African press review 30 March 2012

Ecowas calls Mali to order. But its leaders turned tail faced with a demonstration at the airport. And the coup's supporters accuse France of backing Tuareg rebels.

Most African papers have their eyes set on Mali as West African states threaten to isolate the Junta in Bamako. Leaders the bloc of West African states, Ecowas, on Thursday issued the coup leaders a three-day ultimatum to restore constitutional order or face diplomatic and economic isolation.

Maliweb.net reports that the warning was delivered at an emergency meeting in Abidjan that brought together the leaders of Burkina Faso, Benin Liberia and Niger who had been set to accompany Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara to Bamako. The online newspaper claims that the trip was called off after backers of the coup briefly occupied the Bamako airport runway to vent their hostility to the Ecowas leaders’ visit.

Nigeria’s This Day newspaper, reports that supporters of coup leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo, stormed the airport runway, chanting: “Shame on Ecowas. Mali is for us.”

Sanogo is reported to have managed to persuade supporters to move and allow the plane totouch down but the west African leaders had already turned round.

The trip cancellation according to This Day, is a diplomatic blow to the aspirations of the regional leaders to compel the putschists to restore constitutional powers to ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure.

Malian newspaper Le Républicain, reports that the Forum of Malian Civil Society Organisations has emerged as the junta’s most influential backer. According to the Bamako-based paper, leaders of the forum, held a press conference in Bamako Thursday to vent their objection to the Ecowas mission and to press claims that the coup was inevitable due to the political void in the capital.

The Malian civil society leaders reportedly accused the west African bloc of missing a great opportunity to come to Mali’s rescue, preferring instead to worsen the country’s humiliation.

The failed Ecowas leaders’ trip coincided with reports of a fresh rebel attack on the strategic town Kidal in the north-east, where Tuareg insurgents control several key localities. The pro-junta publication Vingt-huit mars holds in an editorial that Malians were right to be suspicious of France, which first reported the Tuareg rebels’ offensive and the fall of Menaka.

The paper argues it took just two little months for the mask to come off.

“The lie may have been running for a good while," the paper argues, "but it ended up being caught by the truth”.

Vingt-huit mars refers to allegations reportedly made by two French ruling party lawmakers that the Tuareg rebels secured French military support as a trade-off for fighting Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, prior to the offensive.