Mali’s interim president vows to keep chaotic country intact

MALI’S new interim president has taken office, vowing to keep the chaotic country intact, despite rebels declaring an independent state in the north after a military coup three weeks ago.

Dioncounda Traore, who heads the national assembly, is to serve as Mali’s president for 40 days following an agreement between regional mediators and the leader of the junta that seized power last month.

Amid the political upheaval, separatist rebels in northern Mali declared an independent state, which is larger than France. The power vacuum also has allowed an Islamic faction that wants to impose shariah law to flourish.

The crowd cheered at yesterday’s inauguration after the military coup leader Amadou Haya Sanogo shook Mr Traore’s hand. The new interim president said he would “never negotiate about the partition of Mali”.

“We won’t hesitate to wage a total, relentless war to regain our territorial integrity and also to kick out of our country all these invaders who bring despair and misery,” Mr Traore said.

As he was sworn in southern capital Bamako, there was confusion over which factions of the diverse rebel movement were controlling what strategic locations in the desert trading city of Timbuktu and the garrison town of Gao.

There have been reports of Islamist rebels seeking to apply sharia law among the local population, shutting down bars and ordering women to cover their heads. Other reports have spoken of looting and gun-toting, turban-wearing fighters roaming the streets, forcing many non-Tuaregs to flee the north.

UN human rights official Navi Pillay said the situation risked worsening a grave humanitarian crisis already affecting the drought-plagued Sahel region, as thousands of refugees flee the rebels. “Reports from the north of the country suggest that civilians have been killed, robbed, raped and forced to flee,” Mr Pillay said in Geneva.

While reports were confused, “a variety of different rebel groups have been accused of looting private and public property, including hospitals and health care facilities”, he said.

Separatist leaders have declared a secular Tuareg homeland of “Azawad” in northern Mali – a secession bid so far snubbed by the world.

Those separatist rebels have distanced themselves from their Islamist comrades-in-arms, who, for their part, reject secession and say they want to apply sharia across all of Mali.

Malian president Amadou Toumani Toure was months from finishing his last term when soldiers stormed his palace on 21 March, sending him into hiding and overturning a democratic tradition stretching back more than two decades.

The soldiers claimed they had seized power because Mr Toure had mishandled the Tuareg rebellion that began in January, sparked partly by the return of Tuareg fighters who had been in the employ of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. However, it was only after Mr Toure was removed that the rebels succeeded in taking the three largest cities in the area and declared independence.