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after serving two presidential terms. He was not a candidate.
Under his leadership Mali — which has battled successive Tuareg rebellions since independence and more recently Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb activities — has since been hailed as a growing democratic success in the region.
“We have closed all the borders until further notice,” Sergeant Salif Kone said in a statement on state television, surrounded by the band of mutineers who have formed a junta calling itself the National Committee for the Establishment of Democracy.
A source at the airport had earlier confirmed the closure of the airport, saying all flights to and from Mali had been cancelled in the wake of the coup.
Condemnation poured in from Africa and abroad over the ouster of President Amadou Toumani Toure, who had just over a month left in power before a scheduled election on April 29.
The African Union Commission chief Jean Ping urged “the mutineers immediately to put an end” to the country’s first coup in 21 years, while continental powerhouse South Africa condemned the seizure of “power through the use of force.”
Kenya’s Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula was among African foreign ministers stranded in the country after attending an African Union meeting on peace and security. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday’s military coup was “an apparent setback to the consolidation of democracy” and urged reinstatement of the deposed government. In a presidential statement in Abuja, Jonathan asked the regional bloc Ecowas, the African Union and the international community not to recognise the military usurpers.
“The coup plotters have only embarked on a fruitless mission of supplanting a constitutional government by other means which goes against the current global grain of constitutionalism,” he said.
The Nigerian leader demanded an immediate reinstatement of the government of President Amadou Toumani Toure, who was forced to flee his palace during the overnight coup. He urged the coup plotters to allow the ongoing democratic process in the country to run its full course and not to do anything that would truncate the electoral process, especially the presidential election slated for next month.
President Jonathan said his government “would never recognise any unconstitutional regime.”
The Organisation of Islamic Co-operation condemned the military coup in Mali and called for a swift return to democracy in the country.
OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu expressed “extreme shock” at the coup that overthrew President Amadou Toumani Toure late on Wednesday, according to a statement.
Ihsanoglu called on the leaders of the coup “to respect democracy and enable the Malian people to express its free will,” adding that problems should be resolved “through dialogue.”
What began as a mutiny over the government’s response to the rekindled Tuareg insurrection in the north on Wednesday afternoon turned into a full-blown coup. — AFP.
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