Soldiers overthrow government in Mali

Soldiers announced Thursday they have seized control of this African country due to the government's weak response to an insurgency that blossomed in north Mali when fighters who had supported Moammar Gadhafi returned home from Libya heavily armed. On national television, a group of around 20 soldiers in military fatigues were shown crowding around a desk, facing the camera. They announced that the country is under the control of the military's National Committee for the Reestablishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State, or CNRDR. They said they were suspending Mali's constitution and dissolving its institutions. The soldiers complained that the civilian government had not done enough to combat a rebellion by ethnic Tuareg separatists who want to carve out a homeland in the Sahara region. "The CNRDR representing all the elements of the armed forces, defensive forces and security forces has decided to assume its responsibilities and end the incompetent and disavowed regime of (President) Amadou Toumani Toure," they said, reading from a statement. "The objective of the CNRDR does not in any way aim to confiscate power, and we solemnly swear to return power to a democratically elected president as soon as national unity and territorial integrity are established." The coup is a major setback for one of the region's few established democracies. It came one month before Mali's presidential election. Toure, 63, was due to step down after those elections. Gunfire could be heard from the direction of the presidential palace Thursday morning. A soldier at the palace said that the president's bodyguards had failed to fight the renegade soldiers, who forced their way in. They searched the grounds but could not find Toure, whose whereabouts are unknown. The events that culminated in the coup began Wednesday morning at a military camp in the capital, where Defense Minister Gen. Sadio Gassama came for an official visit. In his speech to the troops, the minister failed to address the grievances of the rank-and-file soldiers. The rebellion has claimed the lives of numerous soldiers, and those sent to fight say they are not given sufficient supplies, including arms or food. Recruits started firing into the air Wednesday morning. By afternoon, troops had surrounded the state television station in central Bamako, located in southwest Mali, yanking both the television and radio signals off the air for the rest of the day. By Wednesday evening, troops had started rioting at a military garrison located in the northern town of Gao, some 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away. A freelance journalist from Sweden who was driving to her hotel near the TV station around 4 p.m. Wednesday said that trucks full of soldiers had surrounded the state broadcaster. "They came and started setting up checkpoints. There were military in the streets, stopping people," said Katarina Hoije. "When we reached our hotel which is just in front of the TV station, there were lots of military outside, and more cars kept arriving - pickup trucks with soldiers on them." In Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "The situation is currently unclear and unfolding quickly ... There are reports of military forces surrounding the presidential palace and movement of vehicles between the palace and the military barracks." The Tuareg uprising that began in mid-January is being fueled by arms leftover from the civil war in neighboring Libya. Tens of thousands of people have fled the north, and refugees have spilled over into four of the countries neighboring Mali due to the uprising. The government has not disclosed how many government soldiers have been killed, but the toll has been significant. In February, military widows led a protest, publicly grilling Toure on television over his handling of the rebellion. On state television on Thursday, the putschists announced a curfew starting at dawn until further notice. They called for calm and said violence and pillage would not be tolerated. Their spokesman, who was identified on screen as Lt. Amadou Konare, said the coup was caused by the government's incompetence in dealing with the insurgency. "Given the inability of the government to give adequate means to the armed forces for defending our territorial integrity, and considering the climate of uncertainty that has been created and that has been fueled by those in power ahead of the 2012 election, and considering the inefficient manner in which they have fought against terrorism and to restore the dignity of the Malian people," he said, "the CNRDR has decided to take into its own hands the security of all of Mali."