Lawmaker Calls for Sanctions in Response to Recent Coups in Africa
The U.S. should be doing more to sanction people responsible for the recent “wave of coups and violence” in West Africa and the Sahel, Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting this week. Cardin, committee chair, noted that five countries in the region have experienced coups since 2020 -- Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger -- and the U.S. should be holding parties in those nations responsible.
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“I think we need to make our position crystal clear: military takeovers of civilian-led governments are coups. We shouldn’t mince words. And anyone engaged in coups should be personally sanctioned,” Cardin said. “The failure to sanction, a policy shift that has clearly taken place here in our government, sends the wrong message.”