My last glimpse of the lights of Queens below. The passenger behind me in strangely reflected in my window. In the taxi on the way to Kennedy airport I got a glimpse of the Ford-era Space Shuttle Enterprise but couldn't get a shot in time as we whizzed by. ©2012 Derek Henry Flood
Barcelona- I’ve arrived in my beloved capital of the autonomous Generalitat de Catalunya on a cool rainy Sunday night after a few hours sleep at the circus that is London Heathrow en route. I’m here to rest up and prepare for a few days before setting off for the fractured République du Mali in the heart of Francophone West Africa. I don’t know quite what to expect upon my hoped for arrival in Bamako via Tunis later this week. In theory, I’ll be arriving two days after the ECOWAS deadline which is meant to expire shortly on Monday (or perhaps Tuesday).
The Burkinabe and Ivorian-led mediations have been trying to convince Amadou Sanogo, the CNRDRE junta’s leader, and his acolytes to allow the interim civilian political leader Dioncounda Traore to remain in office while a peaceful political transition is allowed to take place. Sanogo has accepted the ECOWAS initiative for now but who knows how long that will last. Just a few weeks ago he rejected an earlier ECOWAS plan. The 39 year-old army captain may just be buying time. Of course the other key issue to which the junta has been very hostile is the plan to send in ECOWAS troops to Mali.
ECOWAS has been able to send the first wave of Burkinabe troops to troubled nearby Guinea-Bissau after a coup in that country overthrew the civilian government supposedly in response to the unwelcome presence of fellow Lusophone (Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa) Angolan troops there. The West African bloc has had much less success in Bamako than it has in Bissau. Who knows what will happen this week…