Africa
Mali junta says counter-coup defeated
Mali junta leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo (R) shakes hands with Burkina Faso's foreign Minister Djibrill Bassole (L) next to Ivory Coast Minister of African Integration Adama Bitogo (back-left) on April 6, 2012. Photo/AFP
Posted Tuesday, May 1 2012 at 15:39
Traore was sworn in as interim president on April 12, but the situation in the country has remained volatile.
In the north, an area the size of France is now in the hands of Islamist militias and Tuareg separatist rebels, many of them battle-hardened and well-armed after serving as mercenaries in the Libyan conflict.
The regional grouping ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, has mediated the handover to a civilian government and pressured the junta to return to the barracks, with mixed success.
Captain Sanogo on Saturday rejected a plan by ECOWAS leaders to send troops to oversee the transition period, and also nixed their demand for elections in Mali within 12 months.
A meeting that had been planned for Tuesday between an ECOWAS mediator, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, and a delegation of the former junta was cancelled, a source close to the mediators said.
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