MALI
NO, BARKHANE IS NOT LEAVING! By Nathalie Yamb
Emmanuel Macron has just announced “the end of Operation Barkhane” and I have received many messages congratulating me for having helped to make things happen. I would like to thank those who think of me at this moment, but I call everyone to have more measured joy.
Macron is not in his first blow with this kind of misleading announcements. Just this week, the French media made a lot of noise about the “freeze on its budget support and military cooperation with the Central African Republic”.
However, looking at it, he is content to bring in 5 people who worked in offices, leaving on the ground in Bangui several hundred soldiers and also mercenaries like Juan Rémy Quignolot, recently arrested.
He did the same by announcing “the end of the CFA franc” in December 2019 in Abidjan, which the most naive have swallowed. Result: the cfa is still there, and it will not change tomorrow, unless we redouble our efforts to completely break this French-African system that gives France the illusion of power and to ourselves the certainty of our inferiority, which could not be further from the truth.
He’s doing exactly the same thing today.France will remain militarily in Mali, but in the face of the unanimous rejection and constant protest by Barkhane’s French soldiers who kill civilians in the region, he announces the end of the operation, when in reality nothing fundamental will change.
In the same way that he kidnapped the term “eco” in monetary terms to better sustain the CFA franc, He is using the Takuba force to try to hide the fact that French soldiers will remain on the ground to continue to harm the interests of the peoples of the Sahel by plundering their resources and maintaining insecurity through their jihadist auxiliaries.
The soldiers will remain within the European Takuba Task Force (to which Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom refused to participate, which forced Macron to seek Estonia and the Czech Republic), which, I remind those who do not know, was created on the initiative of France and is part of Operation Barkhane. You see the trick? How can Barkhane integrate Takuba when Barkhane is Takuba’s parent company? I told Sochi and I repeat it today: France is moving forward without moving. But the time when they could joke the crowds with this kind of delaying tactics is over.
“France is in Africa only at the request of Africans,” Macron said. It is not his role to replace the African states in perpetuity.” Good time!! We do not want a false start from Barkhane, as a false end of the Cfa franc.
The Africans want France to leave Africa immediately, once and for all, without pretense. We want the total and irrevocable dismantling of French military bases on the continent, the departure of all French soldiers, without forgetting their legionaries, their barbuzes, their spies and even their businessmen, their bizarre humanitarians and their colonial currency.
Just because we ask for it does not mean they will do it. France has never left the peoples it colonized alone until it was forced to do so by taking major defeats. Algeria and Vietnam are the witnesses.
The fight continues.
NATHALIE YAMB / #LaDameDeSochi
Mali is turning a decisive page in its political life. By a presidential decree, adopted by the extraordinary Council of Ministers on 13 May 2025, the authorities of the military transition have officially dissolved all political parties and organizations of a political nature in the country. This is unprecedented in the country. In addition to generating a wave of national and international outrage, this decree marks the end of multi-party democracy.
A dissolution with the taste of “reform”
The announcement was made on the ORTM channel by Mamani Nassiré, Minister delegate to the Prime Minister responsible for political reforms. According to him, this decision is part of a broad process of “re-founding” political life. The government says it wants to “clean up” the partisan landscape by reducing the number of political parties now estimated at nearly 300. The government wants to set up and review their funding, which amounts to 0.25% of annual tax revenues. No political party can now organize meetings or carry out activities, under penalty of sanctions. On the other hand, elected representatives and officials belonging to political parties can continue their missions, on the sole condition that they no longer claim to be members of their party.
A repressed measure
For several weeks, many political parties, including the “Yelema” party, had denounced this project. Its president, Youssouf Diawara, said: “Political parties are not the problem in Mali. The emergency is insecurity, high cost of living, health and education”. Indeed, the political parties that oppose this decree see it as a violation of the Constitution and a setback for democracy. A citizen protest movement had emerged in early May. A demonstration, which gathered several hundred people on May 3, 2025 in Bamako, was quickly dispersed by the security forces. During this demonstration, several opposition and civil society figures were arrested and some people are reported missing.
