Returning from a trip to the Sahel, Victoria Nuland, the US Under-Secretary of State, reported an increase of around 30 % of terrorist acts for six months.
Le Monde with AFP
The United States considers that security has deteriorated considerably in Mali since the junta appealed, according to them, the mercenaries of the Russian company Wagner, said the US Subsecretaire of State, Victoria Nuland , Wednesday October 26. “The Malian junta brought in Wagner and terrorism has worsened considerably,” said in a videoconference M me Nuland, returning from a trip to the Sahel, including in Mali, Between October 16 and 20. It reported an increase of approximately 30 % of terrorist acts in the past six months.
These words contradict those of the military who took power by force in 2020 in this country shaken since 2012 by violence and jihadist propagation. The Malian authorities have diverted themselves for a year from the French ally and its partners, and turned towards Russia. They repeat that they have reversed the security trend and have stammered the jihadist groups. The United States, France and Westerners accuse the junta of having assigned the services of the Wagner security company, to the actions decried. The Malian authorities deny and speak of cooperation with the Russian army in the name of an ancient state of state to State.
M Nuland said that he had expressed American concerns to the Malian government during his visit. “This interim government has made very bad choices by bringing Wagner and associating them with its security system, and we see the results with violence and acts of increasing terrorism and the United Nations forces pushed towards the exit” , she said.
Mauritania, an “stability island”
She accused Wagner of putting pressure on Mali so that he limits the operations of MINUSMA, the UN peace mission, limitations which the Minusma itself complained. M Nuland also echoed the many accusations of abuse committed by Wagner’s men against civilian populations. The neighbors of Mali are also “very worried” of the presence of Wagner in Mali, she said by quoting Mauritania, where she also went and which she described as a “stability island in a very, very harsh neighborhood “.
The United States is engaged militarily in the Sahel. They provided logistics support and information to the French force “Barkhane” in Mali before it was pushed towards the release this year. M Nuland assured that the Americans continued to collaborate very closely with the French in the Sahel after the redeployment of the latter. But “the Faculty of the United States to help Mali on the security front is strongly limited” because of American laws on cooperation with non-elected governments, “and even more now by the choice that Mali be breaded with Wagner “. Civil programs are also affected, she said.
M Me Naland also went to Burkina Faso and met the new strong man there, Captain Ibrahim Traoré. “He said unequivocally that it was up to Burkinabés to defend the security of their country and that they had no intention of bringing Wagner,” she said.