Mali PM resigns after being seized by troops
By AFP
Posted Tuesday, December 11 2012 at 09:19
BAMAKO
Malian Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra resigned on Tuesday, hours after
he was arrested at home by soldiers acting on the orders of ex-coup leader
Amadou Sanogo.
"I, Cheick Modibo Diarra, resign with my government," Diarra said in a brief
speech given at the premises of, and aired by, national broadcaster ORTM.
He gave no reason for his decision.
Looking drawn and speaking in solemn tones, Diarra thanked his supporters
and expressed the hope that "the new team" would succeed in their task in a
country where the north is controlled by armed Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda.
His message was delivered hours after a source in his entourage said the
prime minister had been arrested by about "20 soldiers who came from Kati",
a military barracks outside Bamako and headquarters of the former
putschists.
"They said Captain Sanogo sent them to arrest him," he added. A security
source confirmed the information.
Diarra, a noted astrophysicist who has worked on several NASA space
programmes and served as Microsoft chairman for Africa, was due to leave for
Paris for a medical check-up.
He cancelled plans to head to the airport when he learned his baggage had
been taken off the plane meant to take him to France.
Diarra was named as prime minister in an interim government just weeks after
a disastrous March coup that plunged the once stable democracy into a crisis
which has seen over half its territory seized by hardline Islamists.
The 60-year-old is a staunch advocate of plans to send a west African
intervention force into the occupied territory to drive out the extremists
who are running the zone according to their brutal interpretation of sharia,
or Islamic, law.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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