« Five days of organized violence, the proceedings are making very little progress »
Hassatou Ba Minté, head of the Africa office of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
RFI: How do you explain that Malian military justice, which had promised to make public the conclusions of its investigation into what happened in Moura, has still not done so?
Hassatou Ba Minté : This survey exists. There are even two: an investigation which was opened at the level of the Specialized Judicial Center (PJS), which really has jurisdiction over everything related to terrorism and also to human rights violations and then, a second procedure which is before the military tribunal.
The information we have at this stage is that these procedures are making very little progress. We have no information on the constitution of civil parties, for example, or the fact that victims or witnesses have been heard by the courts.
What is already surprising is that one of the procedures is opened before the military court when we know that before this court, there can be no civilian victim who is constituted. So it’s an approach that is still special. And from what we understand, the approach that is taken, at the level of the PJS, consists in seeing this file as an anti-terrorism file. So, for us, there is a real problem which arises, it is the judicial approach which is taken by the Malian authorities, which does not give access to justice to the victims and their families and which, ultimately, continues to keep this massacre in the greatest opacity.
The Malian transitional authorities regularly denounce the ” instrumentalization », according to them, of the question of human rights for political ends…
It is very unfortunate that the Malian authorities are concentrating on this. What is precisely one of the responses to be provided is transparency. Let’s start, for example, if only with this: have disciplinary measures been taken against elements of the armed forces who are alleged perpetrators of violations? Were precautionary measures taken? We have no information.
So, beyond the opacity of the two procedures that I mentioned earlier, what we see is a massacre that remains totally unpunished a year later, victims who remain without recourse and without information on the progress of the legal proceedings, and finally a State which effectively continues to claim that respect for human rights and international humanitarian law are at the heart of operations and military strategy. But for all that, we do not see for the moment any effective fight against impunity for the massacres that have been committed, including that of Moura.
The United Nations Mission in Mali (Minusma) has also investigated Moura’s case but, again, we are still awaiting its final report. How to understand it?
The United Nations has been in turmoil in Mali for several months. The room for maneuver of the Minusma and in particular of the human rights department on site is increasingly limited. We have seen it again in recent weeks with the expulsion of the director of human rights, precisely, from the Minusma. There has been more and more obstruction in the context of their work, access has also been refused.
Can we imagine a form of ” diplomatic restraint “, on the part of the Minusma, so as not to further deteriorate its relations with the Malian authorities of transition?
We imagine that political negotiations necessarily take place between the Malian authorities and the United Nations on the spot to facilitate and improve their framework for collaboration. In any case, for us, this negotiation cannot be done to the detriment and disregard of respect for human rights.
It is therefore important that the Minusma report on these facts be able to come out, be made public and be transmitted to the various competent authorities, but also to the international community and Malian civil society.
The families of the victims of Moura and other localities which have seen massacres in recent months are still quite destitute today and are really in the most total destitution.
You yourself at FIDH published a report last November with already numerous testimonies from Moura victims…
Absolutely. The violations that have been documented are numerous cases of summary executions, cases of rape, cases of torture, in the presence of foreign auxiliaries of Wagner whom the Malian authorities call ” Russian instructors “. It’s really five days of organized violence. And then we clearly realize that this organized violence is ultimately a persecution imposed on members of Fulani communities in Mali. Moura is one of the latest examples.