On July 24, 2023, the US Department of the Treasury sanctioned three Malian military and transitional government officials, including Defense Minister Sadio Camara, “for facilitating the deployment and expansion of the private military company Wagner in Mali.”
Washington sanctioned three senior Malian officials on July 24, 2023 for helping Wagner deploy in Mali: the current Defense Minister Sadio Camara, General Alou Boi Diarra, head of the air force and his deputy, Colonel Adama Bagayoko.
These three high-ranking Malians are therefore being imposed economic sanctions by the US Treasury. Individual sanctions, “not directed at the Malian people,” says U.S. Treasury
In concrete terms, the three Bamako officials will have their possible assets in the United States frozen and are prohibited from carrying out transactions with any American persons or companies.
For Washington, these three officers facilitated Wagner’s “rooting” in Mali, both outside their country, through a cooperation agreement with the paramilitary society. Negotiated during travel to Russia in 2021 and 2022.
Its main architect would be Colonel Camara, the current Minister of Defence and pillar of Transition. Other advanced information about the latter: he is, according to Washington, a French citizen.
The United States also points to the support provided to the mercenaries, this time directly on Malian soil: material, logistic, but also economic support. By allowing the exploitation of gold in particular, the three Bamako officials have for the American Treasury, “paved the way” to the plunder «of sovereign resources» and to «human rights violations».
Two months earlier, another pillar of the Wagner system in Mali had been sanctioned by the US Treasury: Russian Ivan Maslov, Evguéni Prigojine’s relay in Bamako.
