Malian Civic Group Calls for National Mediation to Solve Tuareg Rebellion

Participants at a meeting held on Sunday in Bamako pleaded for the setting up of an internal mediation and the preservation of the National Pact signed in 1992 and the Algiers Accord of July 2006 as the “only referential frameworks in the search for peace and stability in Mali’s northern regions”.

Some contributors also pleaded for the denial of all the foreign facilitation missions, asserting that Mali “has resource persons to facilitate dialogue between the government and the Tuareg rebels who are operating in the north of the country.

Others however pleaded for the involvement of Mali’s neighbours in preventing and managing cross-border insecurity », and suggested issuing international warrants against the Tuareg rebel leaders.

Sunday’s meeting was organised by a group of citizens from Mopti (in the centre), Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal (in the north) regions residing in Bamako.

The meeting follows the bloody attacks on Wednesday in Abeibara (Kidal region, which is not far from the Algerian border) that killed 15 on the government forces and 17 on the assailants’ side.

Many observers linked the attack with the stay in the region of the “goodwill mission” by representatives of 14 Muslim countries who were commissioned by the Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi.

As a facilitating country between the central government of Bamako and the Tuareg rebellion, Algeria had suggested to resume its mediation as from Tuesday 20 May.

The Algerian mediation had been interrupted after the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the Malian armed forces and the Tuareg rebels on 3 April in Tripoli, Libya.

Algeria had mediated the signing of a National Pact in 1992 in Mali before sponsoring the signing of two new ones on 4 July in Algeria.

Source African Press Agency

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