Mali’s Accidental Dictator

Under a sickle moon, a large man with dreadlocks, a sparkling purple cloak and white moccasins climbed the stairs of the house that has become Mali’s new nerve center. He was a marabout — a West African holy man — summoned by the army captain everyone in Kati is now calling le President: Amadou Sanogo, 40, a career soldier whose improbable coup d’état has upturned one of Africa’s more exemplary, if superficial, democracies. On this night he was seeking strength from the spirit world.

He needs all the help he can get. On March 21, Sanogo led a mutiny at the garrison in Kati — a sleepy commune of cinder-block bungalows just north of the capital, Bamako — that intensified into a coup. He must now work out how to cope with international condemnation and a sudden halt in economic and military assistance even as protesters march, public figures bewail democracy’s death and, most ominous, Tuareg rebels — armed with weapons from the fallen regime of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and abetted by al-Qaeda-linked militants — wage a devastating blitzkrieg in the north of the country.

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In Kati, Sanogo meets with diplomats and power brokers. He smiles bashfully as he shakes the Algerian ambassador’s hand, as though he’s still growing into the role he’s plucked for himself. He seems to be trying to project a persona bigger than he is. It’s easy to see why his former U.S. military mentors never marked him out as leadership material.

In a rasping voice, Sanogo insists that his coup d’état is for the good of the country, that he wants “to set up a government which is accepted by, you know, everyone — civil society, political parties, everyone, everyone,” he tells TIME. “Political parties, civil society, as I said, that are proud together, and to find a forceful Prime Minister and make a good team.” To diplomats who want Mali to go ahead with elections scheduled for April 29, Sanogo says it’s just not plausible, refusing to set a timetable for a return to democracy. But he insists: “We are not here to hold power.” When asked why people should believe this, he dodges: “O.K., it’s a question of time. If I say I’m not going to hand [over], and if I do, and then — what will happen?”

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Sanogo and his mutineers seem to be making it up as they go along. “The situation in Mali is … moving as I want,” he claims, hours after 1,000 people poured onto Bamako’s streets, burning tires, chanting “Down with Sanogo,” demanding democracy. “Moving as I prepared … allowing me to engage, to start with my processes.”

Sanogo says he’s “listening to everyone,” and adds, “It’s your right to not like what I do. But I need everyone to come make this country better.” It’s a sentiment he might share with his spokesman, Lieutenant Amadou Konare, who has, ominously, warned protesters to “exercise prudence.”

With 22 years of military service, Sanogo says he always wanted to be a soldier. He intends to restore pride to the army, reeling after a series of humiliating defeats at the hands of Tuareg rebels, and turn it into a force for stability across West Africa’s Sahel region. If he can “get a better life for my soldiers, I get a well-prepared army,” he will be satisfied. He’s proud of his sojourns in the U.S., where he studied English at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, underwent an intelligence course at Fort Huachuca in Arizona and took infantry-officer basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia. He also says he did a stint with the Marine Corps and wears its pin on his uniform. Washington, however, has condemned his takeover.

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Still, it’s hard to dismiss the motivations for the putsch. Diplomatic cables sent from the U.S. embassy in Bamako and published by WikiLeaks testify to a casual disdain by the Malian establishment for soldiers fighting and dying in battles with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) — and a chronic lack of equipment and training. In one incident, Malian soldiers were forced to abandon military vehicles to AQIM fighters because the only troops who knew how to drive were dead. Neglect of the military is “the main reason for our intervention,” Sanogo says.

And there was a deeper political rot. It was no secret that officials close to ousted President Amadou Toumani Touré made fortunes out of cocaine and arms trafficking; meanwhile, webs of nepotism and graft left many Malians cynical about the political establishment. Whatever they think about Sanogo, few are sad to see the back of Touré, who is reportedly at large in Bamako and is said to be under the protection of his Navy SEALs — trained bodyguard. Whether Sanogo will withstand his many challenges is an open question, but for now he’s the only show in town.

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