WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) – The United States is
suspending at least $13 million of its roughly $140 million in
annual aid to Mali following last month’s coup in the West
African nation, the State Department said on Wednesday.
The suspension affects U.S. assistance for Mali’s ministry
of health, public school construction and the government’s
efforts to boost agricultural production.
The United States, which sees Mali as an important partner
in regional efforts to combat Islamic extremism, has warned that
Mali’s political crisis was putting the territorial integrity of
the country at risk.
U.S. law bars aid “to the government of any country whose
duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or
decree.”
The United States announced the suspension of some aid to
Mali a day after calling again on coup leaders to immediately
return power to civilian authorities.
“The rest of the assistance will continue but anything that
was directly going into the government programs and ministries
has to be suspended,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told
reporters.
Once one of the most stable democracies in West Africa, Mali
has been in turmoil since the widely condemned March 22 coup
that emboldened Tuareg rebels to seize half the country in their
quest for a northern homeland.
They have been joined by Islamists bent on imposing sharia,
Islamic law, across the whole of the moderate Muslim state,
making it the latest security concern in a region battling al
Qaeda agents and home-grown militant groups such as Nigeria’s
Boko Haram.
Mali’s military rulers on Wednesday postponed a national
convention to end a crisis sparked by the coup, which has led to
international isolation and allowed the rebels to seize control
of the northern half of the country.
(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Will Dunham)
