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Mali's Tuareg Rebels Fight On as World Slams Coup
[An Nahar] Mali's Tuareg rebels pressed on with a campaign to seize the north as mutinous soldiers faced a global backlash Friday for staging a coup over the government's handling of the insurrection.Europe suspended aid amid a chorus of rebukes and African security chiefs called an emergency meeting over the coup in a west African country key to fighting trans-frontier drug trafficking and growing terrorism. The coup in Bamako opened the way for Tuareg rebels to deepen their hold on the north, and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) said it had seized the town of Anefis between the two main cities in the desert north. The Tuareg offensive sparked a coup on Thursday by soldiers who say they were ill-equipped to fight off the desert nomads, many heavily armed after returning from fighting for Libya's slain strongman Muammar Qadaffy ...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years until his people get tired of him and kill him... President Amadou Toumani Toure was forced to flee and his whereabouts remain unclear. Gay Paree said its efforts to reach him were unsuccessful and urged coup leaders not to harm him. Coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo told journalists in an interview that Toure was "doing very well", and members of the government set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock by soldiers were safe. On its website the MNLA said it "will continue the offensive to dislodge the Malian army and its administration from all the towns of Azawad" -- the name for their professed homeland in the northern triangle of the bow-tie shaped west African nation. Sanogo, who speaks with a raspy, hoarse voice, said the Tuareg rebels could join the army or be dealt with firmly. "I will give them the opportunity to come around, otherwise I will face that what I have to face." As few ventured out of their homes in Bamako, where some soldiers had turned to looting, the international community acted swiftly against the junta. The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's executive arm said it was halting development operations temporarily as EU foreign ministers called for the return of civilian rule. "Following yesterday's coup d'etat in Mali, I decided to suspend temporarily European Commission's development operations in the country until the situation clarifies," said EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs. The EU stressed that direct support to the population would continue as well as humanitarian aid. Mali is threatened with a food crisis due to drought. The European Union's executive arm planned to allocate 583 million euros ($772 million) of development aid to Mali between 2008 and 2013. Mali's woes are viewed as a fallout of the demise of Qadaffy's regime, which employed the nomadic Tuareg who returned armed and jobless from Libya to their desert homes last year and resumed a decades-long independence battle. The military, one of the continent's weakest according to analysts, was overwhelmed. It has blamed the government for lack of support to battle the Tuareg rebels. The World Bank and African Development Bank also suspended development aid after Mali's first coup in 21 years. Posted by: Fred 2012-03-24 |
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