Arrested by military, Mali premier resigns

— Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister and forced him to resign before dawn Tuesday, showing that the military remains the real power in this troubled West African nation despite handing back authority to civilians after a coup in March.

The prime minister’s ouster comes as the United Nations considers backing a military intervention in Mali, a once-stable country now in constant turmoil. By late Tuesday, a new prime minister had been named, but the developments drew international rebuke and raised questions about the viability of the military operation, which would use the country’s military to try to take back Mali’s north from Islamic extremists.

Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra, dressed in a dark suit, his forehead glistening with sweat, appeared on state television at 4 a.m. to announce his resignation, hours after soldiers stormed his house.

“Our country is living through a period of crisis. Men and women who are worried about the future of our nation are hoping for peace,” he said on television. “It’s for this reason that I, Cheikh Modibo Diarra, am resigning along with my entire government on this day, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012. I apologize before the entire population of Mali.”

The 60-year-old Diarra is a NASA astrophysicist who has contributed to numerous space exploration missions including the Magellan probe to Venus and the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter. He is now under house arrest, said a spokesman for the junta, Bakary Mariko.

The government remains technically under the control of the interim president, Dioncounda Traore, who waited nearly 24 hours after Diarra’s arrest to address the nation. Late Tuesday, he issued a decree naming a longtime civil servant, Django Sissoko, as the new prime minister. In a speech, he spoke of the need for Mali to remain united in its goal of reconquering the north and installing democracy, never mentioning the military.

The shake-up in Bamako is already looking like it may endanger plans for the military intervention. The African Union is proposing sending several thousand African troops to help the Malian military take back the north, which fell to al-Qaida-linked Islamists in the chaos that followed the March 21 coup.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned Tuesday that Diarra’s forced resignation makes Western countries wary of getting involved in a military incursion.

U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland called Diarra’s arrest a setback for Mali. “We need Sanogo and his brothers-in-arms to stay out of politics,” she told reporters, referring to coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo.

The U.N. Security Council threatened to impose sanctions against those blocking a return to constitutional order in Mali and called on the armed forces to stop interfering in state affairs.

Already the United States and France are at odds on the best way forward. France’s diplomats at the U.N. are pushing for a quick intervention to expel the extremists, while the U.S. is arguing for a more gradual approach, starting with negotiations.

The now-ousted prime minister was arrested between 10 and 11 p.m. Monday at his home by the military, who drove him to the Kati military camp, the sprawling base where the March 21 coup was launched.

Late Tuesday, Sanogo said on state television that he had no regrets over the prime minister’s resignation. But he denied that the military forced him out, saying simply that his soldiers “facilitated” his departure.

At the moment of his arrest, the aging leader was getting ready to leave for the airport for a medical trip to Paris, said a police officer who was on duty at the airport and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

“The plane that was to take the prime minister to France was on the point of departure,” said the policeman. “It was stopped by people from the Yerewoloton group who invaded the airport,” he said.

Yerewoloton is a civilian group believed to be backed by Sanogo that has carried out violent actions on the military’s behalf. This same group in May invaded the presidential palace and beat Traore, the interim president, until he lost consciousness.

That incident brought the international community down like a hammer on Mali’s junta. Sanogo signed an accord agreeing to step down and retreated from public life. Despite his retreat, there were numerous signs suggesting that the junta still called the shots in Bamako.

On state television Tuesday, Sanogo accused Diarra of pursuing his personal ambitions rather than the good of the country. He reminded the nation that it was the junta who initially named Diarra as premier.

“We realized we really needed to act as fast as possible. ... We facilitated [his resignation]. He had already said a few weeks ago that if we wanted him to leave, he’d leave,” said Sanogo. “And yesterday, we realized that it’s really necessary for us to ask him to [resign].”

Information for this article was contributed by Geir Moulson, Don Melvin, Bradley Klapper, Edith Lederer and Jamey Keaten of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 5 on 12/12/2012

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