African Politics Malian Troops Stage Coup Renegade soldiers launched a coup d’etat in Mali on March 22 declaring on state television that they had seized power in protest of the government’s inability to handle the rebellion taking place in the northern region of the country. The army had appealed to the government for better weapons to fight the northern Tuareg rebels whose arsenal was being bolstered by Libyan loyalists fled over the border. The newly-formed National Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of the State (CNRDR) had a member read a statement after citizens of Mali’s capital Bamako heard heavy weapons fire around the presidential palace. “The CNRDR ... has decided to assume its responsibilities by putting an end to the incompetent regime of Amadou Toumani Toure,” said Lieutenant Amadou Konare, spokesman for the CNRDR. “We promise to hand power back to a democratically elected president as soon as the country is reunified and its integrity is no longer threatened.” The self-proclaimed junta leader called for a “national convention” on April 5 so that political and society representatives could create a consensus on how to deal with the challenges facing the nation. Meanwhile, an influential politician has called for a six-month transitional government to unite the country prior to organizing elections. The UN Security Council held an emergency session noting that the situation in Mali had taken a turn for the worse. Tuareg rebels launched an offensive on March 30, seizing three key cities that were formerly under army control. An Islamist militant group called Ansar Dine also entered some areas and started imposing Sharia, or Islamic law. The separatists in the north appear divided between Islamic fundamentalists and Tuaregs, who say they want to turn the area into a separate,
democratic and secular nation embracing a moderate strain of Islam. However, reports out of the town of Kidal said gunmen went through the streets demanding that residents remove pictures of unveiled women from hair salons and other shops.
Blast Shakes Brazzaville An explosion at an arms depot in the capital of the Republic of Congo (ROC) on March 4 left around 200 people dead with hundreds more injured by the blast that flattened homes in Brazzaville. The blast even shattered windows across the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Kinshasa. While rumors of a coup made the rounds after the blast, the country’s defense minister Charles Zacharie Bowao dismissed the talk telling state radio that the explosions had been caused by a fire in the arms depot in the Regiment Blinde base.
Wells Bombed in South Sudan Accusations in the two Sudans are flying once again as South Sudan claims that Khartoum bombed two of its oil wells. Reports have two wellheads and flowlines destroyed, as well as two cars, but no casualties. The oil wells are operated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co. (GNPOC), a consortium made up of Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian stateowned firms. Spokesman for the South Sudan government Barnaba Marial Benjamin said two MiG aircraft dropped six bombs on oil fields in Unity State, violating a non-aggression pact signed by the two countries. The South has also accused Khartoum of moving some of its troops and weaponry close to an army base near the border. Khartoum denied the bombing saying it has not violated the nonaggression pact signed in early February.
Khartoum’s military spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid said Sudanese forces had not been involved in any bombing inside the South.
Equatorial Guinea Slams France for Illegal Seizure Police in Paris seized valuable items like paintings, vintage wines, and expensive cars from the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president as a result of corruption charges. Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue is accused in a civil suit of using misappropriated funds to acquire assets in France. The matter was brought to French courts by the Paris office of anticorruption group Transparency International. The African country claims that the raided building was an embassy, but French prosecutors say it is the private property of Teodorin. Equatorial Guinea took it a step farther accusing individuals in France of attempting to destabilize the country, basing claims on a coup attempt led by a group of foreign mercenaries in 2004. The former Spanish colony released a statement condemning France’s actions saying: “Given this open provocation against the Equatorial Guinean state, the government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea recommends to the government of the French Republic that it take immediate action to curb the continuity of these destabilizing activities, and it reserves the right to reciprocate, since, if France wants a rupture of relations with the Equatorial Guinean State, unilaterally, they should state it clearly.” This has serious implications for French companies in the country as Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s sixth-largest oil producing nation. The country said, “Despite the good relations the government of Equatorial Guinea maintains with the French companies established in the country, we understand that these companies must contradict this action, repair, and share the negative consequences that arise from this situation.”