By Carlos Lopes Pereira
August 14, 2024

The author writes about Africa for Avante, the newspaper of the Portuguese Communist Party.

On August 4, Mali broke off diplomatic relations with Ukraine and accused Kiev of supporting terrorist groups operating in the African country and the Sahel region. A spokesperson for the Malian government said that Bamako would file a criminal complaint with the competent judicial bodies with regard to collaboration with terrorism.

On the same day, in Dakar, Sénégal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to the country and protested about his explicit support for terrorist groups operating in northern Mali who, in an attack at the end of July, inflicted heavy casualties on Malian forces, [who were] assisted by Russia.

The day before, nine Senegalese social organizations issued a joint statement denouncing “Ukraine’s support for terrorist groups” in North Africa. The document came after Ukrainian diplomats and military intelligence officials acknowledged Kiev’s links to extremist groups operating in the Sahel.

“We, Senegalese civil society organizations, denounce Ukraine’s support for terrorist groups and call on the Senegalese authorities to assume their responsibilities,” the statement said. The signatories refer to statements made by a Ukrainian intelligence official to the effect that Kiev helped the Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist groups that attacked Malian government forces in the town of Tinzawatene at the end of last month.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Senegal published a video of these statements on social media, and Senegalese civil organizations consider it “inappropriate for Ukrainian diplomacy in Dakar to carry out a propaganda campaign against the Malian state or any African state.”

Solidarity from Sénégal

Deploring the “alarming” security situation in the Sahel, with attacks committed by “terrorist groups financed and trained by the West,” the Senegalese organizations expressed solidarity with the Malian armed forces and with the Alliance of Sahel States, a recently created collective defense alliance made up of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which is fighting against the terrorist groups now aided by Ukraine.

Senegalese diplomacy, meanwhile, severely criticized the publication of the video by the Ukrainian Embassy, considering it “unequivocal and unreserved support for the terrorist attack perpetrated in northern Mali by Tuareg rebels and members of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims against the Malian armed forces.”

What’s more, Sénégal “rejects terrorism in all its forms and cannot accept, on its territory and in any way whatsoever, comments and gestures that glorify terrorism, especially with the aim of destabilizing a sister country like Mali.”

Similarly, Burkina Faso criticized Ukraine and “called on the international community to assume its responsibility” in the face of Kiev’s choice to collaborate with terrorism “in a global context where there is unanimity on the need to fight this scourge.”

The Burkinabe government called on “peace-loving African countries, in particular, to condemn these subversive actions that threaten the stability of the continent.” And it called on Ukraine to “get its act together” and refrain from aiding the terrorists who “are massacring, killing, raping and pillaging” in northern Mali and throughout the region.