It is with a touch of irony that observers of Malian politics noted, in a list of American sanctions published on July 24, the mention “French citizen” next to the name of Sadio Camara. This colonel, who became Minister of Defense of the Transitional Government in Mali after the accession of the Malian junta to power in 2021, is considered to be the armed wing of Moscow in Mali. In its statement Monday, Washington said it had “evidence” that Sadio Camara and two other people, Colonel Alou Boi Diarra and Lieutenant-Colonel Adama Bagayoko, two officials in the Air Force, “contributed to the malicious activities of the Wagner group in Mali”.
The minister is notably accused of having “facilitated the deployment and expansion” of the activities in Mali of the paramilitary company of Evgueni Prigojine, considered an irregular armed wing of the Kremlin. “In 2021, Camara made several trips to Russia to solidify the agreement between the Wagner Group and the Malian transitional government to deploy the Wagner Group in Mali,” specifies the US Treasury.
This is the first time that the French nationality of Sadio Camara, a major figure in the Malian junta which came to power by a coup in 2020, has been publicly mentioned. Since taking power, the transitional government has constantly criticized the French military presence, pushing Paris to hastily end the mandate of Operation Barkhane. If Sadio Camara has never attacked France head-on, he has always displayed great closeness to Moscow, praising, during a ceremony to hand over Russian military equipment in August 2022, the quality of the “win-win” partnership with the Russian Federation. At the same time, he castigated, in an interview with RT France, “the arrogance and lack of transparency” of other countries – indirectly targeting the former colony.
Since 2021, the colonel has increased his trips to Russia. A month after one of these visits to Moscow, in September 2021, the Reuters agency revealed the existence of an agreement to send a thousand Wagner mercenaries responsible for training the FAMa (Malian Armed Forces), protecting the authorities and providing support on the ground, in exchange for 9.15 million euros per month and access to three mines, including two gold.
For their part, the Malian authorities have always denied the presence of Russian mercenaries on their territory. But two weeks after the outbreak of war in Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, in March 2022, Sadio Camara was again seen in Moscow. In a video posted by the Russian Defense Ministry, the minister exchanged a handshake with Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin. “The parties discussed in detail existing defense cooperation projects, as well as regional security issues in West Africa,” the video read.