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ECOWAS screws the pooch
Last week Mali’s political scene appeared to be moving in the right direction. Prime Minister Diarra’s transitional government was finally named, and the CNRDRE junta in Kati was keeping relatively...
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Strange days in Bamako
8:00 a.m. GMT: I thought I heard more shooting, but it was just thunder. A rainstorm blew in about half an hour ago. Lt. Mohamed Issa Ouedraogo, CNRDRE ORTM is broadcasting the same kind of folklore...
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Fears, foreigners, and falsehoods
Although the day started out on a note of calm routine, the climate in Bamako has been tense since late morning, for reasons that remain unclear. As with previous days of unrest, our first warning sign...
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On teaching, and not teaching, in Bamako
I didn’t teach class yesterday. Normally I give a two-hour lecture on Friday afternoons, the sole weekly meeting of my “Anthropology and Development” course at Bamako’s Université des Lettres et des...
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President Sanogo?
The preoccupation in Bamako lately is what will happen on Tuesday, May 22. That’s the day when Mali’s constitutionally mandated interim period ends, and the 40-day term of office of Dioncounda Traoré,...
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False passports, false hopes, and false flags
Here in Bamako we’re in waiting mode while negotiations drag on over who will be the country’s president during the transition period to new elections. The CNRDRE junta’s recent call for a “national...
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A deal, but will it stick?
By Sunday morning those of us in Bamako had all heard the news that broke late Saturday night: after weeks of deadlock, negotiators from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had...
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Quiet, too quiet
Here in Bamako we are very thankful for slow news weeks. When seven more days go by without another attempted coup, counter-coup, violent demonstration or physical assault on the head of state, that is...
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The north, the army, and the junta
The Chadian government’s announcement of the deaths of two top commanders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abou Zeid and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, made headlines in the last week — although the French and...
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Sanogo in the clink
I’ve been waiting for just the right reason to bring this blog back from hiatus, and that reason seems finally to have arrived. According to the AFP, “Amadou Sanogo, leader of a 2012 coup that plunged...
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