The leader of Western Sahara’s independence movement, whose presence in Spain has angered the Moroccan government, will appear before a Spanish court Tuesday to answer allegations of torture and genocide.

Madrid’s decision to allow Brahim Ghali, who heads the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, into Spain in mid-April to be treated for Covid-19 has angered Rabat.

A month later, Spain was caught off guard as up to 10,000 people surged into its tiny north African enclave of Ceuta as Moroccan border guards looked the other way in what was widely seen as a punitive political gesture.

Here is what we know so far:

– Who is Ghali?

Since 2016, Ghali has been head of the Polisario Front and president of the Sahrawi Democratic Arab Republic, a self-declared state since 1976.

Ghali is 71, the movement says, although other sources give a different age.

The Polisario Front has long fought for the independence of Western Sahara, a desert region bigger than Britain which was a Spanish colony until 1975.

Morocco controls 80 percent of the territory, while the rest — an area bordering Mauritania that is almost totally landlocked — is run by the Polisario Front.

A disputed territory, the UN refers to Western Sahara as a “non-self-governing territory” whose people “have not yet attained a full measure of self-government”.

After 16 years of war, Rabat and the Polisario signed a ceasefire in 1991, but a UN-backed referendum on self-determination has been constantly postponed.

Hostilities resumed in November when the Polisario, which is backed by Algeria, declared the ceasefire to be over after Morocco sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone to reopen a key road.

– Why is Ghali in Spain? –

Ghali’s hospitalisation in Spain was shrouded in secrecy.

It was first revealed by French pan-African magazine Jeune Afrique then confirmed by the Polisario and Spain’s foreign ministry, which called it a “humanitarian gesture”.

Citing diplomatic sources, Spain’s El Pais newspaper said Ghali was “critically ill” when he arrived on a medicalised Algerian government plane on April 18, bearing a diplomatic passport.

It said he was admitted to a hospital in northern Spain with a fake identity for “security reasons”.

Madrid agreed to receive Ghali as a favour to Algeria, its main supplier of natural gas, El Pais said.

But the move angered Rabat which has demanded a “transparent investigation” over his arrival in Spain “with forged documents and a fake identity”.

– What is Ghali accused of? –

Now “out of danger” but still in hospital, Ghali will testify by video conference in two separate investigations.

One relates to allegations of torture at Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, a town in western Algeria. The accusations were made by Polisario dissident Fadel Breika, who also holds Spanish nationality.

The second probe relates to allegations of genocide, murder, terrorism, torture and disappearances made by the Sahrawi Association for the Defence of Human Rights (ASADEDH), which is based in Spain.

Given there were no “clear indications of his involvement”, a Spanish judge refused to impose any precautionary measures such as seizing Ghali’s passport, court documents showed.

– What is the link with Ceuta? –

With Ghali considered a “war criminal” by Rabat, the Moroccan government decided to turn a blind eye at its shared border with the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, where up to 10,000 people crossed unhindered early last week.

“The real cause of the crisis is Madrid’s welcoming of the separatist leader of the Polisario militia, under a false identity,” Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita said.

Madrid has accused Rabat of “blackmail” and summoned its ambassador, who has been recalled to Morocco for consultations where she will stay “for the duration of the crisis,” the minister said.

Source: AFP

Mali’s constitutional court named Colonel Assimi Goïta as its transitional president on Friday.

It comes after Mali’s second coup in nine months.

Colonel Goïta had already declared himself the interim president on Wednesday.

On Monday President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, were detained by soldiers along with other leaders of the transitional government, hours after naming a new Cabinet that did not include two key military leaders.

On Thursday, they both resigned and were released. Their arrest led to an international uproar.

The new leader said on Friday his appointment is for security reasons during a meeting with the Malian political class.

“We had to choose between the stability of Mali and the chaos. We have chosen stability. In choosing between disorder and cohesion in the defence forces and security, we have chosen cohesion in the defence forces and security because it is in the nation’s best interests,” Goïta said on Friday.

“We have no hidden agenda”

Ndaw and Ouane had led a transitional government tasked with steering the return to civilian rule after a coup last August that toppled Mali’s elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Keita was forced out by young army officers, led by Goïta, following mass protests over perceived corruption and his failure to quell a bloody jihadist insurgency.

Goïta, who led the junta calling itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, has served as Mali’s vice president in the transitional government formed last September.

He has held that position despite initial calls from the international community for an entirely civilian-led transition.

Diplomats told AFP Friday that the Economic Community of West African States would discuss the situation in Ghana’s capital Accra on Sunday.

The 15-nation bloc has also warned of reimposing sanctions on the country; as has the United States and former colonial master France.

There are nonetheless fears that sanctions will further destabilise the poverty-stricken nation of 19 million people, which has been battling a brutal jihadist insurgency since 2012.

