West African states place sanctions on Mali

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has slapped sanctions on Mali until the restoration of constitutional order in the wake of a military coup in the country "All diplomatic, ecnomic, financial measures and others are applicable from today (Monday) and will not be lifted until the reestablishment of constitutional order," said the chairman of the 15-nation regional bloc, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara. The African leaders announced the closing of borders and the freezing of the country's access to the regional central bank. ECOWAS has also placed its military force on high alert. Mauritania and Algeria, who are not members of ECOWAS, but border Mali to the north and west, also attended the emergency summit in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, and promised to implement the embargo. On Friday, at an earlier emergency meeting in the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan, five heads of state from the ECOWAS had threatened Mali's military rulers with "diplomatic and financial embargo" if democratic rule was not restored within 72 hours. The leaders -- the presidents of Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Benin and Niger -- met in Ivory Coast after they had failed to reach the Malian capital for crisis talks with the coup leaders because pro-coup demonstrators occupied Bamako airport's runway. On March 22, renegade Malian soldiers led by Amadou Haya Sanogo toppled Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure in a coup, and took control of government institutions. The coup leaders said they mounted the coup out of anger at the government's inability to contain the two-month-old Tuareg rebellion in north of the country. The coup drew international condemnation. The African Union, the ECOWAS, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the International Crisis Group, and the United Nations have denounced the military takeover of the government in the West African country.