Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09BAMAKO580
2009-09-02 15:47:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Bamako
Cable title:  

NOT SO FAST: ATT SENDS FAMILY CODE BACK TO

Tags:  PGOV PHUM ML 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO1410
RR RUEHPA
DE RUEHBP #0580/01 2451547
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 021547Z SEP 09 ZDK PER SVS
FM AMEMBASSY BAMAKO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0693
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAMAKO 000580 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/13/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM ML
SUBJECT: NOT SO FAST: ATT SENDS FAMILY CODE BACK TO
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

REF: BAMAKO 551

BAMAKO 00000580 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: PolCouns Peter Newman, 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 000580

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/13/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM ML
SUBJECT: NOT SO FAST: ATT SENDS FAMILY CODE BACK TO
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

REF: BAMAKO 551

BAMAKO 00000580 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: PolCouns Peter Newman, Embassy Bamako,
for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

1.(SBU) Summary: Amidst a backdrop of growing opposition and
vanishing support, President Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT) on
August 26 announced his decision to send Mali's recently
passed Code of Persons and of the Family (Family Code) back
to the National Assembly for revision. The decision
represents a decisive victory for those Islamic groups
opposed to the Code and a devastating blow to the prestige of
the National Assembly. Although ATT was quick to emphasize
that disagreement was limited to ten of the Code's over 1,000
articles, the articles at issue are those with greatest
support among human rights advocates. Nonetheless, ATT's
decision can be viewed as a responsiveness to popular will
suggesting Malian democracy is on firmer ground than its
critics contend. End Summary.

--------------
Protests and Fatwas
--------------


2. (SBU) On August 3, Mali's National Assembly passed a new
Family Code by an overwhelming margin (reftel). Almost
immediately, it was condemned as un-Islamic by many of Mali's
leading Muslim leaders, foremost among them Imam Mahmoud
Dicko of the High Council of Islam (HCI). While the specific
contested provisions are discussed in the reftel, the Islamic
leaders generally believe the Family Code alters the
patriarchal nature of the Malian family in favor of a
western, secular view of the family which they see as
incompatible with Islam and Malian tradition. For three
successive weekends, the HCI led thousands of Malian Muslims
into the streets to engage in peaceful protest against the
new Code.


3. (SBU) On August 22, the first full day of Ramadan, over
50,000 Muslim faithful poured into Bamako's March 26 Stadium
and heard the sharpest condemnation of the Family Code to
date. The League of Malian Imams and Erudites announced a
boycott of the over 90% of National Assembly deputies who had
voted in favor of the bill, asking community Imams to refuse
to participate in baptisms, marriages, and funerals in which
the boycotted deputies were involved. Moreover, the League
demanded that deputies who had voted in favor of the Code be

denied entry to mosques. The HCI, for its part, issued a
fatwa against the National Assembly, and called for the
institution's dissolution. Finally, the HCI called for civil
disobedience, asking Malian Muslims to refuse to participate
in civil wedding ceremonies at city hall. Needless to say,
the Muslim leaders also called on Muslim faithful to vote
against incumbent National Assembly deputies in the 2012
legislative elections.


4. (SBU) The forceful intervention of Mali's Muslim leaders
is unprecedented in Mali's democratic era. Generally, as
Imam Dicko himself said in a meeting with the Embassy on
August 11, the Imams and the HCI have been content to leave
politics to the politicians. The HCI only took a stand, Imam
Dicko insisted, because the State had specifically targeted
Islam with the Family Code, and in the most intimate of
life's domains - the family and the home. Due to Mali's low
literacy rate, a large number of citizens receive their
knowledge of current events solely through the religious
pulpit. Although this provides Mali's religious leaders with
tremendous potential to organize people behind a political
agenda, they have largely "rendered unto Caesar that which is
Caesar's," and this recent mobilization against the Family
Code should be viewed as an exception to the general rule.


5. (C) The protest at the March 26 Stadium in Bamako
attracted Muslim leaders from across Mali, reflecting a
nationwide discontent that was also evident in protests
staged in Mopti and Timbuktu. Although every single
demonstration was conducted peacefully, and the Muslim
leaders repeatedly stressed to the crowds that their aims
must be pursued without violence, supporters of the Code
feared possible violence from individual extremists. In a
meeting on August 11, Oumou Toure, the President of CAFO, an
association of women's NGOs, told the Embassy that a woman's
shelter not far from her association's headquarters had been
the subject of prior attacks and might be again if the Code
was promulgated. Similarly, the press has reported that
President of the National Assembly, Dioncounda Traore,
received 24-hour police protection for his home during the
worst of the anti-Code protests.

