Mali: Neo-imperial occupation spreads across MENA in theft of mineral wealth

France war in Mali: Neo-imperialist grab dressed up in “war on terror” rhetoric
23 January, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham – PressTV

The conclusion is clear, France needed a pretext to go into Mali for several self-serving geopolitical reasons, including asserting political control over its client regime in Bamako with all the strategic resource advantages that that control entails. To achieve this, the French needed to militarise the political situation in Mali by sabotaging ongoing negotiations between the conflicting internal parties and to brand the country as an international security threat from “Islamic extremists.””

France’s intervention in Mali is simply this: a neo-imperialist power grab dressed up in “war on terror” rhetoric.

Since the old colonial power began bombing the West African country on 11 January, the Paris government has wrapped its actions up with chivalrous language of saving the region, Europe and indeed the world from “Islamic extremism”. France, we are led to believe, was “forced to act” on behalf of the beleaguered Francophile regime in Mali’s southern capital, Bamako, to save it from falling into the hands of “Islamists” allegedly “linked to Al Qaeda”.

But closer examination of background events shows that France sabotaged low-key attempts that were under way to find a political solution in Mali between the French-backed regime in Bamako and the northern separatist rebels. These talks and a ceasefire had opened only weeks before the French military intervention. The collapse of those negotiations paved the way for France to militarize the country – a step that now runs the risk of plunging the impoverished West African territory into years of internecine war. The cynical agenda is to create another failed state that will be more tightly under the political control of France, giving the French government a pretext to return to its former colony and the wider Francophone region.

Earlier this week, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian let the cat out of the bag when he said that the aim was the “total re-conquest” of Mali.

Also, President Francois Hollande, in reply to questions about France’s role in Mali, played the “terror card.” He said, “I am often asked, ‘how long will this take?’ I answer, because it is the sole truth I know, ‘as long as necessary; the necessary time to defeat terrorism in that part of Africa.’”

Yet only days before this, the French were saying that their military operations would be over “in a matter of weeks.” Now, it seems, France is carving out a long-term role for itself in Mali. “We will leave no pockets of resistance,” says Le Drian. That sounds like a self-styled mandate for permanent presence.

This is a re-run of the American-led intervention in Afghanistan, where the “threat of Islamic extremism” has provided the moral, political and legal cover for NATO military occupation. That occupation is nothing but a criminal enterprise to give Western powers a foothold in the geo-strategic region of Central Asia. Likewise, the same agenda applies in West Africa. The Western puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul is playing the same role as President Dioncounda Traore in Bamako. It is giving the Western powers, in this case France, a seeming mandate to wage war in a sovereign country, a war that would otherwise and rightly be seen as an imperialist act of aggression and illegal occupation. Note, that the other West African states are also backing France’s military involvement in Mali. But given their status as French client states, whose elite rulers are dependent on French patronage, their endorsement is more a sign of self-preservation than genuine concern for the people of Mali. …more