APA – Bamako (Mali) Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop has reaffirmed the “immediate and irreversible” withdrawal of his country, Niger and Burkina Faso from the West African regional grouping Ecowas, denouncing external influences and sanctions imposed by foreign powers, particularly Paris, which undermine the sovereignty of African states.
Speaking on a panel at the third edition of the Salon des Médias in Bamako on 2 June, Minister Diop cricitised what he called external interference in African regional organisations and called for genuine homegrown leadership of these bodies.
In his speech, Abdoulaye Diop, touched on several aspects of the withdrawal of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a decision taken at the end of January 2024.
He firmly described the withdrawal as “immediate and irreversible”, adding that the breaking point had been reached between the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES) and the regional institution.
His comments come just days after Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye visited Bamako and Ouagadougou to persuade the leaders of these countries to rejoin Ecowas.
This was despite the Senegalese president’s insistence that he had not been mandated to carry out the mission by the organisation or any other body.
Diop was scathing in his criticism of “exteral interference” in African regional organisations. He stressed the need to “transform these organisations so that they reflect the needs and concerns of the African people” and so that they are led by truly African leaders.
“I would like to comment on a point that is perhaps somewhat related to what we are going to discuss in relation to the AES, which is that we need to transform our regional organisations so that they reflect our needs and concerns, and so that our organisations are led by truly African leaders, so that these organisations are not controlled from outside and are not subject to external interference,” he declared.
Paris influence and sanctions
In particular, Minister Diop denounced “external remote control”, citing Paris as an example. He cited the sanctions imposed on member countries as evidence of this interference. “Our countries have been punished because the remote control was in Paris or elsewhere. I don’t think we can be in organisations over which we have no control. We cannot surrender part of our sovereignty to an organisation and have that part of our sovereignty used as a weapon against us,” he declared.
The minister also criticised the role of central banks and the treaties of regional organisations, which he said were often used as “instruments of coercion” against member states. “We put our money in a central bank and tomorrow the central bank becomes a weapon that we use against you. You sign the treaty of an organisation and tomorrow that treaty is used to close your borders. We don’t even use treaties because it’s often a club. One or two leaders decide that we are going to close the border with Mali, and from an outside capital someone decides that Mali should be sanctioned, and Mali is sanctioned,” he explained.
Mr Diop went on to reiterate the need to preserve the sovereignty of African states and to reconsider their membership of organisations over which they have no control.
“We joined these organisations as a sovereign state. As I said in the past, Mali and other countries, Burkina, Niger, Chad and others, but we are the ones who created these organisations. They didn’t create our countries, which are eternal countries,” he explained.
The minister called for a renewal of African leadership in international organisations, insisting that these groupings must be led by Africans themselves.
“We need African leadership of our international organisations,” he stressed, underlining the importance of this autonomy for the future of ESA member states and beyond.
MD/ac/lb/as/APA