Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09BAMAKO232
2009-04-16 13:40:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Bamako
Cable title:  

MALI ARRESTS ITS OWN AUDITOR GENERAL

Tags:  PGOV KDEM KCOR PHUM ML 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO1544
RR RUEHPA
DE RUEHBP #0232/01 1061340
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 161340Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY BAMAKO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0238
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 0619
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAMAKO 000232 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2019
TAGS: PGOV KDEM KCOR PHUM ML
SUBJECT: MALI ARRESTS ITS OWN AUDITOR GENERAL

REF: A. BAMAKO 00195

B. BAMAKO 00044

C. 07 BAMAKO 00680

D. BAMAKO 00077

Classified By: Economic Officer Manoela Borges, Embassy Bamako,
for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAMAKO 000232

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2019
TAGS: PGOV KDEM KCOR PHUM ML
SUBJECT: MALI ARRESTS ITS OWN AUDITOR GENERAL

REF: A. BAMAKO 00195

B. BAMAKO 00044

C. 07 BAMAKO 00680

D. BAMAKO 00077

Classified By: Economic Officer Manoela Borges, Embassy Bamako,
for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

1.(C) Summary: On March 31, Malian authorities arrested
Mali's Auditor General, Sidi Sosso Diarra, for "obstructing
the freedom to work" and "opposition to legitimate
authority." The arrest stems from Diarra's controversial
firing of eight Office of the Auditor General (OAG) employees
and his refusal to abide by a Supreme Court decision ordering
their reinstatement. After spending several hours at
Bamako's Central Prison, the Public Prosecutor allowed Diarra
to return home well after nightfall. Diarra was officially
released on bond - apparently against his will - the
following day. While some regard the latest drama swirling
around the embattled Auditor General as proof that even the
powerful are subject to the law, others interpret Diarra's
arrest as the latest act in a power play designed to diminish
Mali's only independent anti-corruption institution. On
April 3 Cheikh Modibo Diarra, a former NASA aerospace
engineer and current Microsoft Africa Chairman who also
happens to be AG Diarra's brother, told the Embassy that Sidi
Sosso Diarra was the victim of widespread corruption within
the Malian government. Although AG Diarra has clearly made
some mistakes, his arrest illustrated, once again, the Malian
legal system's capacity for lightning speed when motivated by
concerns that often seem more political than judicial. End
Summary.

--------------
The AG Goes to Jail
--------------

2.(SBU) On March 31, the Investigative Judge of Bamako's
Fourth District, Dramane Diarra, ordered the arrest of
Auditor General Sidi Sosso Diarra for "obstructing the
freedom to work" and "opposition to legitimate authority.".
The Auditor General's arrest followed a full day of
questioning on March 25 on unrelated allegations of financial
irregularities by Sombe Thera, Public Prosecutor for Bamako's
Third District with special responsibility for economic and
financial crimes. After his arrest on March 31, AG Diarra
was shuttled under police escort between Judge Dramane

Diarra's office and Bamako's Central Prison several times.
According to one local newspaper account, Judge Diarra
personally escorted the AG back to jail around 10 PM,
sparking concern that the AG would spend the night in prison.
The AG was soon released, however, following the
intervention of yet another Public Prosecutor, this time from
Bamako's Fourth District.

3.(C) On April 1, AG Diarra returned to the Fourth District's
prosecutors office to pay CFA 1.2 million in bail
(approximately USD 2,400). According to some press reports
and an account provided by AG Diarra's brother to the
Embassy, the AG refused to post bail on his own behalf and
was subsequently bailed out by his lawyer, who was afraid the
AG's stint in jail would take a physical and psychological
toll.

4.(SBU) The AG's March 31 arrest stems from the controversial
firings of eight OAG employees in December 2008 and AG
Diarra's refusal to reinstate the employees in accordance
with a recent Supreme Court order (Ref. A). Judicial
authorities arrested Diarra for violating Article 64 of the
Malian penal code, which prohibits all public employees and
government officials from using police or military forces to
obstruct the enforcement of a legitimate court order. After
the Supreme Court's ruling, Diarra allegedly instructed
police to forcibly remove the eight employees from OAG
offices when the individuals attempted to return to work,
with court ruling in hand, on January 5.

5.(SBU) On March 19, the administrative section of the
Supreme Court entered an additional order in the case, again
finding on behalf of the employees and reminding the Auditor
General that he was not "above the law." The filed charges
accuse Diarra of "obstructing the freedom to work" and
"opposition to legitimate authority." While support for the
latter charge, a variant of contempt of court, can be found
in Article 84 of the Malian Penal Code, the Embassy is
unaware of any criminal statute proscribing obstruction of
the freedom to work. Several editorials in local newspapers
drafted by local attorneys also expressed confusion over
exactly how the charge of "obstructing the freedom to work"
was grounded in Malian law.

