What's going on in Mali

It is high time to clear up the confusion regarding the situation in Mali. What is really going on there, what's all that about?  It is about a programmed destabilization and plunder of African resources in the heart of Africa. It is about uranium. It is about World Police protecting corporate interests. It is about French neocolonialism in action, Tuareg nation, Azawad and about Libya left in ruins with the toppling of Muammar Ghadafi.

The intervention in Mali is another follow-up to the French role in other destabilizations that we’ve seen, especially in Libya last year. Behind the French intervention is the strong hand of the US Pentagon which has been preparing this partitioning of Mali. This whole thing bears the imprint of US Africom [US Africa Command] and an attempt to militarize the whole region and its resources. Mali is a strategic lynchpin in that. It borders Algeria which is one of the top goals of these various NATO interventions from France, the US and other sides. Mauritania, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso. All of this area is just swimming in untapped resources. US will try and play a more discrete role in the background rather than being upfront as they were in Iraq and Afghanistan which cost the US huge amounts of credibility around the world. Have no doubt that this is a US operation with the French as a junior partner. We’re seeing a very cynical game being played in Mali and it’s a very dangerous one. As the rebels are engaging the forces, the conflict is bound to cross borders into the neighboring states, that could potentially engulf the entire West Africa. It was Western powers that created the conditions in the first place for Islamic extremists to take over.

France simply cannot finance this war. France is engaged now in 16 different military operations around the world and Mali is the last one. The public debt represents a real problem and the budget has not been balanced since 1974, clearly they do not have a cent to finance another unnecessary war.

Areas where significant numbers of Tuareg live

As one brave Belgian MP has noticed recently, the leaders of "western democracies" are clearly taking people for imbecils with the help and support of the Media. Preventive war has become the rule. In the name of democracy and fight against terrorism, western countries grant themselves the right to violate International Law and the sovereignty of independent countries and to overthrow legitimate leaders. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, progressive and moderated regimes were overthrown and replaced by Islamists.  While in Syria they are shamefully funding  the arming of the Islamist rebels in the midst of economic crisis, in Mali their yesterday allies are labeled as terrorists. West always intervenes only to defend their financial interests in a complete neo-colonialist mindset. It's a complete nonsense to go and help France in Mali in their "war on terror" against Islamist rebels, when at the same time in Syria, the same Islamic terrorists get full support in overthrowing Bashar Al Assad. The time has come to stop lying and tell the thruth. In Iraq, the Americans have put their hands on the country's oil wealth. In Afghanistan it was its opium and drugs. In Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, the aim is to replace moderate regimes by Islamist powers, who very quickly will become troublesome so they could be attacked to protect freedoms and democracy, or to protect Israel. Thus, the next targets are already known. In next few months, I bet are eyes will turn to Algeria and eventually to Iran. To go to war to protect the interests of big companies such as AREVA, has nothing noble at all and it reveals western countries to be nothing more than thugs and low class criminals. I don't have much respect neither for the so called journalists, who lie and lick the boots of corporate powers. From the beginning of the French operation, the lie is organized. We are told that France is only answering the call for help of a Malian president. We almost forget that this president has no legitimacy and that he was put in place to ensure the transition following the coup of March 2012. Who started this coup? For who is this president actually working? France have not hesitated to arm and support jihadists in Libya and continues to support these jihadists in Syria. They are no longer fearing inconsistency because everything is done to hide it. The intention is truly noble. We have to act or evil Islamist will impose Sharia law in Mali, but why we have contributed to Tunisia and Libya to the accession to power of Islamists?! This is all hipocrisy. The purpose of this war in Mali is very clear. The purpose is to fight against China and allow Americans to maintain their presence in Africa. When these operations will be over, France will keep its military bases in Mali, western corporates will put their hands on juicy contracts that will, once again, deprive re-colonized country of its wealth and raw materials. The primary beneficiaries of this military operation will be the owners and shareholders of the French giant AREVA who has been trying for years to obtain a uranium mine in Falea (350km from Bamako). Mali is major producer of gold, but recently it has been designated as being a country that offers a world-class environment for the exploatation of uranium. How strange...

Analysis of facts, geopolitical and historical background to Mali helps understand the recent attempts at destabilization by outside powers for illegitimate and criminal aims. Mali was a relatively stable country while Colonel Ghadafi was in power in Libya. He was the chief mediator and negotiator in peace talks between Tuareg tribes and Mali government and integration of Tuaregs into the military and civilian structures. The Tuaregs respected Ghadafi. Libya was pouring money into Mali to stabilize the north. Libyan Jamahiriya (which were assigned to the project and had been happily transferred to Mali before the freezing of Libyan assets) launched the Programme Spécial pour la Paix, la sécurité et le Développement au Nord-Mali (PSPDN) [Special Programme for peace, security and development in Northern Mali] with a budget of 32 billion CFA francs ($ 65 million), which focused on projects related to security, development, women, youth and income generation. 

Amadou Toumani Touré, is the Malian officer credited somewhat as the liberator of Mali, popularly known as "ATT". He led to the overthrow of the bloody dictator Moussa Traoré in March 1991. 

On 27 March 1996, under the leadership and guidance of Libyan emissaries, the ceremony of the Flame of Peace was held in Timbuktu: hundreds of firearms were destroyed by fire, the various armed movements of the Tuareg and the MPGK (the infamous Koi Ganda Patriotic Movement formed by Songhai Mali militia) would be officially dissolved. Peace reigned over Mali and after a re-election of Konaré in 1997, Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) was elected president. 

In April 2007, ATT was re-elected, but his victory was contested by the other candidates. A month later, violence continued again in the North following the rejection by the Niger-Mali Tuareg Alliance (ATNM) of the Algiers Accords. The ATNM continued its operations in the North, attacking garrisons and removing Malian soldiers under the command of Ibrahim Ag Bahanga.  In November 2007, probably feeling the winds of change, the former Tuareg head, Iyad Ag Ghali, oddly joined the Malian consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 

In February 2009, Mali led a successful campaign against the insurgency in the north. This was reflected in particular by the dismantling of the rebel military bases, but it generated a strong opposition among some Tuareg communities, who complained increasingly of being abused by government troops. In November 2010, again in the person of the Libyan Guide (Muammar Ghadafi), a meeting was held in Timbuktu which hosted mainly Northern Tuareg and concluded with the creation of the National Movement of Azawad (MNA), which rejected all violence and called for a spirit of solidarity of Azawadis throughout Mali as well as abroad.

Now, the situation has drastically changed, after Libya's occupation, the Sahel-Sahara region is in turmoil, with the battle lines between the white neo-colonizers and Africans. This "creative chaos" is deliberately manufactured. 

Fighters in Mali belong mostly to factions like Ansar Dine and MUJAO, a pair of Salafist groups with an eye toward a strict religious theocracy in the region. The group in Algeria’s siege called itself “Those Who Sign in Blood,” and their link with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is unclear at best. Yet nominal ties between those groups and AQIM has been enough of an excuse to couch the whole war as against “al-Qaeda,” much as every militant faction Pakistan seems to fight is “Taliban” whether it is in the name or not. Indeed, its seems Western policies are pushing the various factions into unifying into the huge “al-Qaeda” threat they are trying to sell the public on.

Talking up further escalations of military involvement in Northern Africa in the wake of the Algeria hostage crisis, British Prime Minister David Cameron urged an “iron resolve” for a growing military engagement in the region that could last many decades. British officials say they will use their current chairmanship of the G8 to push for broad international backing for a war across the entire region, attempting to turn the hostage situation into a 9/11-style excuse for regional war. “Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in north Africa.” Cameron insisted.