The transitional authorities are taking legal action against the Sadi (African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence) party. At issue: a message posted on social networks in November by its president, Oumar Mariko, a historic figure in Malian political life currently in exile.
2 mins
In this message, Oumar Mariko denounces, among other things, “war crimes”, the war waged by the transitional authorities against the rebels of the CSP (permanent strategic framework). Also at issue is a letter sent, again in November, and again by Oumar Mariko, to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to ask him to stop selling drones to Mali. The Malian government considers that these remarks by Oumar Mariko “damage the credit of the institutions” and is therefore taking legal action to dissolve the Sadi party. Oumar Mariko was joined by David Baché.
” There current logic in Mali is “shut up or get out‘” Or ‘”shut up or you’re going to jail“. The authorities there want to make a mouthful of Oumar Mariko and the Sadi party, to swallow us all together. Regarding my words, I have the right to demand peace and justice for my country. They want to try to make me shut up definitively. They do not want me to say that the war in the North was an unnecessary war. Without officially calling into question the peace agreement, they engaged in a war. So the fact that I advocate peace, that I shows that it is possible to make peace without going to this war, it bothers them. And since they have a hidden political agenda, then my intervention disturbs this political agenda.”
Oumar Mariko has been in exile since the spring of 2022. He fled Mali, fearing for his life after making remarks about accusations of abuses targeting the Malian army. He assures that, in this context, it is in his own name that he is speaking and that these remarks should not involve his entire party, in that the leadership is assumed by other officials who have remained in the country. Oumar Mariko is a well-known figure in the Malian political landscape: he was already part of the protest movement which ended the military regime of General Moussa Traoré in 1991 and created Sadi in 1996. Now threatened with dissolution, the party is currently demanding around fifteen municipalities and several hundred municipal councilors in the country, as well as deputies elected to the Malian National Assembly without interruption since 2002. Outside of the current transition period, the Assembly having been replaced by a National Council of transition.
After the PSDA, whose dissolution was declared last June – the party filed an appeal – the Sadi is the second party targeted by the Malian transitional government as part of a legal process. Last month, a civil society organization, the Observatory for Elections and Good Governance in Mali, was dissolved by the Council of Ministers.