On 29 June, the UN Security Council decided to renew the mandate of the United Nations’ peacekeeping initiative, the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (Minusma), for another year. Established in April 2013, the 13,000-soldiers strong mission had set out to thwart the Tuareg rebellion began the previous year, strengthen state authority in central Mali and protect civilians. Nine years on, it is not clear these objectives have been met.
Mali’s pro-junta, pro-Russia movement
The pan-Africanist and pro-Russian movement “Yèrèwolo, debout sur les remparts” (Standing on the Ramparts) is aware of these weaknesses and may be about to make the Security Council regret its decision. Indeed, not even a month after the renewal, Yèrèwolo’s influential spokesman Adama Ben Diarra, who is also a member of the legislative body of the Malian transition – the National Transitional Council – turned up at the Minusma headquarters to hand over a letter to its officials urging them to leave Mali before 22 September, the commemorative date of Mali’s Independence. On 5 August 2022, the movement held a meeting in Bamako hammering home their demands.
