On 8 September, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch published a report « Mali: Military operations lead to abuses ». For those following and interested in the Malian and Burkinabe affairs, this document confirms the accusations of human rights violations by the military, relayed in the press, especially in Mali, for some time.
The humanitarian organization, independent and international, carried out a 10-day research mission, interviewing 48 victims of abuse and witnesses, as well as officials from the of Fulani, Dogon and Bambara ethnic communities; former detainees; local government officials, members of the security services and the judicial system; and foreign diplomats.
The report points out that since the end of 2016, « Malian forces have engaged in extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary arrests of men accused of supporting Islamist armed groups, while an operation carried out in June 2017 across the border by the Burkinabe forces resulted in the death of two suspects ».
The mission revealed three mass graves, containing at least 14 men executed after detention, and 27 cases of enforced disappearance were documented. The Malian government has not provided any information to families about their relatives, the report said. The NGO deplores the fact that neither the army nor the civilian judiciary system has made any serious effort to investigate these alleged abuses and to hold the military and the responsible officers to account.
Thus, last May, responding to accusations of human rights violations by the Malian army, the Minister of Human Rights and State Reform, Me Kassim Tapo, declared that « Mali has no lesson to learn from anyone in the matter of the protection of human rights ».
« Our goal is to have zero impunity for human rights violations on our soil. All actors of crimes will be treated on an equal footing. We must not talk nonsense », the minister added.
The NGO refers to the case of three Malian and Burkinabe traders arrested and tortured by Malian soldiers on June 23 in Boni, 220 kilometers from the garrison town of Sévaré in the Mopti region. One of them confesses to having been dispossessed of his money and his watch: “(…) they beat us with kicks, stick and lacrosse. They pulled me up and hit me twice with a truck … I lost two teeth and two others are now shaken. I lost consciousness and my mouth was bleeding. They seized the Burkinabe driver and threw his head against the ground … he was in bad shape. He is in the hospital in Djibo [Burkina Faso].”
On the Burkina Faso side, the NGO revealed that last June, the soldiers arrested 70 men, accused of complicity with the Islamist group Ansarul Islam, near the Malian border: the soldiers burned property, subjected some to abuse ….
While it focuses on the human rights violations perpetrated by Malian and Burkinabe troops, the report also speaks of the violence perpetrated by Islamist groups, which carry out summary executions of civilians and soldiers of the Malian army, destructions of schools, and the recruitment and use of children as soldiers.
For Human Rights Watch, the Malian and Burkina Faso governments should investigate for the members of the security forces involved in these human rights violations to be held accountable.
Sahelien.com