Credit: Wikipedia /  Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

Mali’s ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta has been released  from detention after being arrested in a military coup last week.   Keïta’s release was announced on Thursday morning by local media. Keïta resigned after a military mutiny that has plunged the west African nation in to political chaos. A group of military officers, the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), has controlled the West African country since August 18, when the mutineers detained Keïta at gunpoint and forced him to resign.  Anti-government protesters had been holding massive protests calling on President Keïta to resign during the past months. Protesters accused Keïta of stealing a parliamentary election in March and installing his own candidates. 

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan did not have  much luck in regional mediation efforts to broker a deal with junta leaders in the west African nation Mali after the military coup.   The Economic Community of West African States, (ECOWAS)  dispatched negotiators to Mali at the weekend in a bid to reverse President Keïta’s removal from power last week.  The former Nigerian president led the regional mediation team.  Talks between West African mediators and Mali’s military coup leaders ended on Monday after three days of discussions without any decision on the make-up of a transitional government.  ECOWAS called for  the immediate reinstatement to power of President  Keita who was forced to resign following the military coup.  During an emergency summit of  ECOWAS held Thursday,  leaders of the 15-nation bloc also called for the immediate release of Keita who  was arrested  along with several other government officials.  The bloc also moved to suspend Mali from all ECOWAS decision-making bodies with immediate effect, in accordance with the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, until the effective restoration of constitutional order.   ECOWAS further decided to close all land and air borders as well as stop all financial, economic and trade flows and transactions between Member States and Mali, except for basic essentials, drugs and other supplies and equipment for the fight against COVID-19, petroleum products and electricity.

Sources said the talks quickly moved from the possibility of reinstating President Keïta due to resistance to that by junta leaders to who would lead Mali and for how long in a transitional government.