MALIAN MILITARY LOOKING FOR 3000 NEW RECRUITS

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAMAKO 000559

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/24/2017
TAGS: MARR ASEC MCAP ML
SUBJECT: MALIAN MILITARY LOOKING FOR 3000 NEW RECRUITS

Classified By: Political Officer Aaron Sampson, Embassy Bamako, for
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (U) Col. Abdoulaye Coulibaly, the Malian military's
Director of Information and Public Relations, told the
Embassy on May 23 that the Malian military hoped to enlist
3000 new soldiers during the 2007 recruiting drive that ended
last week. Local newspapers reported that many potential
recruits had falsified their birthplaces, claiming that they
were born in either Gao or Timbuktu, following rumors that
the military was actively seeking more individuals from
northern Mali.


2. (U) Col. Coulibaly stated that, contrary to local media
reports, military recruiting goals for 2007 were unchanged
from previous years. He explained that since applications
from Bamako alone could easily fill the 3000 person
recruiting target, the military and Ministry of Plan used a
quota system based on local population estimates to assure
spaces for each of Mali's 8 regions and the capital of Bamako
. According to Coulibaly the quota for the Kidal region,
which was at the heart of last year's Tuareg uprising, is
around 250. The quotas for the much larger regions of
Timbuktu and Gao are fixed at roughly 300 recruits each.


3. (U) Coulibaly noted that approximately 200 of Kidal's
250 places for this recruiting cycle would be allotted to
demobilized former Alliance for Democracy and Change (ADC)
fighters. The remaining 50 places would be filled with
individuals from the Kidal region who are presumably not
associated with the ADC. Coulibaly said that another 220
former ADC members would be rolled into the 2008 recruiting
class from Kidal.


4. (U) According to Coulibaly, most of those recruited from
Kidal would be assigned to the "special" national guard units
created by the Algiers accords to help secure Mali's northern
regions of Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao. Coulibaly maintained
that the special units were not "all-nomad" units but would
contain a balanced number of Tuaregs, Arab/Moors and southern
Malians.


5. (C) Comment: The creation and staffing of "special"
National Guard units gives the appearance that Mali is
following through on its commitments to the Algiers Accords,
an assumption evidently made by potential recruits willing to
fake their home of origin to find a job in uniform. The
reality, however, appears to be that Mali has decided not to
provide additional resources or positions over its regular
recruiting. Limited overall resources likely remain the
chief constraint, along with a reluctance on the part of
southern Malian military officers to unfairly advantage
Northern recruits as compensation for the political troubles
created by some of their elders.
McCulley