UN “Solutions through solidarity, sustainability and science,
77th EDITION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 25 SEPTEMBER 2022.
Mr President of the General Assembly, ladies and gentlemen, Heads of State and Government, Mr Secretary-General of the United Nations, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to fulfill the pleasant duty of sending you warm greetings from the Malian people rich in its cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, as well as those of His Excellency Colonel Assimi Goïta, President of the transition, Head of State.
Mr. President, your brilliant election to the presidency of this seventy-seventh session of the General Assembly and the end of the work of the seventy-sixth session of the General Assembly, brilliantly led by your predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Abdoulaye Chaïd of the Republic of Maldives, offers me the happy opportunity to offer Your Excellencies warm congratulations from all over Mali.
Finally, allow me to reiterate to our Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guteres, our high appreciation for the commendable efforts you continue to make to achieve the noble goals of our common organization.
We are convinced that you are friends with Mali and the Sahel. Friendship based on sincerity, allow me to express my deep disagreement following your recent media release during which you stand and express yourself on the case of the 46 mercenaries from Côte d'Ivoire, which is a bilateral and judicial matter between two brother countries.
It is obvious that the judicial classification of the offenses related to this case does not fall within the competence of the Secretary General of the United Nations. In Mali, our administration does not operate on the basis of orality or statements to the press.
Therefore, we scrupulously adhere to the note verbale of MINUSMA, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (Reference Minusma/brot/nv/226/2022) of 22 July 2022 in which it is clear that there is no link between the 46 mercenaries and the United Nations.
The recent synchronization of actions and the harmonization of elements of the language that consists in passing Mali, my country, from the condition of victim to that of culprit in this case of mercenaries are obviously without effect.
Excellency Mr. Secretary-General, your position on the mercenaries case has been followed by some West African officials, so it is under your guise that we will be sending messages to them. To the current President of the CDAO, Mr. Umaro Sissoco Embalo, who states, and I quote "We just saw the day before yesterday the statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations who said that they are not mercenaries, instead of the Malians, I would have released these 49 soldiers", concludes the quote.
I would very respectfully inform the latter that there is a principle of subsidiarity, with vague outlines, between the CDAO and the United Nations and not a principle of mimicry. It is also important to clarify to him that the Secretary General of the United Nations is not a head of state and the current president of the CDAO is not a civil servant. Therefore, it would be appropriate not to trivialize the CDAO.
Finally, it is worth reminding the current President of the CDAO that in Mali the authorities do not interfere in judicial proceedings and respect the independence of the judiciary. Therefore, we have no vocation to challenge or release. This is part of the judicial function.
Also Mr. Umaro Sissoco Embalo must be aware of the fact that he is the guardian of a heavy heritage and the various sacrifices that have made this organization's reputation. The momentum that made CDAOD great must not be broken.
Furthermore, we have taken note of the threat of sanctions against Mali and, far from being impressed by the sanctions, I would like to point out to the President-in-Office of the ADC that, at the end of his term, the peoples of West Africa will judge him for his efforts to improve people's living conditions and not by media programs that serve foreign agendas.
With respect to Mr. Bazoum, he will note that the transitional government has yet to react to his insulting remarks for two cumulative reasons. The first reason is to respect the heritage left by our ancestors, which consists in not responding to insults with insults. The second concerns the identity of Mr. Bazoum, the foreigner who claims to be from Niger. We know that the people of Niger, the brother of Mali, are distinguished by very rich social, cultural and religious values. Mr. Bazoum is not Nigerian, his behavior totally comforts us in our observation.
Excellency Mr. Secretary-General, Mali will draw all legal consequences from its actions. Before God and in your soul and conscience, we ask those who refute our version to indicate whether they will accept that the soldiers, having hidden their identities, putting in their passports that they are painters, bricklayers, etc... with weapons, disembark at their airport without that the country of destination has been previously informed and with the disastrous intention of destabilizing that country.