{"id":1712,"date":"2010-03-16T15:27:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T20:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/previous.delicious.com\/url\/21dd3cf9ec017a7c200ab2f976769ce2#tomathon"},"modified":"2010-03-16T15:27:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T20:27:34","slug":"mali-truck-drivers-strike-severs-commerce-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2010\/03\/mali-truck-drivers-strike-severs-commerce-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Mali: Truck drivers strike severs commerce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It has been 6 days since (on 10 March) the a variety of formal and informal unions of Malian inter-city truck drivers went on strike, shutting down the transport of people and goods.  While Bamako\/Koulikoro and points northwest are served by rail from Dakar, and river transport remains vital, much of Mali&#8217;s commerce relies on roads to Burkina and seaports in Cote d&#8217;Ivoire and Ghana.  The CNTM union (&#8220;Conseil national des transporteurs maliens&#8221;) complains of the recent imposition of ECOWAS tariffs on overweight vehicles: and Malian transport never leaves until it is well overweight by anyone&#8217;s measure.  That is the proximate complaint, but it is security forces and their roadblock &#8220;taxes&#8221; that kills these transporters.  ECOWAS found in both 2008 and 2009 surveys that the most checkpoints per\/km in West Africa were on the highway from Bamako to the Burkina border.  Whether or not Bamako can control this corruption, it cannot operate without truck traffic.  We&#8217;ll see who blinks first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been 6 days since (on 10 March) the a variety of formal and informal unions of Malian inter-city truck drivers went on strike, shutting down the transport of people and goods.  While Bamako\/Koulikoro and points northwest are served by rail from &#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2010\/03\/mali-truck-drivers-strike-severs-commerce-3\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[107,174],"tags":[380,249,382,262,221,383,384,381],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":842,"url":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2010\/02\/aqim-former-hostage-peter-camatte-speaks\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":0},"title":"AQIM: Former hostage Peter Camatte speaks","date":"February 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In a press appearance in Bamako Peter Camatte, the French-Malian NGO head who was held by the AQIM described his captors as \"fanatics\". His description of the Algerian Abdelhamid Abou Ze\u00efd's group was \"Fanatics, who thought no one but them were real Muslims\". He said the group was %70-%80 youths,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2115,"url":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2013\/12\/looking-for-cocaine-terrorists-the-2009-us-drugs-sting-in-mali\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":1},"title":"Looking For Cocaine Terrorists: The 2009 US Drugs Sting in Mali.","date":"December 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This story originally appeared in Maghreb Politics Review on December 21, 2009, as \"US Arrests Malians in Terror Drugs 'Link'\". The claim that Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the FARC are part of a worldwide drugs for terror conspiracy remains active in American press and government, and remains a fantasy that meets\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Featured&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/800px-Carcass_Sahara_Algeria.jpg?fit=800%2C533&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1651,"url":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2012\/01\/french-papers-mali-mig-evidence-is-photo-of-a-truck\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":2},"title":"Mali: French papers&#8217; Mali MIG evidence is photo of a truck","date":"January 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Malian rebels and French press like Le Monde have claimed MNLA fighters shot down a Malian jet. Here's evidence it was a hoax.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Afrique&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Capturelemonde1.png?fit=376%2C371&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":520,"url":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2009\/12\/us-arrests-malians-in-terror-drugs-link\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":3},"title":"US Arrests Malians in Terror Drugs &#8220;Link&#8221;","date":"December 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The US government will make much of the arrests of three Malians who they say were part of a West African criminal network, devoted to drug smuggling and Osama Bin Laden. So far all we have is hype and what looks like the entrapment of low level criminals.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Featured&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":861,"url":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2010\/03\/african-cup-final-56\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":4},"title":"African Cup Final &#8217;56","date":"March 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"One doesn't see much film, let alone color film, of colonial era African football. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Featured&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":631,"url":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2010\/01\/afp-west-african-body-presents-road-map-for-niger\/","url_meta":{"origin":1712,"position":5},"title":"AFP: West African body presents &#8216;road map&#8217; for Niger","date":"January 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the offer which has been floating around opposition circles for several months: a transition to a seventh republic which resembles the 5th. Tandja, like General Ali Saibou during the transition from the 2nd to the 3rd Republics, would become a figurehead to a constitutional convention with executive power,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mYFK-rC","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1742,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1712\/revisions\/1742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}