Mali

The French are leaving Mali after nine years of heavy military involvement.  According to the French they have decided to leave- if you read Malian reports, they have been kicked out...

https://www.nytimes.com/.../mali-france-withdrawal.html

Those who have followed me from Mali to Italy will perhaps remember my blogs from January 13: http://djennedjenno.blogspot.com/2013/01/

I remember so clearly the day they arrived- their timely intervention was hailed by all as a gift from heaven: the saviours had arrived! There was no doubt in anyone's mind at the time that without their intervention, Mali would have been overrun by the Jihadists and  Bamako would have been taken  within days. Since then, public opinion has shifted in Mali. 

The BBC just  tried to give an account of why the French, from being regarded as the heroic liberators, are now more or less universally distrusted and despised by the Malians. The BBC does not get it right. They (as well as most of the other commentators, such as the NY Times above) fail to mention the one thing that has irked the Malians more than anything else: the fact that the French have always been in in collusion with the Tuareg liberation movement, which it separated from the other forces at work in the Northern territories of Mali. Yes, the Tuaregs wanted independence , and their goals were not the same as the Jihadists, but they entered into unholy alliances with them , and the French therefore found themselves compromised, since they were always on the side of the Tuaregs. 

 I am going to Mali in March. I will be going to Djenne again, like I always do. The Junta that disposed of IBK- Ibrahim Boubakar Keita- in August 2020 is riding high in the opinion of the locals, although they have incurred the wrath and sanctions  of the ECOWAS- the West African Economic Alliance- as well as the powers that be in the Western diplomatic community. Nevermind, my Keita would have said, along with most Malians. "Let's forge new alliances... I know  the Russians have arrived in the form of the 'Wagner'  group of mercenaries, to the great glee of the Malians- there are also rumours of Iranian  involvement...

There seems to be a new energy deployed even within the Malian army: My old friends in Djenne are assuring me that in the last few weeks the FAMA (Forces Armees Maliennes) have arrived in some numbers and have freed many Jihadist occupied villages in the vicinity of Djenne.

Wishful thinking? Who knows...