Source: African News

Mali’s interim president and premier have been freed from military detention, senior military and government officials said Thursday. Their release came three days after President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane were detained and stripped of their powers in what appeared to be the country’s second coup in nine months.

“The interim president and prime minister were released overnight around 1.30am [local time]. We were true to our word,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Family members confirmed that President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane had been freed.

The two men have returned to their homes in the capital Bamako, those close to them said, though the conditions of their release were not clear.

The development came a day after military officials said the country’s transitional president and prime minister had “resigned” while in detention, a move the UN called “unacceptable”.

Ndaw and Ouane, tasked with steering the return to civilian rule after a coup last August, were detained by the military on Monday in what the international community called a military coup.

Over the past few days, the UN, along with the African Union and other international bodies, as well as the US, have repeatedly urged Mali’s military to release the transitional leaders.

Ndaw and Ouane had been heading the interim government with the declared aim of restoring full civilian rule within 18 months.

The leader of Mali’s 2020 coup, Col. Assimi Goita, who has been serving as the transitional vice president since September, seized control of the West African country earlier this week by deposing the two leaders in an unprecedented move.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Rwanda on Thursday for a highly symbolic visit aimed at turning the page on a quarter century of diplomatic tensions over France’s role in the country’s 1994 genocide.

Macron is the first French leader since 2010 to visit the central African country, which has long accused France of complicity in the mass killings of Rwandan Tutsis.

The French president arrived in the capital, Kigali, early Thursday and is set to hold talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

He will visit a memorial to the 1994 slaughter that left an estimated 800,000 people dead, mainly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus who tried to protect them from Hutu extremists.

Two reports completed in March and in April that examined France’s role in the genocide helped clear a path for Macron’s visit.

The French report, which was commissioned by Macron and released in March, included a adamning indictment of Paris’s role in the bloodshed.

In findings accepted by the French government, the historians accused Paris, which had close ties to the ethnic Hutu regime behind the massacres, of being “blind” to preparations for the genocide and said it bore “serious and overwhelming” responsibility.

The commission found no proof, however, of French complicity in the bloodshed.

For Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebellion that ended the genocide and had led the charge against France ever since, the report was a game-changer.

On a visit to France last week, Kagame, who at one point broke off relations with France, said the report had paved the way for France and Rwanda to have “a good relationship”.

A ‘renewed’ relationship

Ahead of Macron’s visit to Kigali, both sides have spoken enthusiastically of a “normalisation” of ties.

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Wednesday called the visit “a particularly meaningful act” for Macron.

“It signals, I think, a memory that is pacified and a relationship that is renewed,” he told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.

“It is proof that the president’s willingness to face our history, our past, in complete transparency is the best way forward,” he said.

French officials say Macron could also use the visit to name an ambassador to Rwanda, filling a post left vacant since 2015.

But some in Rwanda want France to go further in facing up to the past and officially apologise for failing to help stop the killing of 800,000 Rwandans between April and July 1994.

They will be listening closely when Macron delivers a speech on Thursday at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, the final resting place for over 250,000 genocide victims.

Kagame has downplayed the importance of the issue.

“It’s not up to me, or anyone else to demand apologies,” he told Le Monde newspaper in a recent interview, insisting that any such expression had to be spontaneous on the part of the French.

French ‘blindness’

From Rwanda to Algeria and the colonial-era looting of African art, Macron has gone further than his predecessors in shining a light on unsavoury chapters of France’s past in Africa.

The last French president to visit Rwanda was Nicolas Sarkozy, who attempted to break the ice by admitting to “serious mistakes” and a “form of blindness” on the part of the French during the genocide.

His remarks fell short of expectations in Rwanda and relations between the countries continued to fester.

Macron has presented himself as the standard-bearer of a new generation that came of age after the colonial period and is not afraid to admit to past wrongs.

While campaigning for president, the (now) 43-year-old declared that the colonisation of Algeria was a “crime against humanity” — an admission that deeply upset conservatives in France, where colonial rule has long been portrayed as relatively benign.

He has also acknowledged that France instigated a system that facilitated torture during Algeria’s war of liberation from France, and he agreed to return art looted by colonial forces from Benin and Senegal.

Analysts say these gestures are aimed at wooing young Africans who view France with suspicion, convinced that it is still pulling the strings in former French colonies where it propped up strongmen for decades.

“The fact of being from a new generation and a young president does not change the course of relations between France and African countries,” Gilles Yabi, president of Senegal’s WATHI think-tank, told AFP after the release of the Rwanda report in March.

To counter allegations of French paternalism, Macron has made a point of trying to nurture ties with English-speaking countries in Africa that lie outside of France’s traditional sphere of influence.

