NO to France’s war in Mali!

Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 15:00

Location: In front of the headquarters of AREVA [1].; 33, rue de Lafayette, metro Le Peletier or Notre-Dame-de-Lorette (Paris)

The French government has been waging war in Mali for more than three weeks. Acting like a pyromaniac fireman, France claims to have extinguished a situation it largely created. Malian society has been eroded by years of structural adjustment programs imposed by the IMF, in the name of debt repayment for which France has a direct interest. And again, it is the French state, through ECOWAS led by Mr. Ouattara–well known for how much he owes to the French army for his accession to power in the Ivory Coast in 2011 – has fuled the political chaos in Mali, in retaliation for the dismissal in April 2012 of the corrupted President Amadou Toumani Touré who France supported. He also deprived the Malian army of its logistical means.

A large part of the Malian population and numbers of Malian worker immigrants in France were relieved by the intervention of the French army against the oppression of religious fanaticism in northern Mali. But the French army in no way intervened to protect the population; it did so for its imperialist interests.

It is not humanitarian reasons that are motivating the French war in Mali, but imperialist interests in the purest tradition of the actions of ‘France Afrique.’ Like a confession to a crime, this war allows France to send troops to secure the uranium mines of AREVA in Niger.

This systematic exploitation by the French industrial trusts is consistent with the maintenance of government and state apparatuses allied to French imperialism that are corrupt and more interested in getting rich on the backs of the peoples than defending them. This was evidenced in Mali: when the jihadists arrived, the Malian army quickly ran off, leaving the population defenceless.

Today, as the Malian army follows in the footsteps of the French army, we learn it has already engaged in retaliatory actions against a portion of the population, accusing it of being complicit with the Islamists. We can ask what new disasters and new massacres are being prepared during the reconquest of northern Mali by the French army and the armies of African countries, none of which is known for its respect for peoples. Yes, this is also true of the French army. We remember its role in Rwanda!

To show our solidarity with the people of Mali, in all their communities, and to denounce imperialist war, which like all the previous ones–Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia–feed only chaos and civil war and strengthen religious extremists, we call for a demonstration outside the headquarters of AREVA, 33, rue de Lafayette, metro Le Peletier or Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Saturday, 9 February 2013 at 15:00.

Initial signators: Libertarian Alternative, Workers Struggle, the New Anti-Capitalist Party (Alternative Libertaire, Lutte Ouvrière, le Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste)