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Mali PM Says 'Dialogue Inevitable' with Two Rebel Groups
[An Nahar] Malian Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra said Sunday that the government would eventually hold talks with two northern rebel groups, the Islamist Ansar Dine and the Tuareg MNLA, because they are both homegrown movements."Dialogue is inevitable. People who make up the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) or Ansar Dine are our compatriots," Diarra said after talks with the chief west African regional mediator, Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now... 's President Blaise Compaore. Mali's desert north has been under the control of rebel groups since shortly after a March 22 coup, but the two other groups that have seized the region, Islamist rebel movements Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), are both made up mainly of imported muscle. Homegrown Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) and the ethnic Tuareg separatist group MNLA announced Friday that they were ready for talks with Bamako after meeting Compaore. Diarra said he hoped conditions for dialogue would be met "as quickly as possible", but stopped short of proposing a timetable. Diarra was appointed interim prime minister in April to help restore civilian rule after the March coup, appointing former junta members in the key ministerial portfolios of defense, internal security and territorial administration. He said talks would not address "Orcs and similar vermin and narcos (who) for the most part are not Malian citizens". Posted by: Fred 2012-11-19 |
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