Reacting to the sanctions taken by ECOWAS against Guinea, the Malian junta castigates ECOWAS, which it does not support enough African transitions.
What is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) still for? This is, in essence, the question posed by the government of the Transition of Mali. Bouncing back on the sanctions against Guinea, the latter "stresses that the objective of ECOWAS is to improve the living conditions of the populations and not to adopt counter-productive sanctions affecting them". For several years, the image of ECOWAS has continued to deteriorate. This is even more true in recent months with a series of sanctions against Mali, Guinea and also Burkina Faso, which have inevitably affected the populations of these three countries.
On September 22, ECOWAS announced several measures against the ruling junta in Guinea. A freezing of financial assets and a travel ban for "members of other transitional institutions and any other person seeking to prevent the return to constitutional order in Guinea within a reasonable time" were pronounced by the body under -regional.
The "union of presidents" threatened?
Less than a week later, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, spokesperson for the Malian government, raged against these sanctions and recalled "the solidarity and brotherhood between Mali and Guinea". Bamako has quite simply "dissociated itself from all the illegal, inhuman and illegitimate sanctions taken against the sister Republic of Guinea and will take no action on them".
A reaction that could lead to another: Mali specifies that it does not rule out "adopting, if necessary, measures to assist the Republic of Guinea, in order to annihilate the consequences of these useless sanctions against the people and the authorities of Guinea”. A way to threaten to leave ECOWAS if these sanctions are not canceled?
In any case, Mali reminds ECOWAS that it is there to "accompany" the transitional authorities of the various West African states, in particular "to carry out political and institutional reforms that would contribute to strengthening good governance and stability". .
Mali, which has already left the G5-Sahel, could therefore threaten to slam the door of ECOWAS. It remains to be seen whether the body will review its positions regarding Guinea in the short term. In the meantime, ECOWAS is once again acting as a "union of presidents" who take a dim view of being in the hot seat and who prefer to campaign for third terms than for transitions.