Malian Troops

"LandepNews"

Malian Troops

The Malian rebels on Saturday entered the northern town of Gao, capitalizing on the chaos installed in the country after the coup that ousted former president Amadou Teumani Toure and replaced him with a military junta who promised to intensify the fight with the northern Tuareg rebels.

The move comes after the Tuareg entered the town of Kidal on Friday and the historic trading city of Timbuktu. On Friday the people said that the Tuareg entered the city without any opposition from the military troops, which were completely overwhelmed by the force of the rebels.

The Tuareg were associated with some Islamist radical movement that was fighting the government as well, and are said to have been reinforced by the people who came to the country after the showdown in Libya last year, where many Tuareg fought on the side of the deposed and killed president Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Tuareg have separatist goals, desiring to establish a Tuareg state in the north of Mali and in Niger, while the Islamists want to install shariah law on the Malian territory.

The former president Toure was associated with the idea of stability of the country and with the development of democracy, but was also accused of turning a blind eye on corruption and having offered a very weak response to the Tuareg rebellion.

The new junta installed after the deposing of the president announced on Saturday, after the meeting with the president of Burkina Faso that they are confident that the situation would be resolved.

Captain Amadou Sanogo, the leader of the junta, has traveled to Burkina Faso, where he spoke to the president, who, at the end of discussions said that solutions would be found in the briefest period possible to restore the institutions of the state in a way that would be acceptable to the world.

Burkina Faso President Blaise Campaore, himself former putschist turned democratic leader, is one of the regional leaders actively involved in the solution of the Malian crisis.

Malian junta is under a 72-hour deadline from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to vacate the office and restore the democratic and constitutional order.

ECOWAS demanded that the junta step down and reinstate president Toure, threatening that failing to do that within 72 hours would trigger an economic embargo, which is expected to bring the Malian frail economy down its knees in weeks.

ECOWAS has also promised that, if necessary, they would remove the junta by military means. ECOWAS suspended Mali from its ranks earlier this week, a move following the suspension by the African Union, which was made public last week.

The United States and the European Union have decided to stop the financial aid of Mali, which is a very important move considering that Mali is depending on it for its economy to survive.

On Tuesday the junta has proclaimed a new constitution, instituting a committee to lead the country until new elections. The committee will be composed of 25 military members and 16 civilians and its members will not be allowed to run in the next elections. The constitution is also upholding many of the freedoms the old constitution was granting.

The leader of rotating presidency of ECOWAS, Ivorian Alassane Ouattara, said that Sanogo must understand that the time for coups in Africa has passed and that the constitutional order in Mali must be restored immediately, otherwise the two decades of democracy would have been lost for nothing.

Alassane Ouattara was in the position of needing international help as the former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down and leave after he was defeated by Ouattara in the presidential runoff in December 2010.

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