Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali, the director of the human rights division of the United Nations Mission in Mali (Minusma) was declared “ungrateful person”, announced the ruling junta on Sunday, February 5. He “must leave the national territory within 48 hours”.
This decision announced by press release comes after a speech violently criticized by the junta delivered by a Malian human rights defender who denounced ten days ago at the UN the security situation in the country and the involvement, according to her, of the new allies. Russian national army in serious violations. “This measure follows destabilizing and subversive actions” of Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali, says the statement read to the national television newspaper and signed by the government spokesman, Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga.
“During the various sessions of the United Nations Security Council on Mali, Mr. Andali’s actions consisted in selecting usurpers who arrogated to themselves the title of representative of Malian civil society, ignoring the authorities and the national institutions »he continues about this national of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Mr. Andali’s bias was even more evident during the last review of the United Nations Security Council on Mali”, the day of Aminata Cheick Dicko’s civil society intervention. In a filmed intervention before the Security Council, Mr.me Dicko, the vice-president of the Kisal observatory, an organization that documents human rights abuses in central Mali, spoke of the abuses committed by the “terrorists”but also the involvement of “Russian military partners” of the Malian army in “the commission (of) serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law”.
The expulsion of Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali comes after Mali’s foreign ministry announced Sergei Lavrov’s arrival in Bamako on Monday. This is the first time that a Russian foreign minister has officially visited the West African country. Since coming to power in a coup in 2020, Mali’s military junta has appealed to Moscow to send Russian mercenaries, a move contested by its neighbors and Western countries.
The Minusma is not “unsustainable”
The Minusma was created in 2013 to help stabilize a state threatened with collapse under the jihadist push, protect civilians, contribute to the peace effort, defend human rights… But the security situation has continued to deteriorate. worsen in Mali. The junta is openly blocking the investigations of the Minusma on human rights and the abuses of which the Malian forces are regularly accused.
At the end of January, many members of the UN Security Council stressed the impossibility of a “status quo” for the Minusma. The Council must decide in June on a renewal of the mission and a report by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres underlines that its continuation in its current form is “untenable” without an increase in the number of Blue Helmets, conversely evoking a withdrawal of troops if key conditions are not met. The UN denounces in particular the obstacles imposed on the freedom of movement of blue helmets, a key element for several members of the Council in the pursuit of the mission which today has more than 12,000 soldiers and 1,500 police officers.