VZCZCXRO5145
RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHBP #0172/01 0790740
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 200740Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY BAMAKO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0149
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 0599
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BAMAKO 000172 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
AFRICOM FOR JIM BARBER 
DEPT FOR USAID FOR ANGELA MARTIN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KCOR KDEM KISL KIRF ML
SUBJECT: IN FOOTBALL STADIUM FULL OF FOLLOWERS, ROCK STAR 
IMAM PRAISES USG 
 
REF: A. 08 BAMAKO 00574 
     ¶B. 08 BAMAKO 00884 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: During a March 15 celebration of the Muslim 
holiday of Mawloud at one of Bamako's largest football 
stadiums, imam and preacher Cherif Ousmane Madani Haidara 
praised U.S. support for Mali's Muslim community before a 
crowd of 35 to 40,000 followers.  Haidara, who routinely 
attracts crowds numbering in the tens of thousands, is known 
in Mali for his outspoken support for democratic openness, 
anti-corruption, and Malians' right to pray in local 
languages as opposed to Arabic.  In recent years the Embassy 
has made a concerted effort to reach out to Haidara, inviting 
him to participate in international visitors programs and 
attend Embassy events (Ref. A).  Pleased that the Embassy 
responded to his invitation to attend his Mawloud ceremony, 
Haidara publicly thanked the U.S. for supporting Mali's 
Muslim community and elicited a roar from the crowd when he 
revealed having cast a mock ballot for President Obama during 
the Embassy's November 4, 2008, election night event.  End 
Summary. 
 
----------------------- 
Media Star Imam Haidara 
----------------------- 
 
2.(SBU) On March 15, the Embassy attended an event hosted by 
Cherif Ousmane Madani Haidara for the Muslim holiday Mawloud 
at Bamako's Modibo Keita football stadium.  Haidara is the 
spiritual guide of the Ansar Dine movement in Mali, the vice 
president of Mali's High Council for Islam, and one of Mali's 
most influential Muslim leaders.  The event on March 15 
attracted an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 people, overflowing 
the 25,000 person capacity stadium and spilling onto the 
nearby hillside.  Haidara has held an event commemorating 
Mawloud every year since 2003.  He told the Embassy that this 
year's event was the largest yet, with representatives 
attending from 22 countries across Europe, Africa, and the 
Americas.  The Embassy was the only diplomatic mission in 
attendance. 
 
3.(SBU) Haidara became popular during the 1980s due to his 
outspoken criticism of the military dictatorship of General 
Moussa Traore.  Indeed, Haidara was one of the first Malians 
to publicly call on Traore to institute democratic reforms. 
Traore retaliated by banning Haidara from preaching in 
mosques or using national radio and television to reach his 
audience, thereby increasing Haidara's popularity even more. 
In response, Haidara's followers resorted to circulating his 
sermons and speeches on bootleg cassette tapes.  The use of 
cassette tapes served as a means of evading government 
control, but also heralded a type of popular Islam distinct 
from that represented by traditional Islamic leaders. 
Although Haidara has been free to speak his mind since Mali's 
1991-1992 democratic transition, anti-corruption and 
democratic reform remain key components of his message. 
Another important aspect of Haidara's philosophy is the 
belief that African Muslims may pray in local languages as 
opposed to Arabic. 
 
4.(SBU) Other, less populist Muslim leaders in Mali sometimes 
bristle at Haidara's stance on local languages during prayer 
and use of the media to promote his message.  They cannot 
quibble, however, with the fact that Haidara is one of Mali's 
most influential Muslim leaders and likely Mali's most 
recognized imam. 
 
