Mali junta to stand down under deal with W. African bloc

BAMAKO—Hopes were raised in Mali on Saturday after the military junta agreed to give up power under a deal with West African bloc ECOWAS in return for amnesty and a lifting of sanctions.

The agreement late Friday boosted prospects that the country’s de facto partition can be reversed, after Tuareg rebels and Islamist fighters took control of the north in the wake of last month’s coup.

The deal sets out a path for a return to constitutional rule and elections following the March 22 ouster of President Amadou Toumani Toure, a power grab that sparked African and global condemnation.

The new interim president would be Dioncounda Traore, the parliament speaker, ruling with a transitional government until elections are held.

Traore was on his way back to Bamako Saturday afternoon on a charter flight from Ouagadougou in neighboring Burkina Faso.

Aides said he would now consult with mediator Djibril Bassole, Burkina Faso’s foreign minister, and coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo, as well as members of civil society, “to bring peace to Mali”.

No date has been set for his inauguration, but an aide said “this will happen very shortly”.

France, the former colonial ruler, urged all sides “to put in place the provisions of the accord without delay, especially those aimed at allowing presidential elections in the best possible timeframe”.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said relations would be restored once “the constitutional authorities are installed”, adding that this “should create the conditions for finding a political solution in the north”.

The deal—to be supervised by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the international community—came after Tuareg rebels unilaterally declared independence in the north on Friday.

Their rebellion has been fuelled by a flood of weapons—and the return of hardened fighters—from Libya following Moamer Kadhafi’s downfall.

The declaration of a breakaway state by the Tuaregs’ secular National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) was immediately rejected by the United States, European Union and African states.

The African Union dismissed it as “null and of no value whatsoever”, while the EU and US called for respect for Mali’s “territorial integrity”.

Radical Islamist group Ansar Dine—which has exploited the chaos to swoop in and install sharia law in parts of the north—fought alongside the MNLA, but gave short shrift to their independence plans.

“Our war is a holy war,” Ansar Dine military chief Omar Hamaha said. “It’s a legal war in the name of Islam. We are against rebellions. We are against independence. We are against revolutions, not in the name of Islam.”

The ECOWAS deal raised hopes among Mali citizens.

Ahmed Elkori, a resident of Timbuktu, the fabled desert city recently overrun by rebels, told AFP: “We hope this will lead to a solution to the crisis which people in the north are going through.”

ECOWAS chief Alassane Ouattara said sanctions should now be lifted, said Bassole.

On April 2 ECOWAS clamped a total embargo on Mali, a country of 15 million people, closing all borders except for humanitarian aid, denying access to ECOWAS ports, and freezing Malian bank accounts.

Bassole also said President Toure, who has not been seen since the coup, should be able to live where he wants under army protection.

The accord states that the interim president would have “a mission to organize a presidential election in the constitutional timeframe of 40 days”.

Given the “exceptional circumstances”, this may be delayed, and there would be a political transition until an election could be held, it said.

Algeria meanwhile said it had no news of its seven diplomats kidnapped, reportedly by Ansar Dine, in the northern city of Gao after its fall a week ago. Their families were repatriated in good health on Friday.

Amnesty International has warned that northern Mali—where 200,000 people have been displaced by the fighting since mid-January—was on the brink of a “major humanitarian disaster”.

The three northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu had suffered looting, abductions and chaos since they were occupied late last week.

“All the food and medicine stored by major aid agencies has been looted and most of the aid workers have fled,” said Gaetan Mootoo, Amnesty International’s researcher on West Africa.

“The population is at imminent risk of severe food and medical shortages that could lead to many casualties, especially among women and children who are less able to fend for themselves.”

In another development, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, and several other Islamists arrived in Gao overnight, sources told AFP.

“They did not hide their identity,” said a witness, the son of the imam of a Gao mosque. “They said they would do everything to foster agreements between Muslims in northern Mali.”

A Malian security official said Belmokhtar and his group also went to the Algerian consulate, but did not elaborate.