--------------
On the other side, silence

BAMAKO 00000580 002.3 OF 003


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


6. (SBU) In a particularly striking case of bad timing (or an
example of a particularly cynical legislative tactic),the
National Assembly passed the Family Code just before the
deputies recessed for their August vacations. One unintended
consequence of this timing is that since the August 3 vote,
many of the deputies who voted in favor of the legislation
have not been in Bamako to defend it. ATT himself was on
vacation until the week of August 24, and by the time of his
return, opposition to the Code had grown to such proportions
that signing the bill into law would have been politically
untenable. Islamic leaders opposed to the Code have held a
virtual monopoly on the public debate, and have framed the
discussion to their advantage. Even amongst the
non-governmental organizations that fought the hardest for
the Family Code, there has been little enthusiasm to take the
Imams on in a full-force confrontation, nor the
organizational means to do so.


7. (C) Those supporters of the bill who have spoken out have
generally done so only to acknowledge that the Government
made mistakes in pushing the Family Code forward. Generally,
the deputies argue that opposition to the legislation is
rooted in poor information, and that the Government failed to
explain the contents of the Bill to the Malian people.
Others have suggested the timing of the legislation was
rushed. A few weeks before the vote, in a meeting with the
Embassy on July 21, Deputy Yaya Sangare lamented that the
Government had not given the Deputies enough time to digest
the content of the Code, let alone engage in any type of
meaningful discussion. Sangare admitted that he would vote
on the legislation without having read it, and suggested all
of his colleagues would do the same.

--------------
ATT the Peacemaker & Consensus-seeker
--------------


8. (SBU) ATT has been an ardent supporter of the Family Code.
On August 3, he contacted leaders in the National Assembly
to congratulate them on the vote. Nonetheless, returning
from vacation to a country that was seething with discontent,
ATT quickly adopted the cloak of peacemaker. On Monday,
August 24, and Tuesday, August 25, ATT met with a
cross-section of society, including the leaders of each of
Mali's Constitutional Institutions (National Assembly,
Supreme Court, etc.),the leaders of major political parties,
NGOs, and the High Council of Islam. On Wednesday, August
26, ATT addressed the nation by television and radio and
announced that, for the sake of national unity and harmony,
he would be sending the Family Code unsigned back to the
National Assembly for a second reading.


9. (SBU) Both ATT's move, and the constitutional mechanism on
which it relies, are consonant with Mali's tradition of
consensus politics. In his address to the nation, ATT
reviewed the history of the Code's development, and
emphasized that all segments of Malian society - including
the Imams - had been involved in its drafting. Nonetheless,
ATT conceded that some disagreements lingered, and the Code
was to be returned to the National Assembly for a re-drafting
that would allow the Code to receive "the assent and the
understanding" of the Malian people. The Constitution allows
the President to send a piece of legislation - in part or in
its entirety - back to the National Assembly for a second
reading. Consistent with the goal of consensus, this
constitutional mechanism is a means of expressing lack of
agreement without flatly rejecting or vetoing a piece of
legislation.

--------------
Comment: Another ten years?
--------------


10. (C) While praised for his "wise" move, ATT now finds
himself between a rock and a hard place. As a supporter of
the legislation, ATT must now seek to reconcile diametrically
opposed positions while alienating neither the women's
organizations that helped launch the Code project, nor
foreign donors who have pressed for reform, nor the Muslim
organizations that have demonstrated their pull in Malian
society over the past month. This process may be even more
daunting as the Imams have labeled several of the issues -
such as inheritence rights and the recognition of religious
marriage - "non-negotiable." In the end, it is likely that
Mali will take quite some time to draft a new Family Code,
and the revised text is likely to be a watered-down version
of its current form.


11. (C) Comment continued: While advocates of women's rights

BAMAKO 00000580 003.2 OF 003


are justifiably discouraged by this latest development, there
is a silver lining to the storm clouds surrounding the Family
Code. Specifically, while the Malian National Assembly is
sometimes viewed as a rubber stamp, and while the Government
is often criticized as an elite group disconnected from the
will of the people, this episode represents a strong example
of a group of citizens opposed to government action taking
legitimate democratic means of protest and using them to
successfully pressure the government to take their views into
account. While we may not be sympathetic with the Muslim
leaders' positions, the government's response to their
protests indicates a level of governmental accountability
that is laudable in any democracy. End Comment.

MILOVANOVIC