Beitrag vom 06.04.2012

New York Times

Mali Rebels Proclaim Independent State in North

By LYDIA POLGREEN and ALAN COWELL

Tuareg rebels who overran much of northern Mali after disaffected soldiers toppled the government in the south declared an independent state called Azawad on Friday, cementing the division of the former French colony as its neighbors began drawing up plans for military action to tackle the twin crises of the coup and the apparent secession.

The declaration came within 24 hours of the northern rebels declaring a cease-fire, saying they had completed military operations after achieving their objectives — the capture of a string of settlements in a lightning advance across the desert north of the country.

In a declaration on its Web site, the rebellious National Movement for the Liberation of Awazad said it proclaimed "irrevocably the independent state of Azawad, starting from this day, Friday April 6, 2012.”

The declaration said the rebels recognized the inviolability of their borders with neighboring countries and promised to draw up a democratic constitution. The proclamation will likely alarm Western powers who have voiced fears that Islamic militants aligned with the separatists want to build a bastion of support for Al Qaeda in the north of the country.

Citing both the charter of the United Nations and separatist ambitions dating to 1958, the proclamation urged foreign powers to recognize their independence — a move that seemed unlikely in the turmoil following the coup further south in the capital, Bamako, where Mali's main political parties have refused to participate in a national conference called by the military junta that toppled the country's democratically elected president last month.

The leader of the junta, which has said it seized power because of the civilian government's ineffective handling of the Tuareg uprising in the north, pleaded for international help in fighting the Tuaregs in an interview with the French newspaper Libération.

"If the great powers were able to cross oceans to fight against the Islamists, what prevents them from coming to us?” asked the junta leader, Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo, alluding to the war in Afghanistan.

But such assistance is unlikely. On Thursday, France ruled out a "military solution” in Mali, a former French colony, to counter the Tuareg rebels in the north, who announced that they had achieved their territorial objective.

The declarations by the main Tuareg rebel group came after other rebel fighters, who helped seize the ancient city of Timbuktu over the weekend, were quoted by local officials as saying that they planned to impose Islamic law there.

The country is effectively divided between the south, controlled by mid-ranking officers who overthrew what had been seen internationally as a democratic government, and the rebels in the north, who have been strengthened by an influx of arms and fighters since the collapse of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's rule in Libya.

Speaking at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, Mali's representative said the nation had never faced a graver crisis. "Our people are divided,” Ambassador Omar Daou said. "Our country is threatened with partition.”

In Paris, the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, told reporters that there would be "no military solution with the Tuaregs — there needs to be a political solution.” He urged neighboring countries like Algeria and Mauritania to press for a political settlement.

The rebel takeover has deepened Western concerns that Islamic militants could turn the poor, remote desert reaches of northern Mali into a redoubt for the regional affiliate of Al Qaeda.

Mr. Juppé said France would not send its own troops to oppose the rebellion, but would be willing to offer logistical support for a regional force to support the Bamako authorities, specifically to fight Islamists linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb while negotiations got under way with secular Tuaregs.

Military commanders from the regional grouping known as Ecowas, which has suspended Mali and imposed economic sanctions against the nation because of the coup, met on Thursday in Ivory Coast to discuss their contributions to a 2,000-strong standby force to be created for possible intervention in Mali, The Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of the Islamic rebel group known as Ansar ud-Din, said that following the proclamation of Islamic law in Timbuktu, women would be required to wear veils, thieves would be punished by having their hands severed and adulterers would be stoned to death, according to local officials and a radio journalist quoted by The A.P.