----------------------- 
A Public Diplomacy Coup 
----------------------- 
 
5.(SBU)  Evidently pleased that the Embassy responded, alone 
among diplomatic missions in Bamako, to his invitation to 
attend his Mawloud extravaganza, Haidara described at length 
to the packed stadium various USG efforts to support Mali's 
Muslim community.  Referring to the Embassy's 2002 donation 
of 80 fans to the famous mud-brick mosque in Djenne and 
subsequent use of Cultural Preservation Funds to help 
preserve ancient Islamic manuscripts in both Djenne and 
Timbutku, Haidara thanked the U.S. for supporting efforts to 
preserve Mali's Islamic heritage.  He thanked the Embassy for 
recent support, in the form of computers and other equipment, 
to Mali's High Council for Islam (HCIM) where Haidara serves 
as vice president.  Displaying a remarkable memory, Haidara 
also acknowledged a USAID program from many years ago that 
provided Arabic language textbooks to Malian medersas via the 
 
BAMAKO 00000172  002 OF 002 
 
 
Ministry of Basic Education's Medersa Unit. 
 
6.(SBU)  Haidara also mentioned the Embassy's offer to send 
him to the U.S. as an international visitor.  Haidara has 
twice backed out of IV programs at the last possible minute 
for reasons that remained unclear until June 2008 when he 
told the Embassy he was deathly afraid of flying.  Haidara 
explained to the crowd that the purpose of the proposed trip 
to America was to enable him to see freedom of religion in 
the United States as it affected American Muslims, and said 
that Americans are in fact supportive of Islam as a religion, 
conventional wisdom notwithstanding. 
 
7.(SBU) Haidara also shared with his followers his experience 
during our November 4, 2008, election night event, which was 
well attended by many of Mali's main religious leaders (Ref. 
B).  Haidara elicited an enthusiastic cheer from the stadium 
and surrounding hillside when he revealed, over the stadium's 
PA system, that had cast a ballot for President Obama during 
the election night event's mock election. 
 
----------------------------- 
The Rest of Haidara's Message 
----------------------------- 
 
8.(SBU)  The effusive praise of the U.S aside, most of 
Haidara's Mawloud sermon was dedicated to his traditional 
themes - anti-corruption, government accountability, and 
individual self improvement.  Haidara criticized Malian 
government corruption, and decried the impunity offered by an 
ineffective and equally corrupt justice system.  Haidara took 
specific aim at Mali's embattled Auditor General's Office, 
which has released several sweeping annual reports on the 
extent of corruption in Mali but has yet to prompt a single 
criminal investigation or indictment.  Haidara maintained 
that nothing could be done to remedy corruption in Mali until 
Malians themselves changed their individual behavior.  He 
concluded the sermon by calling for greater understanding, 
peace, and changes in personal conduct. 
 
------------------------ 
Comment: Muslim Outreach 
------------------------ 
 
9.(SBU)  Haidara's impromptu praise of U.S. assistance to 
Malian Muslims and Americans' traditional respect for 
religious freedom illustrated the sweeping, and sometimes 
unexpected, impact of our Mission's outreach to local Muslim 
communities.  While the Embassy has a history of engagement 
with Malian Muslim leaders through the International 
Visitor's program, the Ambassador's Cultural Preservation 
Fund and speakers' programs that bring American Muslims to 
Mali, Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Program (TSCTP) funding 
has enabled us to undertake additional large-scale actions 
that have attracted public attention.  These TSCTP-funded 
programs include the computer donation to the HCIM, support 
for a national conference on Koranic schools, the 
incorporation of medersas into the USAID Basic Education 
program, funding for the visit of Georgetown University's 
Imam Hendi, annual seminars for teachers of English at Malian 
medersas and provision of VOA equipment to radio stations in 
key Muslim communities.  We are hoping to build on this 
positive momentum by working with DOD colleagues to find ways 
to provide textbooks to the over 250,000 medersa students in 
Mali. 
 
10.(SBU) Perhaps most important, however, are the personal 
relationships that such close cooperation engenders between 
Malian Muslim leaders and Embassy personnel. The simple act 
of being present at important Muslim celebrations is proof 
positive of American government respect for the tolerant 
nature of Malian Islam.  When we can complement this presence 
with the kind of generosity expected of the American 
government, we succeed in building bridges that reinforce 
Malians' traditional rejection of extremist messages while 
dispelling mistaken assumptions that the U.S. is somehow 
intolerant of Islam. 
MILOVANOVIC