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Unite Mali and not punish it. (By Mamadou Bamba Ndiaye)

Senegal’s fairly moderate position on the issue of ECOWAS sanctions against Mali should be welcomed.

Admittedly, the event of last Tuesday perfectly deserves the qualifier of military coup. But we can also rightly call it a revolution.

A popular mobilization punctuated by the intervention of soldiers who take power alone or in association with civilians is what is called a revolution under all skies.

Almost all revolutions are military coups, but the reverse is not true. For example, the overthrow of the Fourth French Republic by General De Gaulle was not a popular revolution. If the military coup d’etat is condemnable in the name of democracy, the revolution is a direct manifestation of the popular will.
So, no need to gargle with words.

The revolution-coup d’état is the main mechanism allowing the alternation of power in the history of Mali as of neighboring Burkina Faso. This will be so as long as the objectivity and credibility of the electoral processes are not assured.

Under these conditions, even beyond the sanctions to be lifted as soon as possible, ECOWAS should not forbid itself in Mali what it had sponsored in Burkina at the time of the fall of Compaoré. She should let President Ibk go to rest and accompany a transition as short and consensual as possible towards transparent elections and a new governance of Mali. Help Mali rather than punish its people.

Today, West African citizens expect from their heads of state not an armed intervention favoring fratricidal clashes, but rather a pooling of political and military capacities to eradicate terrorism and recover our security sovereignty. They also do not want internal quarrels reflecting the greater or lesser proximity to this or that extra-African power. They want cooperation and a common strategy with all neighboring states, including Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.

As for Mali and Senegal, the time has perhaps come to dare to draw a final assessment of the ephemeral Federation of Mali in order to think about the refoundation of our common homeland.

Mamadou Bamba NDIAYE
Former deputy
Secretary General of Mps / Selal


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