2023-06-29 20:00:12
Minusma police officers patrol Timbuktu in December 2021. FLORENT VERGNES / AFP
The Malian junta has not said its last word. After claiming the “withdrawal without delay” from the United Nations Mission in Mali (Minusma) to the UN Security Council on June 16, the Malian soldiers, who came to power by two coups in August 2020 and May 2021, this week engaged an arm of iron with UN diplomacy.
According to several diplomatic sources, on Tuesday June 27, Bamako opposed the draft UN resolution which provided for the departure by the end of 2023 of blue helmets, deployed in Mali for ten years to restore the authority of the state and protect civilians. The vote on the resolution, initially scheduled for June 29, has been postponed to Friday, June 30 to give the parties more time to find a compromise.
Read also: Mali demands the “immediate” departure of the UN mission
This draft text consulted by The world provided for the departure by the end of the year of some 15,000 soldiers, police and civilians deployed on the twelve UN bases in Mali, mainly located in the north and center, where jihadist conflicts continue to intensify since the beginning of the war in 2012. This text also allowed Minusma to retain limited civilian protection capabilities until its withdrawal and implied that the total liquidation of the mission as well as the transfer of certain of its skills to the UN agencies present in the country could not be completed by the end of this year.
“It takes at least eighteen months to record the complete withdrawal of such an important mission warns a UN source in New York. According to this, the Malian junta, which is supposed to return power to civilians after elections in February 2024 and which has made the defense of Malian sovereignty its mantra, has “tried to shorten the duration of the withdrawal”.
Behind the Malian insistence, Russia
“Tuesday, the Malians came out of the woodwork to demand a withdrawal of the Minusma in three months. It’s totally unrealisticsays a Western diplomat stationed in Bamako. They seek to complicate the withdrawal of the mission, to compel it to leave as much equipment as possible behind and to show the people that they can defy the United Nations. »
But, as a source familiar with the negotiations in New York points out, most members of the Security Council have not “no desire to leave material to the junta given the way it fired the Minusma. Even less so that this military equipment ends up in the hands of Wagner”. The mercenaries of the Russian private paramilitary group, some 1,600 men according to our sources, have been deployed in the country since the end of 2021.
Read also: Rahmane Idrissa: “The UN mission in Mali had become impossible”
According to several UN sources, behind the Malian insistence that the withdrawal of Minusma take place in three months hides Russia. Even before Mali made this demand, Moscow “heavily insisted that an operating budget of only three months be voted for the mission” then has “threatened to freeze the entire budget for peacekeeping operations” of the UN – which must be approved by its general assembly by Friday evening, if this request is not met.
While the junta led by Assimi Goïta continues to break with its Western partners in favor of a rapprochement with Russia, Bamako’s mistrust vis-à-vis the UN constitutes an additional stage in this divorce. In 2022, the Malian authorities had already requested a departure ” without delay “ of international forces, this time targeting the French anti-terrorist operation “Barkhane”. The Malian authorities have accused her, like the blue helmets today, of having failed to improve security in the country. Six months after the Malian ultimatum, in August, the approximately 2,400 French soldiers who were then deployed on the territory had ended up packing up, without incident.
The UN report on the Moura massacre
Therefore, the divorce with the Minusma seemed difficult to avoid. In recent months, Mali has indeed multiplied acts of defiance against the UN mission. The movement capabilities of its blue helmets were hampered, its spokesperson and then its director of the human rights division were expelled from the country. On June 1, a judicial inquiry for “espionage, undermining the external security of the state and military conspiracy” was also opened against UN investigators and their “accomplices” who participated in the UN report on the massacre of Moura, a village in which at least 500 people were killed by the Malian army and Wagner in March 2022.
Read also: In Mali, the junta castigates the “fictitious narrative” from the UN report which accuses the army of having executed 500 people in Moura
On June 27, Inspector General Amadou Konaté, Director General of Customs, demanded“immediately interrupt imports of all materials intended for the UN mission until the final date of its withdrawal from Mali” in a letter sent to Malian customs officials that The world consulted. Applied, this measure would paradoxically make any withdrawal of the Minusma impossible. Because to allow its sixty aircraft and its hundreds of wheeled vehicles to leave the country, the mission must in particular be able to import fuel. “We also need to import food for the blue helmets. We will not last several months with our current stocks,” worries an employee of the Minusma.
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Like him, another member of the mission fears that the showdown imposed by Bamako on the UN is only just beginning. “They’re not going to stop there. We are just waiting to find out what the next attack will be, what sauce we are going to be eaten with, ” he sighs, describing a “gloomy atmosphere in the camps” United Nations, also marked by “the worry ” in the face of the tensions that could “ degenerate into incidents” between Malian soldiers and blue helmets, if no compromise on the Minusma withdrawal plan is found in New York on June 30.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers In Mali, the blue helmets of the Minusma fear becoming “an instrument of the junta”
A new draft resolution was presented to the Malian side on June 28. In this document to which The world had access, the Security Council “decides to end the mandate of Minusma […] from June 30”. The timing of the withdrawal from the mission remains unchanged but it is specified that its « liquidation […] will start on January 1, 2024”. The new text also limits in time the authorization given to blue helmets to “respond to imminent threats of violence against civilians” and to “contribute to the delivery of humanitarian aid” indicating that they will only be able to do so until September 30.
A sign that an agreement with Bamako seemed to have been reached on Thursday evening, the vote on the resolution was indeed scheduled for this Friday. But in New York, caution remained in order because Mali has accustomed the Council to last-minute reversals. In fact, a resolution could be adopted with a majority of nine votes out of fifteen by the members of the Security Council, on the condition that none of the five States having a permanent seat poses its veto, even without the agreement from Bamako. But for the Council, a compromise with the junta remains essential to guarantee the blue helmets an uneventful withdrawal.
Otherwise, as noted by the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a note entitled “Minusma: negotiating a smooth departure” published on June 27, the mission would find itself “in a vague situation which would paralyze its activities and could also be dangerous for its staff”.
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