Sanctioned media
In the past four years, Mali has seen two military coups. On 18 August 2020, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and his Prime Minister Boubou Cissé were removed from power before being arrested. Nine months later, the transitional president Bah N’Daw and his prime minister Moctar Ouane are deposed on May 24, 2021. In ten years, Mali has experienced three coups with the military takeover in 2012, and the fifth in the history of Mali after the coups d’état of 1991 and 1968. The Malian authorities have increased restrictions on both foreign and domestic media. They accuse them of partiality in the treatment of information concerning the situation of the country and disinformation. At the national level, in December 2024, the Djoliba TV News report was withdrawn. The High Authority for Communication (HAC) of Mali. The channel TV5 Monde has been suspended again “until further notice” on 13 May 2025. She is accused of “lack of impartiality” in her coverage of opposition protest movements on May 3, 2025 in her report for the 20:30 newspaper. It had already been suspended for three months in 2024.
Suspension of political parties: After Burkina Faso and Niger, it is the turn of Mali
The repeal of the charter of political parties that set their legal and financial frameworks, leaves an institutional vacuum according to its refractory. Political parties no longer exist legally. Only civil society still exists. But it remains closely monitored by the state. With this new decision taken by the transitional government, Mali joins its ESA neighbours. Before him, Burkina Faso suspended political party activities since September 2022. In Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani ordered the dissolution of parties on 26 March 2025 following controversial national assizes.
The head of the military regime in Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani, landed on Thursday, November 23, 2023 in Bamako and is to meet his counterpart at the head of the Malian junta for his first international visit since the coup in Niamey, found a AFP correspondent.
Mali and Burkina, led by soldiers who came to power in coups in 2020 and 2022, had quickly shown their solidarity with the generals of Niamey after taking power in late July.
Together, they created a “Alliance of Sahel States” (AES) which provides mutual assistance in the event of an attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the three States and strengthened economic ties.
United against international pressure for a return to democratic regimes, the two military regimes are also united against the jihadists whose attacks are ravaging their country.
General Tiani is to stay a few hours in Bamako and meet the head of the Malian junta, Colonel Assimi Goïta, for a “friendship and work” visit, according to the Malian presidency.
The duration of the transition in Niger is not yet known, but General Tiani announced shortly after taking power that it would not exceed three years. In Mali, the presidential election scheduled for early 2024 has been postponed indefinitely.
A statement issued on Thursday morning indicates that Bamako will host from 23 November to 1 December two ministerial meetings “with a view to identifying prospects for the operationalization of the AES”, including the drafting of texts, the establishment of the bodies and the procedures for its operation.
The first will bring together the Ministers of Economy and Trade on 25 November for economic development issues. The foreign ministers of the three countries will meet on 30 November for political and diplomatic matters.
These meetings will precede a meeting of defence ministers at a later date.
In Mali, General El Hadj Ag Gamou was appointed Wednesday, November 22, 2023 governor of the Kidal region. One week after the capture of the city, stronghold of the rebels of the CSP (Permanent Strategic Framework), by the Malian army and its proxies of Wagner, the appointment of this military leader Tuareg faithful to the Malian State reveals a strategy of the Malian transitional authorities.
General El Hadj Ag Gamou does not like to appear in public, but he is well known to all Malians, especially in the north. In 2012, while Tuareg army cadres deserted one by one to join the independence rebellion, the one who was still a colonel was the only one to remain faithful to Bamako.
Two years later, Gamou created the Tuareg Imghad and Allies Self-Defence Group (Gatia), a northern armed group, signatory to the future 2015 peace agreement, within the pro-State Malian Platform.
Distrust of the transitional authorities
Two years ago, in December 2021, the transitional Malian authorities disembark him from his post as inspector general of the armed forces. At the time, the CSP is not a rebellion, this coalition still brings together all the armed groups signatory to the peace agreement and the game of General Gamou within it is considered troubled by the leaders of the Transition. But mistrust does not last: today, Bamako is counting on him to bring the inhabitants of Kidal back into the fold of the State.
General Gamou is not from Kidal, but he knows the city and the region well, where he served for a long time. Above all, it is Imghad, a Tuareg fraction considered as «vassal» of that of the Ifoghas, who assumes the traditional leadership in Kidal and from which the main rebel leaders originate. «He is the one who will be able to gather», judges a Malian security source. «He will reassure the Tuaregs», says a close friend of General Gamou.
