“They fear accountability”

June 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Government of the United States has denounced this Thursday the threats of the Malian authorities to prosecute the contributors of a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that included “firm indications” about the responsibility of Mali in a massacre of 500 people in the city of Moura.

“The threat by the Malian authorities to prosecute the contributors to the Moura report and their call for the departure of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) make it clear: they fear accountability,” he said. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

The spokesman has also shown Washington’s support “for United Nations personnel who give a voice to the victims of abuse and rape,” according to a publication on his official profile on the social network Twitter.

Mali’s Foreign Minister, Abdoulaye Diop, demanded last week before the United Nations Security Council the “without delay withdrawal” of MINUSMA, led by El Ghassim Wane, alleging that the mission “seems to become part of the problem fueling community tensions exacerbated by accusations that are extremely serious and are highly detrimental to peace, reconciliation and national cohesion”.

The country’s relations with the mission have in turn been affected by the aforementioned UN report on the massacre of more than 500 people in March 2022 in the city of Moura (center), which pointed to the Army as main responsible.

“The government vigorously rejects the conclusions of this biased report,” Diop explained to the United Nations Security Council, adding that the images obtained by satellite by the investigators constitute a crime of “espionage.” Likewise, Diop, who spent a few minutes describing the work of the Armed Forces during the massacre, reiterated Bamako’s opposition to “any attempt to instrumentalize and politicize Human Rights.”

The leader of the Malian military junta, Assimi Goita, had already focused on MINUSMA in recent months, demanding greater collaboration with the Army when carrying out its operations. The mission has deployed ‘blue helmets’ in the country since 2013, although relations have deteriorated as a result of the Goita-led coups in August 2020 and May 2021 and the postponements by the junta at the time to set an electoral calendar for a democratic transition.