Bulletin No49 aout 2024 The Malian government has officially severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine. Ukraine is an Eastern European country, Mali is located in the Sahel region of Africa. Their political and trade relations are not intense, to say the least, neither in a positive sense nor, so far, in a negative sense. Kiev does not even have an embassy in the Malian capital, Bamako, although it does in a number of other African states; Mali also does not have a diplomatic mission in Ukraine. At first glance, it is difficult to see how two countries that have so little in common managed to come to such a confrontation.
Ukraine is at the root of this strange conflict. The aggressive, arrogant and narrow-minded actions of its leaders have left Bamako with no choice but to send kyiv packing. Ukraine’s mistreatment of the African nation has a broader significance, as it is emblematic of its alignment with the Western imperialist bloc.
At the end of July, troops of the Malian national army, reinforced by mercenaries from the Russian Wagner group, were ambushed in the north of the country, near the town of Tinzaouaten. The attackers were composed of two different, but cooperating, forces: first, they were the Tuareg insurgents, a long-standing separatist rebellion launched in 2012 and organized within the framework of the CSP–DPA (Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad). This organization has always been supported by French imperialism. Before, they lived in Libya. But, in the wake of the overthrow of Gaddafi and the chaos created by the Western imperialists, the French state decided to use these people, to take them out of Libya and to implant them in northern Mali. In addition, the Islamist fascists affiliated with Al-Qaeda, one of these organizations operating on behalf of US imperialism, under the label of GSIM (Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims), have also struck.
The details of this battle are still not entirely clear. Apparently, a sand and dust storm largely neutralized the air advantage of the Malian government forces. But there is no doubt that together, the French-backed Tuaregs and the Islamist fascists inflicted a bloody defeat on their opponents. Wagner's losses were considerable: the figures vary from more than two dozen, to fifty, to more than eighty. The Bamako government reported two dead and 10 wounded among its soldiers.
This is where Ukraine comes in. Or, to be precise, this is where Kiev's infamous military intelligence service, HUR, comes in. In reality, it is a CIA-trained assassination and covert operations service.
Shortly after the battle of Tinzaouaten, HUR spokesman Andriy Yusov publicly boasted that his service had contributed to the ambush by providing “all the necessary information that the attackers needed.” There has also been talk of the involvement of other means, such as drones and weapons, that could have been used.
Once in the hole dug by the spy, it was a question of intensifying the propaganda around Wagner's defeat, with the support of the media of the imperialist West. Yuri Pivovarov, Kiev's ambassador to Senegal, published a video on his embassy's website to boast once again of having helped destroy the Malian government forces in Mali. The Senegalese government summoned him and the video has now disappeared. Of course, Senegal rebuked the ambassador. But nothing more. The Senegalese government remains in a limbo, fully supporting ECOWAS, adopting postures of opposition to French neocolonialism, but maintaining, through its Prime Minister Sonko, proven links with the Islamist fascist groups fighting the transitional governments of Burkina Faso and Niger.
Of course, after Mali broke off diplomatic relations, kyiv claimed that Mali had no proof of its involvement. Of course, no one believed it.
Malian government spokesman Abdoulaye Maiga said that " Ukraine 's participation in the cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups [...] violates Mali's sovereignty, goes beyond the framework of foreign interference and amounts to supporting international terrorism ."
Following Mali, Niger and then Burkina Faso broke off diplomatic relations with Ukraine.
For the Revolutionary Communist Party, this situation must be viewed in all its complexity. The three countries of the Sahel Alliance are engaged, in one way or another, in taking back control of their destiny and decolonization. Western imperialist troops have been driven out, the battle against the Islamist fascists has led to victories, and it is not just Tinzaouaten.
Whatever the difficulties of these processes, the sometimes justified criticism of the leaders of the three countries, in particular the support for Russia, the three peoples have decided to support the original approaches of their military leaders. And this does not please Western imperialism at first, which uses all its pawns to prevent the success of the Sahel Alliance, including Ukraine, including the various Islamist fascist forces that are at its service. The role of the Tuaregs armed by France is also to be underlined in this state of affairs, that of Algeria does not seem very clear vis-à-vis these same Tuaregs and Mali. The north of the Sahel attracts a lot of covetousness.
The Revolutionary Communist Party recalls that it supports the processes of decolonization and the right of the peoples of the Sahel to emancipate themselves from colonial France, to finally get their hands on their natural resources and to lead their destiny outside of imperialist influences.