In Mali, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdoulaye Diop, rejected Bassirou Diomaye Faye on Sunday June 2. The Senegalese president traveled to Mali and Burkina last weekend to convince the transitional leaders of these countries to return to ECOWAS. On Sunday, the head of Malian diplomacy did not cite the Senegalese president by name but he hammered home Mali’s position: the Alliance of Sahel States as “ credible alternative » to an ECOWAS presented as an instrument of France.
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THE Mali, Burkina and Niger were categorical. Their departure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) last January for the Alliance of Sahel States is irreversible. And yet, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the president of Senegal, seemed to have the deep conviction of being able to convince Bamako to return to the West African intergovernmental organization. It is in this sense that he visited Mali and Burkina last weekend.
A visit that feels like a sword in the water. Indeed, on Sunday, the head of Malian diplomacy, Abdoulaye Diop, took advantage of the Mali Media Fair to discuss the subject and the visit of Bassirou Diomaye Faye in the subtext: “ We must transform our regional organizations so that these regional organizations reflect our needs. […] That these organizations are not remotely controlled from the outside “, he insisted, before directly naming ECOWAS.
“ The remote control was in Paris, or elsewhere »
“ This is the problem we had with ECOWAS, with UEMOA, in particular. Our countries were sanctioned because the remote control was in Paris, or elsewherehe pointed. I think we can’t be in organizations that we don’t control. We cannot abandon part of our sovereignty to an organization and have this part of the sovereignty used as a weapon against us. “.
A message echoed by the official channels of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and which has the merit of being clear. If the Senegalese presidency, on tour among its West African neighbors, retained a slim hope of changing the Malian position, the government concerned publicly discouraged it.
As a reminder, Mali has already set up a steering committee for its withdrawal from ECOWAS which met for the first time in April. Since then, there has been no indication of the progress of the work. Above all, the consolidation of the Alliance of Sahel States, presented by the three countries as an alternative to ECOWAS, is well and truly underway.
Read alsoSahel: can Senegalese President Diomaye Faye bring the AES states back into ECOWAS?