Bamako criticizes France for having filmed videos showing white soldiers, allegedly from the Russian group Wagner, being busy around corpses near the Gossi base, and then disseminated this evidence to exonerate itself.
Le Monde with AFP
The military in power in Bamako accused Tuesday April 27 in the French army of “espionage” and “subversion” after the broadcast by the French staff of videos shot by a drone near A base in the center of Mali recently returned by France.
The authorities have “noted since the start of the year more than fifty deliberate cases of violation of Malian airspace by foreign aircraft, notably operated by the French forces,” said a statement from the Bamako government. “One of the most recent cases was the illegal presence of a drone of the French forces, on April 20, 2022, above the Gossi base, whose control [had] been transferred” to the Malian armed forces (FAMA) The day before, adds the text, signed by Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, government spokesperson set up by the junta.
“The said drone was present (…) to spy on our valiant fama. In addition to spying, the French forces were guilty of subversion by publishing [of] false images mounted from scratch in order to accuse the FAMA of Be the authors of civilians of civilians, in order to tarnish [their] image “, finally accused the press release.
On April 21, two days after she returned to the Fama her Gossi base, the French army had undertaken to counter what it called “informational attack” and published a video of what She claims to be Russian mercenaries burying bodies near this base in order to accuse France of war crimes in Mali. These images, taken by a drone, show soldiers busy around corpses which they cover with sand. In another sequence, we see two of these soldiers film the bodies half buried. The French staff assures that these are white soldiers, suggesting that they are members of the private military company Wagner, that he has identified on videos and photos taken in other places.
“Make all the light”
In the aftermath of the publication of these images, the Malian staff announced that it had discovered “a mass grave, not far from the camp formerly occupied by the French force Barkhane”, named after the French anti-Jihadist operation in the Sahel. “The state of advanced putrefaction of the bodies indicates that this mass grave existed long before the retrocession. Consequently, the responsibility of this act could not be attributed to the FAMA,” added the Malian staff. On Tuesday, Malian military justice announced the opening of an investigation “to shed light” after “the discovery of a mass grave in Gossi”. According to the public prosecutor at the Bamako military court, “opinion will be held regularly informed of the development of the investigation, the results of which will be made public”.
Plunged since 2012 in a deep security crisis that the deployment of foreign forces has not made it possible to settle, Mali has experienced two military couples since August 2020. The power junta in Bamako has gradually approached of Moscow at the same time as she turned from France, engaged militarily in the country against the jihadists since 2013. Mali has thus made massively appeal to what it presents as “instructors” from Russia while Westerners (Paris and Washington in particular) denounce the presence in the country of “mercenaries” of the Russian private group Wagner, which the Malian colonels firmly deny.
Against the backdrop of a diplomatic crisis with Bamako, Paris announced in February the withdrawal of its soldiers deployed in Mali, an operation to be completed this summer. On April 8, the chief of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian had questioned the version of the authorities of Bamako who claim to have “neutralized” 203 jihadists at the end of March in Moura (in the center of Mali) where the organization of defense Human Rights Watch human rights (HRW) accuses Malian soldiers supported by foreign fighters of having summarily executed some 300 civilians. The United Nations Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has been asking in vain since then in Bamako to be able to go there to investigate in order to determine what really happened in Moura.