Keita resigned and dissolved parliament late on Tuesday hours after mutinying soldiers detained him at gunpoint, plunging a country already facing a jihadist insurgency and mass protests deeper into crisis.
In a statement broadcast on state-owned television early on Wednesday, a front man for the mutineers calling themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People said they had decided to act to prevent Mali from falling further into chaos.
... but mostly they just want to be paid.
Flanked by soldiers, committee front man Colonel Ismael Wague invited Mali's civil society and political movements to join them to create conditions for a political transition that would lead to elections."Our country is sinking into chaos, anarchy and insecurity mostly due to the fault of the people who are in charge of its destiny," he said.
The military coup has been condemned by Mali's regional and international partners who fear Keita's fall could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africa's entire Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
African Union suspends Mali over military coup
[AlAhram] The African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
(AU) on Wednesday suspended Mali a day after its leaders were detained by mutineering soldiers and the president forced out.
The AU's 15-member security council "suspends Mali from the African Union until restoration of constitutional order and demands release of President Boubacar Keita, the Prime Minister and other government officials forcibly detained by the army," the AU Peace and Security Council said on Twitter.
Keita said Wednesday he had stepped down to avoid "bloodshed" after he was detained in a coup, whose leaders pledged new elections after taking the president and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse into custody.
The 55-member AU had already condemned the "unconstitutional change of government" in the West African nation.
It joined a growing international chorus, including the US and European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing..., that demanded the immediate release of the detained leaders.
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