--------------

BAMAKO 00000232 002 OF 003


Rule of Law or Settling of Scores?
--------------

6.(SBU) Reaction to the Auditor General's arrest within the
Malian press has been mixed. The government newspaper
L'Essor, while not directly endorsing the arrest, emphasized
Diarra's defiance of legitimate Supreme Court mandates. By
contrast, the opposition leaning l'Independant described a
"cabal of lawyers" lined up against Diarra in an
"orchestrated campaign" to undercut an Auditor General
responsible for returning 41 billion FCFA (approximately USD
82 million) in stolen funds to the state. The opposition
Info Matin newspaper pointed out the irony of Diarra wasting
away in prison while the corruption cases he investigated
languish in a prosecutor's desk drawer. An editorial in the
same newspaper attributed the incident, somewhat facetiously,
to a basic misunderstanding: President Toure never expected
the OAG to really fight corruption and created it only to
serve as a smokescreen to dupe foreign donors, but AG Diarra
never received the memo.

7.(SBU) On April 4 a number of youth associations organized a
demonstration in support of the AG. Participating
organizations included the Circle for Youth Reflection and
Action (CRAJ) whose leader, Mahamane Mariko, himself spent a
day in jail on January 14 after CRAJ publicly urged the
Malian government to meet recent Tuareg rebel attacks with
military force (Ref. B). One local newspaper account of the
pro-AG rally, however, noted that there were more reporters
in attendance than demonstrators.

8.(C) In an April 3 meeting with Embassy the Auditor
General's brother, Dr. Cheikh Modibo Diarra, blamed the AG's
travails on generalized corruption within the Malian
government. Cheikh Modibo Diarra is a former NASA aerospace
engineer and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador who is now the
Chairman of the Microsoft Corporation's Africa division.
Based in South Africa, he is also the son-in-law of Mali's
former military dictator, Moussa Traore. Diarra briefly
considered entering Mali's 2007 presidential race and is
frequently rumored as potential presidential candidate for
2012, a theory he did not dissuade during this meeting.
During his meeting with the Embassy Diarra described his
brother as a principled figure who would "fall on his sword"
trying to bring corruption, and his own political
persecution, to light. Diarra recounted a conversation with
President Amadou Toumani Toure prior to his brother's
appointment as Auditor General, during which AG Diarra
reportedly told President Toure that his Ministers and
advisors were corrupt, and that the AG was "no puppet".
Cheikh Modibo Diarra said President Toure lacks the political
will needed to follow up on irregularities uncovered by the
OAG's 2007 and 2008 audits, or fight the corruption Diarra
views as endemic within the Malian government.

--------------
Comment: Sporadically Speedy Justice
--------------

9.(C) Malian justice hasn't moved this quickly since June
2007 when judicial authorities, led again by Public
Prosecutor Sombe Thera, arrested, tried, convicted and
sentenced four journalists and one high school teacher for
offending the Head of State (Ref. C). The speed and vigor
exhibited by Thera and others in their investigation of AG
Diarra stands in stark contrast to their evident disinterest
in pursuing any of the actual corruption cases uncovered by
Auditor General's Office in recent years. Just two months
ago Thera told the Embassy that some Malian prisoners were
forced to wait as long as eight years, in clear violation of
Malian law, for their day in court. Thera attributed this to
"dysfunctions" within the Malian legal system (Ref. D).
Recent legal proceedings against the AG may by symptomatic of
other dysfunctions - the judiciary's misplaced priorities and
lack of political independence.

10.(C) There is another interesting element to Mali's
auditing of its own Auditor General. The difficulties
confronting AG Diarra began in late 2008 with the leak of a
supposedly confidential investigation, conducted by the
Supreme Court's Accounting Section, of OAG operations. Many
in Mali believe this Accounting Section should be Mali's
supreme anti-corruption body. At some point, when the dust
around AG Diarra has settled and Mali has a chance to assess
what is left, if anything, of the Office of the Auditor
General, the Malian government will choose whether to
continue with an independent Auditor General's Office or
invest, as Mali has done every four or five years since the
1990s, a new institution with corruption fighting powers. If
the loser of this latest round of legal investigating is the
OAG, the winner may be OAG's longtime rival: the Supreme
Court's Accounting Section.

BAMAKO 00000232 003 OF 003



11.(C) Other observers believe the Auditor General has simply
gone too far - and has been too vocal - in his attempts to
expose corruption within the Malian government. The
political capital on which he relied may have finally run out
when he reported irregularities within Mali's social housing
program, a pet project of President Toure's, and within the
Office du Niger, Mali's agricultural development authority.
The director of the Niono zone of the Office, Halla Toure,
was a key figure in the Mouvement Citoyen, the grassroots
organization that was instrumental in helping President Toure
to the presidency in 2002.

12.(C) AG Diarra is not beyond reproach himself. Some regard
his demeanor as arrogant, and Diarra seems to find some
enjoyment in provoking those who are arrayed against him.
The irony of the showdown between the courts and the OAG is
that they are complementary institutions, both of which must
be effective to defeat corruption. Although Diarra is
probably a better defender of democracy than his adversaries,
his decision to ignore court orders with which he disagrees
may prove as damaging to the rule of law if he wins as the
OAG's demise would be if he loses.
LEONARD