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Malian coup leader sidelined by French intervention

By Laurence BOUTREUX
Mali Malian soldiers patrol at Bamako airport on March 29, 2012.  By Issouf Sanogo AFPFile
FEB 9, 2013 LISTEN
Malian soldiers patrol at Bamako airport on March 29, 2012. By Issouf Sanogo (AFP/File)

KATI, Mali (AFP) - Amadou Sanogo had vowed to "fight to the last breath" for Mali, but the army captain whose coup sped the nation's unravelling has sat silently to the side as French-led forces reclaim the north from Islamist rebels.

Sanogo seemed to emerge from nowhere on March 22, 2012, when he led a group of mid-level officers in overthrowing then-president Amadou Toumani Toure, accusing him of letting northern separatist rebels humiliate the Malian army.

A former English instructor at a military academy who learned to teach the language in Texas, Sanogo was picked to lead what began as a mutiny by frustrated officers.

"To everyone's surprise -- including their own -- their protest turned into a successful coup d'etat," said the editor of a national newspaper, asking not to be named.

Sanogo took to the limelight with flare.

In interviews, the non-commissioned officer sported a shiny US Marine Corps pin, a souvenir from his several trips to the United States for military training, and styled himself a Malian Charles de Gaulle, promising to rescue the country just as the World War II hero rescued France.

Under pressure from the international community, he grudgingly handed power to a transitional government on April 13, but continued to pull strings behind the scenes -- notably by ordering soldiers to arrest interim premier Cheick Modibo Diarra, an episode that ended in Diarra's resignation.

Amid the disarray in the capital Bamako, the north descended into chaos.

What had started as a separatist revolt among the Tuareg, a North African people who have long resisted rule by the south, morphed into an Islamist insurgency as Al-Qaeda-linked groups hijacked the rebellion and took control of an area the size of Texas.

With Mali's collapsing army powerless to stop them, interim president Dioncounda Traore made a cry for military help that was answered on January 11 by France, Mali's former colonial ruler, which has sent in fighter jets, attack helicopters and 4,000 troops.

Since French forces arrived, Sanogo has barely appeared on the scene.

He made a statement welcoming the intervention two days after it began, then faded from view as the French-led campaign pushed the Islamist fighters back to the far northeast.

An army press officer told AFP Sanogo is still in the garrison town of Kati, outside the capital, where he and the rest of his junta had set up headquarters.

"A lot of the ex-putschists volunteered to go to the front, but not him," the officer said.

"Anyone who has ever exercised the office of head of state, even for an hour, cannot enter the military chain of command. If he wants to go fight, he can, but as an ordinary captain."

A Western diplomat said the ambitious captain had been "quite clearly sidelined".

"Since the international intervention, the main decisions don't go through him anymore," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Officially, Sanogo is the head of the "army reform committee", a post created for him as a kind of carrot after mediators trying to put the country back together let him have the status and perks of a former head of state, then rescinded the offer after an international outcry.

A soldier posted at the gate of the Soundiata Keita military base in Kati told AFP that Sanogo was there, but said: "He doesn't receive journalists."

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