After Rwanda, he will travel to South Africa.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP,  AP and REUTERS)

Mali’s military strongman Assimi Goita says the removal from power of the country’s interim president and vice president in recent days was the right move, alleging that the now detained leaders intended to sabotage the transition process with an uncalled for decision to reshuffle the cabinet.

Transitional President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane – tasked with steering Mali to civilian rule nearly 10 months after a Goita-led coup — were taken into custody at a military base outside the capital Bamako on Monday evening, sparking an immediate reaction by former colonial power France.

French President Emmanuel Macron slammed the move as a “coup within a coup” and threatened to impose sanctions.

Former junta leader Goita, who was lately serving as interim vice president, justified the arrest of the interim leaders and seizure of power by claiming that the two had failed to consult him about a government reshuffle in which two former coup leaders lost their cabinet positions.

In a statement read on public television, Goita said Ndaw and Ouane had been stripped of their duties for seeking to “sabotage” the transition, which would “proceed as normal.”

“This kind of step testifies to the clear desire of the transitional president and prime minister to seek to breach the transitional charter,” he added, describing the move as a “demonstrable intent to sabotage the transition.”

In his statement, Goita further pledged to hold elections next year to restore an elected government as previously planned.

The United Nations

France, which continues to hold major political and military influence over Mali, joined the US, the European Union as well as the United Nations, African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to condemn the detentions and demanded their immediate release.

The demand was further echoed on Tuesday by other Western governments such as Britain and Germany.

“We are prepared to take in the coming hours targeted sanctions against those” responsible, Macron declared during a press briefing at the end of an EU summit.

France has deployed more than 5,000 troops in Mali in a purported move to combat the growing presence of militants in the Sahel.

“Sanctions will be adopted against those who stand in the way of the transition,” EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell also warned in a Twitter post.

A delegation from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) arrived in Mali on Monday to help resolve the dispute. ECOWAS played a key role in the formation of the interim government after the August coup.

UN Security Council to meet on new Mali turmoil

The UN Security Council, meanwhile, is expected to hold an emergency meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday following the latest coup in Mali, diplomats stated on Tuesday.

The session was requested by France, Niger, Tunisia, Kenya and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, all of which are current UNSC members, except France, which is a permanent member with veto power.

The development came after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian declared earlier on Tuesday that a special UNSC meeting would be held following the “coup” in Mali, without stipulating when it would convene.

The situation could exacerbate instability in the West African country, where alleged al-Qaeda-linked militant groups control large areas of the north and center and stage frequent attacks on Mali’s military forces and civilians.

The problems in Mali are widely viewed as part of a recent democratic backslide in West and Central Africa, where strong military factions have taken control or presidents have extended their rule beyond allotted mandates.

Last month, a military council seized power in Chad after the battlefield death of president Idriss Deby. His son, Mahamat Idriss Deby, now runs the country and has promised a transition to civilian rule similar to Mali’s. The opposition and civil society insist that the military holds too much power and fear Deby will not relinquish control.

Mali’s young military officers ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020 after weeks of demonstrations over perceived government corruption and his handling of the growing insurgency by suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants.

ECOWAS, a 15-nation regional bloc, threatened sanctions, prompting the junta to hand power to a caretaker government that pledged to reform the constitution.

Source: Presstv

The West African country of Mali seems to be in the grip of a fresh political unrest, with the country’s military reported to have arrested the president and prime minister. The development has prompted calls from the United Nations for calm as well as the “immediate and unconditional” release of the detained leaders

The move has stirred fears of a new coup.

“We call for calm and demand the immediate and unconditional release of the President and Prime Minister. Those who are holding them will be held accountable,” the United Nations’ mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said in a tweet on Tuesday.

Interim President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane were taken by soldiers to the Kati military camp on the outskirts of the capital Bamako, AFP cited two senior officials, who declined to be named.

Just before being taken away by the military officers and before his line was cut, Ouane managed to tell AFP in a phone call on Monday that soldiers had “come to get him.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also expressed concern over the detentions and called for calm.

Reports suggest that Defense Minister Souleymane Doucoure is also under arrest.

The detentions have drawn condemnation from the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union, the UK and the US. They urged for the unconditional release of Mali’s top politicians in a joint statement which was also signed by the UN.

The detentions came just hours after a government reshuffle, which aimed to appease critics of the interim government amid anger at the military’s dominance in the transitional government and the slow pace of promised reforms. The reshuffle saw ex-defense minister Sadio Camara and ex-security minister Colonel Modibo Kone, who took part in last year’s coup, replaced.

The arrests raised fears of a second coup after a putsch in August ousted president Ibrahim Boubakar Keita following weeks of protests against his handling of the Takfiri insurgency and perceived government corruption.

The caretaker government was installed after the 15-nation West Africa bloc ECOWAS threatened sanctions on the country.

Source: Presstv