Assimi Goïta

But Colonel Assimi Goïta's junta celebrated its battle for Kidal by declaring a public holiday and offering cut-price tickets to see Mali's national team play Chad and Central African Republic in World Cup qualifier matches...

Bamako's junta cuts its Russian gold deal A week after Colonel Assimi Goïta's junta proclaimed an historic victory with its Wagner Group allies at Kidal Economy and Finance Minister Alousséni Sanou announced a memorandum of understanding with Russia to build a 200 tonnes a year gold refinery the biggest in West Africa...

This month's signature of a new security pact with the fellow military regimes in Niamey and Ouagadougou has strengthened junta leader Colonel Assimi Goïta's confidence in pursuing this goal...

That festering resentment in Bamako explains why transitional president Assimi Goïta showed little interest in properly implementing the Algiers agreement and has now seized on the departure of the Mission multidimensionnelle intégrée des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation au Mali (Minusma) to reassert government authority across the north by taking over the bases being gradually vacated by UN troops...

CAR's President Faustin-Archange Touadéra and the Malian junta boss Colonel Assimi Goïta were embarrassed when last September Prigozhin acknowledged in a video what they had not yet admitted: that he was leading Wagner and intervening in many African countries...

Colonel Assimi Goïta's junta in Bamako expelled Minusma's spokesman in July 2022 and the head of its human rights division in February...

Copying a tactic used by Mali's transitional leader Assimi Goïta they have announced their own version of an 'inclusive dialogue' to plot the national route forward...

On Mali Faure's government publicly backs ECOWAS measures against Colonel Assimi Goïta's junta but has maintained discreet economic ties with it...

That is straight out of the playbook of Mali's junta leader Colonel Assimi Goïta who has mobilised resentment of ECOWAS characterising it as a pawn of the West especially France...

But Bazoum had been a fierce critic of the Mali junta under Colonel Assimi Goïta...

After ECOWAS sanctions against Mali in 2021 backfired triggering a wave of nationalistic support for Colonel Assimi Goïta's junta the bloc held back from imposing such measures on Guinea and Burkina Faso after their military takeovers...

The development is another indicator of Col Assimi Goïta's intention to rule Mali after a 'transition' from military rule...

Malian junta leader Col Assimi Goïta pronounced himself 'very satisfied' on his Twitter account following a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 14 June...

Meanwhile the junta provided itself with a sheen of legitimacy by holding a constitutional referendum on 18 June which five days later produced a Soviet-style result: 97% of voters approved the new constitution which concentrates more power in the hands of transitional President Assimi Goïta whose candidacy for the planned 2024 presidential elections is hardly in doubt...

That was key for the regime of transitional President Assimi Goïta which furiously disputed the findings of a Minusma investigation confirming that in March 2022 the army and its foreign allies – a clear reference to Wagner mercenaries – had murdered 500 people in the village of Moura...