The UN’s renewal of sanctions on Mali has failed due to a veto by Russia, resulting in the sanctions set to end on Thursday. Initially put into place due to ongoing political unrest in 2015, these sanctions imposed a travel ban and assets freeze on key individuals in the West African nation. The proposed extension of these sanctions for 2023 would have targeted those seen to be obstructing or threatening the peace agreement.
However, Russia’s veto against the extension of the sanctions to August 2024 hinged on the argument that the drafted extension did not sufficiently consider Russia’s or Mali’s perspective. Following this, Russia offered an alternative sanction, with a warning that if this was not adopted, there would be no further discussions on any similar resolutions in the future. This resulted in the calling of a formal General Assembly meeting to further discuss the matter, to be held in the forthcoming weeks.
The issues at the heart of the sanctions stemmed from the 2015 Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali, drawn up between the Malian government and armed groups such as the Coordination of Azawad Movements. This agreement aimed to establish peace through various societal measures, such as returning women and young people to initiatives, improving education, creating territorial police, and implementing humanitarian efforts throughout Mali.
A catalyst for this peace agreement was the human rights crisis that was reported by organisations like Amnesty International since 2012. This crisis arose from the perceived misuse of power by the Malian government, leading to protestor deaths, a rise in arbitrary detentions, sexual violence, and extrajudicial executions. The Tuareg rebels, a significant party in this conflict, had even alleged war crimes had been committed by the government. Adding to the conflict, pro-government militias threatened Mali’s security in 2015, making moves on the northern part of the nation, and received no response from the government.
Attempts to curb the unrest and stabilise the nation have been made by the UN Security Council, such as the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), which formed in 2013 in response to the unrest. However, this mission was recently withdrawn in July, now leaving the transitional Malian government to undertake these efforts alone. This followed an announcement by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that their embassy in Mali was to close by the end of 2023, a decision taken due to the recent increase in political coups, as well as Mali’s decision to halt security cooperation with France and the UN.
For more details, you can read the original report here.