UN mission abruptly ended
US blames Prigozhin for Mali withdrawal
6/30/2023, 9:53 p.m
The blue helmet soldiers will withdraw from Mali by the end of the year. The MINUSMA peace mission comes to an abrupt end – at the urging of the local military junta. Wagner boss Prigozhin should rub his hands. His private army earns a lot of money in West Africa. Washington sounds the alarm.
The head of the Wagner troupe, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has contributed to the termination of the UN mission in Mali, according to the United States. Prigozhin helped orchestrate the withdrawal of the peacekeepers to further Wagner’s interests, said National Security Council communications director John Kirby. The UN Security Council had just decided to end the MINUSMA mission in the West African country at the end of the year after a transitional period of six months.
Wagner has been infiltrating African countries since 2016 and subverting their sovereignty, stealing their resources and killing their people, Kirby said. Despite the recent events – the Wagner uprising in Russia – there are no signs that the troops in Africa are weakening. Kirby also added that recent events have shown that Prigozhin and his squad are unpredictable.
According to US information, the Malian transitional government has paid Wagner $200 million since the end of 2021, Kirby said. However, this did not lead to an improvement in the security situation. The role played by the mercenary force in Mali is “toxic and deadly,” Kirby said. The sudden end of the UN mission will only exacerbate economic hardship, contribute to more internal and regional instability and move the country further from the goal of a democratic transition.
The military junta demanded a withdrawal in mid-June
The UN mission to stabilize Mali has been running since 2013. It was launched after Islamist terrorists overran the north of the country in 2012 following the collapse of neighboring Libya and a rebellion by the nomadic Tuareg. A military intervention by the former colonial power France pushed back the Islamists, some of whom were allied with the terrorist militias IS and al-Qaeda, only temporarily.
Since then, the terrorist groups have been spreading in the north and center of Mali and in its neighboring countries. The military took power in two coups in 2020 and 2021 in the Sahel country with around 23 million inhabitants and turned to Russia, from which it promised more robust help against the Islamists. While the military junta only speaks of trainers, it is estimated that up to 2,000 Russian Wagner mercenaries are active in the country. France then ended its military operation.
The mandate of the MINUSMA mission expired this Friday and has now been extended by the resolution of the UN Security Council by just six months with a resolution mandate. The end didn’t come as a surprise. Mali’s military government itself had demanded the withdrawal of all around 12,000 UN peacekeepers in mid-June. Germany, which had previously decided to end participation in the mission, wanted to withdraw its approximately 1,100 soldiers by May 31, 2024 according to previous plans. Recently, there had been increasing disputes with Mali’s military government, for example over flight rights for surveillance drones.