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Niema Movassat

No German War Participation in Mali

„The Federal government is in the act of involving German troops in a lengthy conflict in Sahel. The truth about that is served to the German public only in little slices. It will rubbing its eyes when it realizes that Germany will soon be in the middle of war“, comments Niema Movassat, responsible for development policy of the faction of DIE LINKE, on the announcement of Thomas de Maizière, minister of defence, to support the French intervention against Islamist rebels in the north of the country with planes for the aerial refuelling of jet fighters.

„Already by now it is clear that this conflict in its actual dimension could become comparable with the civil war in Somalia, lasting by now for nearly two decades. Germany, with the planned backing by delivering systems for aerial fuelling of French jet fighters becomes a central party in a war, whose announced aim – to drive back radical islamic forces – will not be achievable, exactly because it happens with the means of war. In reality, this deployment is not about helping the suffering Mali people but to secure long-term French access to natural resources like fossil oil, uranium, and gold as well as France’s geo-strategical interests. The keys to a solution of this conflict are an increased economic promotion of the structurally weak north of Mali through a greater share of the country’s commodity revenues and thus tangible development perspectives for the region. By that and only by that any support for radical islamic forces in society would lose ground. That is why DIE LINKE as only remaining opposition party will clearly refuse an intervention of the Bundeswehr in Mali.“