces and security forces has decided to assume its
responsibilities and end the incompetent and disavowed regime of Amadou
Toumani Toure,” they said, reading from a statement.
“The
objective of the CNRDR does not in any way aim to confiscate power, and
we solemnly swear to return power to a democratically elected president
as soon as national unity and territorial integrity are established.”
The
coup is a major setback for one of the region’s few established
democracies. It came one month before Mali’s presidential election.
Toure, 63, was due to step down after those elections.
Gunfire
could be heard from the direction of the presidential palace early
today, the Associated Press reported. A soldier at the palace said that
the president’s bodyguards had failed to fight the renegade soldiers,
who forced their way in. They searched the grounds but could not find
Toure, whose whereabouts are unknown, AP said.
The events that
culminated in the coup began yesterday morning at a military camp in the
capital, where Defence Minister Gen. Sadio Gassama came for an official
visit. In his speech to the troops, the minister failed to address the
grievances of the rank-and-file soldiers. The rebellion has claimed the
lives of numerous soldiers, and those sent to fight say they are not
given sufficient supplies, including arms or food.
Recruits
started firing into the air yesterday morning. By afternoon, troops had
surrounded the state television station in central Bamako, located in
southwest Mali, yanking both the television and radio signals off the
air for the rest of the day. By yesterday evening, troops had started
rioting at a military garrison located in the northern town of Gao, some
2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away.
A freelance journalist from
Sweden who was driving to her hotel near the TV station around 4 p.m.
yesterday said that trucks full of soldiers had surrounded the state
broadcaster, AP reported.
“They came and started setting up
checkpoints. There were military in the streets, stopping people,” said
Katarina Hoije. “When we reached our hotel which is just in front of the
TV station, there were lots of military outside, and more cars kept
arriving – pickup trucks with soldiers on them.”
President Touré
had promised to step down in advance of elections set for April 29. The
Malian leader is a former soldier who overthrew the then
president-for-life, Moussa Traore, in 1991 before handing power back to
civilians. He came to office in elections in 2002 and was returned to
office in 2007, the New York Times reported.
Meanwhile, the West
Africa regional bloc ECOWAS has condemned actions by renegade Mali
soldiers who claimed they had seized power from an “incompetent regime.
“ECOWAS
strongly condemns the misguided actions of the mutineers and warns that
it will not condone any recourse to violence as a means of seeking
redress,” said a statement by the Economic Community of West African
States bloc.
What began as a mutiny over the government’s response
to the rekindled Tuareg insurrection in the north on Wednesday
afternoon turned into a full-blown coup as soldiers seized control of
the presidential palace and the government broadcaster.
Putschists,
calling themselves the National Committee for the Establishment of
Democracy, went on television early Thursday to announce they had taken
over power in the west African country.
ECOWAS said it had followed with “dismay and mounting concern” events in Bamako, the capital of its member state Mali. It
said the action by the military was “all the more reprehensible” coming
amid regional and international peace efforts to end the Tuareg-led
rebellion in the north of the country.
The European Union also
called Thursday for constitutional rule to return to Mali “as soon as
possible” after mutinous soldiers claimed to have seized power in a
coup.
“We condemn the military takeover of power and the
suspension of the constitution. Constitutional rule should be restored
as soon as possible,” said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy
chief Catherine Ashton.
“The safety and liberty of the people of Mali must be preserved in all circumstances,” he said in a statement. Renegade
soldiers claimed Thursday they had seized power from an “incompetent
regime,” announcing on television they had suspended the constitution
and dissolved state institutions.
The putschists, calling
themselves the National Committee for the Establishment of Democracy,
said they had acted due to government’s “inability” to handle a
Tuareg-led insurrection in the north of the country.
The group’s
spokesman, identified on-screen as Lieutenant Amadou Konare said the
takeover was a result of a “lack of adequate material to defend the
nation” as well as government’s inability to combat terrorism. Claiming
to represent the nation’s defence forces, Konare said the junta
“solemnly commits to restore power to a democratically-elected president
as soon as national unity and territorial integrity are
re-established.”
Mali was to hold the first round of a presidential election on April 29. In
Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said:
“The situation is currently unclear and unfolding quickly … There are
reports of military forces surrounding the presidential palace and
movement of vehicles between the palace and the military barracks.”
U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for calm and for grievances to be
settled democratically in a statement hours before the soldiers said
they had seized power. The commission of the African Union said it
was “deeply concerned by the reprehensible acts currently being
perpetrated by some elements of the Malian army”.
France called
for elections “as soon as possible” in its former colony of Mali early
today after mutinous troops were reported to have overturned the
government, chased the president from his hilltop palace, imposed a
curfew and suspended the constitution, the New York Times reported.
The
French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, told Europe 1 radio that France
condemns the mutineers’ actions and “demands the re-establishment of
constitutional order, and elections, which were scheduled for April,
must take place as soon as possible.”
Algeria voiced deep concern
Thursday over the military coup in neighbouring Mali and firmly
condemned the seizure of power by a group of renegade soldiers.
“Algeria
is monitoring the situation in Mali with great concern,” foreign
ministry spokesman Amar Belani told the APS news agency.
