Mali: Military Intervention Exacerbates Ethnic Frictions

Tomorrow, the government wants the Bundestag to legitimise a mission of the federal army in Mali, which has practically long begun. DIE LINKE will defeat this intervention. Because, as in Afghanistan, now in West Africa a protracted war with incalculable human victims impends. It will further throw back the social and economic development of the impoverished region.

Already in the first weeks the war of the French army has massively aggravated the ethnic tensions in Mali. Nearly the whole Arabian population and a majority of the Tuareg fled from Timbuktu in fear of assaults. In the back of the French army the Malian army has executed many people it suspected to collaborate with islamists.

It is distinctive, that the French government still keeps the number of victims of this campaign secret. The press is denied access to maintain the myth of a clean war. But this war is not clean: It is a war for economic and strategic interests.

German soldiers must not become part of such a conflict – neither as a fighting force nor as instructors. Instead, more civilian aid for the suffering population of all parts of Mali has to be provided. After UN reports only €13 million of the €285 million needed for emergency relief measures have yet arrived.

This illustrates the priorities of the belligerent states. Instead of bringing troops from neigbouring states to Mali to war, Germany should help the war refugees. DIE LINKE supports those parts of the Mali civilian population, who oppose the logic of this war. The only solution for Mali is a civilian democratic movement comprising all ethnicities.