TheEconomistOctober 17th 2020 391I
n the lateevening of October 8th a man
in a white turban stepped off a military
plane into a crowd of well-wishers at Ba-
mako airport in Mali. Soumaila Cissé, an
opposition leader kidnapped by jihadists
in March, was free at last. Also arriving to
cries of “maman” from her waiting son was
Sophie Pétronin, a 75-year-old French
woman held hostage for almost four years.
Two Italians were freed, too. Locals blow-
ing plastic horns celebrated in the streets.
Mali’s new post-coup government, ap-
pointed just days earlier, claimed its first
big public-relations success.
But in northern Mali there would soon
be another party to welcome back many of
the 200 or so jihadists who were freed in
exchange for the hostages. Bomb-makers
and insurgent commanders were treated to
a feast of grilled meat, couscous and fruit
by the jihadist leaders who hold sway over
much of the north and centre of Mali.
Less than two months after massive
street protests precipitated a coup thatousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita,
Mali’s politics are still extremely wobbly.
That worries other countries, too: Mali is at
the centre of an international effort to con-
tain jihadism. It is also in the heart of a re-
gion described this week by Mark Lowcock,
the un’s emergency-relief co-ordinator, as
“close to a tipping point” that might make it
the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
“Nowhere scares me more than the Sahel,”
he said. It was not necessary to add that the
odds are stacked against Mali’s new gov-
ernment restoring stability or rolling back
the spreading jihadist insurgency.
Start with the government’s composi-tion. After the coup in August, ecowas, a
regional bloc, imposed sanctions on Mali
and demanded that the junta hand power
back to a civilian administration. In early
October it did so, sort of. Bah Ndaw, presi-
dent of the “civilian” transitional govern-
ment, is a retired colonel and former min-
ister of defence. His vice-president is
Assimi Goita (pictured, centre), the colonel
who led the coup. Though there are real ci-
vilians in the cabinet, members of the
junta got four of the top posts, including re-
sponsibility for organising elections,
which are promised within 18 months.
“The real power is with the military,” says
Bréma Ely Dicko of the University of Letters
and Social Sciences in Bamako.
The appointments were enough to sat-
isfy ecowas, which has lifted sanctions.
But they will do little to mollify m5-rfp, the
coalition of opposition groups that led the
protests—and has been almost entirely left
out of the government. That puts Mali’s
Western allies in an awkward spot. The eu
had a large mission training the army.
France has some 5,100 troops in the region
fighting jihadists. America has provided
military assistance. The un has 15,000
peacekeepers in Mali. A coup and a govern-
ment led by hard men were not in anyone’s
good-governance plans.
France urges a return to civilian rule,
but also says “it is imperative that we con-
tinue the fight against terrorism.” A newMali after the coupWe were soldiers once
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