The Malian junta has not said its last word. After calling for the “withdrawal without delay” of the United Nations Mission in Mali (Minusma) to the UN Security Council on June 16, the Malian military, who came to power by two coups in August 2020 and May 2021, have this week engaged in a showdown 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.
This draft text consulted by Le Monde 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 the center. , where jihadist conflicts have continued to intensify since the start of the war in 2012. This text also allowed Minusma to retain limited civilian protection capabilities until its withdrawal and suggested that the total liquidation of the mission as well as the transfer of some 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 complete the complete withdrawal of such an important mission,” warns a UN source in New York. According to this, the Malian junta, 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 woods to demand a withdrawal of Minusma in three months. It is totally unrealistic, specifies a Western diplomat stationed in Bamako. They seek to complicate the withdrawal of the mission, to compel it to leave as much material as possible in place 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 “no desire to leave material to the junta given the way it fired 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.
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” and then “threatened to block the entire budget of peacekeeping operations” from 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 distrust of the UN constitutes an additional step in this divorce. In 2022, the Malian authorities had already called for an “immediate” departure of international forces, this time targeting the French counter-terrorist operation “Barkhane”. The Malian authorities have accused her, like peacekeepers 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 finally packed 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 investigation for “espionage, endangering the external security of the state and military conspiracy” was also opened against the UN investigators and their “accomplices” who participated in the UN report on the Moura massacre. , a village in which at least 500 people were killed by the Malian army and Wagner in March 2022.
On June 27, Inspector General Amadou Konaté, Director General of Customs, demanded to “immediately halt imports of all materials intended for the UN mission until the final date of its withdrawal from Mali” in a letter sent to the Malian customs officials whom Le Monde consulted. Applied, this measure would paradoxically make any withdrawal of the Minusma impossible. Because to allow its sixty aircraft and its hundreds of rolling machines to leave the country, the mission must in particular be able to import fuel. “We also need to import food for peacekeepers. We will not last several months with our current stocks, “worries a Minusma employee.
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’re just waiting to find out what the next attack will be, what sauce we’re going to be eaten with, “he sighs, describing a “gloomy atmosphere in the UN camps”, also marked by “concern” about 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.
A new draft resolution was presented to the Malian side on June 28. In this document to which Le Monde had access, the Security Council “decided to end the mandate of Minusma […] as of June 30”. The timing of the mission’s withdrawal remains unchanged but it is specified that its “liquidation […] will begin on January 1, 2024”. The new text also limits in time the authorization given to peacekeepers to “respond to imminent threats of violence against civilians” and to “contribute to the delivery of humanitarian aid” by indicating that they will not can only 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 situation of limbo that would paralyze its activities and could also be dangerous to its personnel”.