Malians took to the streets en masse after the military junta called for protests against stringent sanctions imposed by the West Africa bloc ECOWAS over delayed elections.
In the capital Bamako, thousands of people wearing the national colours of red, yellow and green gathered in a central square, for a rally staged by the military government, and sang patriotic songs.
The United Nations called Mali’s ruling junta to announce an election timetable amid anger at its suggestion it could stay in power for five years before holding a vote.
“It is absolutely essential that the government of Mali present an acceptable election timetable,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters. He said he hoped to “get in contact quickly” with the junta.
“I am working with the ECOWAS and the African Union to create conditions which can allow the government of Mali to adopt a reasonable and acceptable position to accelerate a transition which has already been underway for a long time,” he added, referring to the Economic Community of West African States.
ECOWAS, in a sharp escalation after months of pressure, agreed to shutter borders with the impoverished Sahel state and impose a trade embargo.
The move came after Mali’s interim government proposed staying in power for up to five years before staging elections, defying international demands that it respect a promise to hold elections on February 27.
Interim prime minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga, wearing a military uniform, addressed a crowd massed in the main square.
“All of Africa is watching Mali today,” he said. “To some extent, the fate of Africa is being played out in Mali today”.
Evoking the history of African resistance against colonisers, he also paid “special tribute” to China and Russia for opposing the “illegal and illegitimate embargo against our people”.
A large crowd also gathered in the northern city of Timbuktu, AFP correspondents reported. Social media also showed mass demonstrations in the towns of Kadiolo and Bougouni in the south.
Leaders from the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) agreed to sanction Mali last week, imposing a trade embargo and shutting borders, in a decision later backed by the United States, the European Union and former colonial power France.
The junta cast the sanctions as “extreme” and “inhumane” and called for demonstrations. Strongman Colonel Assimi Goita, who first took power in a coup in August 2020, has also urged Malians to “defend our homeland”.
“Long live Assimi,” said Abdoulaye Yanoga, a 27-year-old unemployed man at the rally in Bamako, referring to Mali’s leader.
“These sanctions will not succeed here”.
Other senior government figures also attended and were applauded by the crowd.
Nouhoum Sarr, a member of Mali’s transitional legislature, said: “Our country will be saved and liberated by the Malian army and the entire Malian people.”
As well as closing borders and imposing a trade embargo, ECOWAS leaders also halted financial aid tto Mali and froze the country’s assets at the Central Bank of West African States.
The sanctions threaten to damage an already vulnerable economy in landlocked Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries.
A brutal jihadist insurgency has raged in Mali since 2012, with swathes of the vast country’s territory lying outside of government control.
Mali is already beginning to feel the effects of the sanctions. Several airlines, including Air France, have suspended flights to Bamako. Only the routes to Mauritania and Algeria, which are not ECOWAS members, and Guinea remain open. Guinea is a member of the regional bloc, but is also governed by a military junta and has decided to leave its border with Mali open.
The country is also at risk of cash shortages. Relations between Mali and its neighbours have steadily deteriorated since Colonel Assimi Goita took power in a military coup in August 2020.
The sanctions are already affecting travellers in Mali, a vast landlocked nation of 19 million people that borders seven other states. The country’s location makes it a key transport hub for the region, with Bamako a key stop along the land route linking countries such as Senegal to states further east, such as Nigeria.
Relations with neighbours
Mali’s relations with its neighbours and partners have steadily deteriorated since the coup led by Goita in August 2020 against president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
Under threat of sanctions following that putsch, Goita had promised to hold presidential and legislative elections, and to restore civilian rule, by February 2022. But he staged a de facto second coup in May 2021, forcing out an interim civilian government and disrupting the timetable for the restoration of democracy.
Goita also declared himself interim president. His government has argued that rampant insecurity in Mali prevents it from organising safe elections by the end of February.
The mass protest turnout drew comment from French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. “If it’s safe enough to demonstrate, surely it is safe enough to vote,” he said as EU foreign ministers met in Brest, northwestern France.
France has thousands of troops in Mali and neighbouring Sahel countries in west Africa as part of an anti-jihadist force.
Travellers stranded
A bus station in Mali’s capital stands unusually quiet, with foreign passengers left in limbo after West African countries closed their borders with the military-ruled nation.
Africa Tours Trans is one of the main bus firms in the impoverished Sahel state, offering connections to its regional cities as well as to neighbouring countries. But late Tuesday morning only one bus arrived at its station in Bamako, coming from the central Malian city of Sevare.
Dozens of would-be passengers were hanging around next to their luggage, left in limbo by recent border closures.
Jennifer Edong, a Nigerian in her 30s who works in fashion, was among the passengers stranded at the Africa Tours Trans station in Bamako. She had been travelling to The Gambia for work and had arrived in Mali expecting her next connection to depart, only to turn up at the station and find the connection cancelled.
“We are stuck here, I cannot do anything,” she said, adding that she didn’t have a local SIM card and disliked Malian cuisine.
Peter Adeyemo, 48, another Nigerian who was en route to his home in The Gambia, was sleeping on a bench nearby.
He opened his eyes to ask when the borders were due to open, but no one was able to answer.
“I was shocked,” Adeyemo told AFP of the cancelled routes, explaining that being forced to camp at the bus station meant he could not bathe, among other problems.
For Malian travel firms, the border closures will also compound commercial problems posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has already made travel across the region more difficult.
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