IN FOOTBALL STADIUM FULL OF FOLLOWERS, ROCK STAR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BAMAKO 000172

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

AFRICOM FOR JIM BARBER
DEPT FOR USAID FOR ANGELA MARTIN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KCOR KDEM KISL KIRF ML
SUBJECT: IN FOOTBALL STADIUM FULL OF FOLLOWERS, ROCK STAR
IMAM PRAISES USG

REF: A. 08 BAMAKO 00574

B. 08 BAMAKO 00884


1. (SBU) Summary: During a March 15 celebration of the Muslim
holiday of Mawloud at one of Bamako's largest football
stadiums, imam and preacher Cherif Ousmane Madani Haidara
praised U.S. support for Mali's Muslim community before a
crowd of 35 to 40,000 followers. Haidara, who routinely
attracts crowds numbering in the tens of thousands, is known
in Mali for his outspoken support for democratic openness,
anti-corruption, and Malians' right to pray in local
languages as opposed to Arabic. In recent years the Embassy
has made a concerted effort to reach out to Haidara, inviting
him to participate in international visitors programs and
attend Embassy events (Ref. A). Pleased that the Embassy
responded to his invitation to attend his Mawloud ceremony,
Haidara publicly thanked the U.S. for supporting Mali's
Muslim community and elicited a roar from the crowd when he
revealed having cast a mock ballot for President Obama during
the Embassy's November 4, 2008, election night event. End
Summary.

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Media Star Imam Haidara
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2.(SBU) On March 15, the Embassy attended an event hosted by
Cherif Ousmane Madani Haidara for the Muslim holiday Mawloud
at Bamako's Modibo Keita football stadium. Haidara is the
spiritual guide of the Ansar Dine movement in Mali, the vice
president of Mali's High Council for Islam, and one of Mali's
most influential Muslim leaders. The event on March 15
attracted an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 people, overflowing
the 25,000 person capacity stadium and spilling onto the
nearby hillside. Haidara has held an event commemorating
Mawloud every year since 2003. He told the Embassy that this
year's event was the largest yet, with representatives
attending from 22 countries across Europe, Africa, and the
Americas. The Embassy was the only diplomatic mission in
attendance.

3.(SBU) Haidara became popular during the 1980s due to his
outspoken criticism of the military dictatorship of General
Moussa Traore. Indeed, Haidara was one of the first Malians
to publicly call on Traore to institute democratic reforms.
Traore retaliated by banning Haidara from preaching in
mosques or using national radio and television to reach his
audience, thereby increasing Haidara's popularity even more.
In response, Haidara's followers resorted to circulating his
sermons and speeches on bootleg cassette tapes. The use of
cassette tapes served as a means of evading government
control, but also heralded a type of popular Islam distinct
from that represented by traditional Islamic leaders.
Although Haidara has been free to speak his mind since Mali's
1991-1992 democratic transition, anti-corruption and
democratic reform remain key components of his message.
Another important aspect of Haidara's philosophy is the
belief that African Muslims may pray in local languages as
opposed to Arabic.

4.(SBU) Other, less populist Muslim leaders in Mali sometimes
bristle at Haidara's stance on local languages during prayer
and use of the media to promote his message. They cannot
quibble, however, with the fact that Haidara is one of Mali's
most influential Muslim leaders and likely Mali's most
recognized imam.

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A Public Diplomacy Coup
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5.(SBU) Evidently pleased that the Embassy responded, alone
among diplomatic missions in Bamako, to his invitation to
attend his Mawloud extravaganza, Haidara described at length
to the packed stadium various USG efforts to support Mali's
Muslim community. Referring to the Embassy's 2002 donation
of 80 fans to the famous mud-brick mosque in Djenne and
subsequent use of Cultural Preservation Funds to help
preserve ancient Islamic manuscripts in both Djenne and
Timbutku, Haidara thanked the U.S. for supporting efforts to
preserve Mali's Islamic heritage. He thanked the Embassy for
recent support, in the form of computers and other equipment,
to Mali's High Council for Islam (HCIM) where Haidara serves
as vice president. Displaying a remarkable memory, Haidara
also acknowledged a USAID program from many years ago that
provided Arabic language textbooks to Malian medersas via the

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Ministry of Basic Education's Medersa Unit.

6.(SBU) Haidara also mentioned the Embassy's offer to send
him to the U.S. as an international visitor. Haidara has
twice backed out of IV programs at the last possible minute
for reasons that remained unclear until June 2008 when he
told the Embassy he was deathly afraid of flying. Haidara
explained to the crowd that the purpose of the proposed trip
to America was to enable him to see freedom of religion in
the United States as it affected American Muslims, and said
that Americans are in fact supportive of Islam as a religion,
conventional wisdom notwithstanding.

7.(SBU) Haidara also shared with his followers his experience
during our November 4, 2008, election night event, which was
well attended by many of Mali's main religious leaders (Ref.
B). Haidara elicited an enthusiastic cheer from the stadium
and surrounding hillside when he revealed, over the stadium's
PA system, that had cast a ballot for President Obama during
the election night event's mock election.

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The Rest of Haidara's Message
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8.(SBU) The effusive praise of the U.S aside, most of
Haidara's Mawloud sermon was dedicated to his traditional
themes - anti-corruption, government accountability, and
individual self improvement. Haidara criticized Malian
government corruption, and decried the impunity offered by an
ineffective and equally corrupt justice system. Haidara took
specific aim at Mali's embattled Auditor General's Office,
which has released several sweeping annual reports on the
extent of corruption in Mali but has yet to prompt a single
criminal investigation or indictment. Haidara maintained
that nothing could be done to remedy corruption in Mali until
Malians themselves changed their individual behavior. He
concluded the sermon by calling for greater understanding,
peace, and changes in personal conduct.

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Comment: Muslim Outreach
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9.(SBU) Haidara's impromptu praise of U.S. assistance to
Malian Muslims and Americans' traditional respect for
religious freedom illustrated the sweeping, and sometimes
unexpected, impact of our Mission's outreach to local Muslim
communities. While the Embassy has a history of engagement
with Malian Muslim leaders through the International
Visitor's program, the Ambassador's Cultural Preservation
Fund and speakers' programs that bring American Muslims to
Mali, Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Program (TSCTP) funding
has enabled us to undertake additional large-scale actions
that have attracted public attention. These TSCTP-funded
programs include the computer donation to the HCIM, support
for a national conference on Koranic schools, the
incorporation of medersas into the USAID Basic Education
program, funding for the visit of Georgetown University's
Imam Hendi, annual seminars for teachers of English at Malian
medersas and provision of VOA equipment to radio stations in
key Muslim communities. We are hoping to build on this
positive momentum by working with DOD colleagues to find ways
to provide textbooks to the over 250,000 medersa students in
Mali.

10.(SBU) Perhaps most important, however, are the personal
relationships that such close cooperation engenders between
Malian Muslim leaders and Embassy personnel. The simple act
of being present at important Muslim celebrations is proof
positive of American government respect for the tolerant
nature of Malian Islam. When we can complement this presence
with the kind of generosity expected of the American
government, we succeed in building bridges that reinforce
Malians' traditional rejection of extremist messages while
dispelling mistaken assumptions that the U.S. is somehow
intolerant of Islam.
MILOVANOVIC