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Contingent leader Peter Küpper and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at a Bundeswehr NH90 transport helicopter
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
The German Foreign Minister is shown the NH90 transport helicopter.
A heavy machine gun juts out from its open door.
At this moment one can only imagine what firepower it could develop in action.
The Greens and this weapon are somehow symbolic of the times in which German politics is struggling through the turmoil of the world situation.
Here, on this hot day, in the German camp of the Minusma operation in Gao, Mali.
When the temperature is over 40 degrees, Annalena Baerbock patiently allows the head of the German blue helmet contingent, Colonel Peter Küpper, to explain the task and the types of weapons used.
At some point it will also go to the »Heron« surveillance drone, of which the Bundeswehr maintains two in Goa.
Baerbock kneels down, almost disappears behind the gray aircraft.
These are images that Baerbock, the Green Party chancellor candidate who was campaigning for the election, would probably not have aimed at just a few months ago.
But the ingrained rules of German politics have long since ceased to apply.
A Green politician who can be pictured with weapons as a matter of course, that's almost the new normal.
Some Bundeswehr officers who observe this in Gao still have to smile.
The Green Baerbock has long since gone beyond that.
For the past six weeks, she has been actively advocating arms deliveries to Ukraine.
The Russian invasion also haunts her here, in the dry heat of Gao, where a German journalist asks her about her recent plea for the delivery of heavy weapons to Kyiv as well.
She evades the argument that the federal government "constantly coordinates" when it comes to arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Tricky mission
Baerbock has come to Mali on a sensitive mission: two overnight stays in the capital, Bamako, and a visit lasting several hours to the Bundeswehr in "Camp Castor" in Gao, around 1,200 kilometers east of the capital.
Finally, on Wednesday, the journey continues to Niger, from one crisis region to the next, because the Bundeswehr is also active in neighboring Niger, with around 200 soldiers in the European training mission EUTM.
Mali, however, stands out simply in terms of the number of forces deployed: the Bundeswehr is on its largest foreign mission since the end of Afghanistan.
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht from the SPD was there just last week.
The majority - around 1,100 men and women - are stationed in Gao, a smaller contingent of 100 German forces is in Mali with the European training mission EUTM, which trains the Malian army in the fight against Islamist fighters.
The situation is tricky: Mali has been led by a military junta since 2021, and the transition process and free elections demanded by the international community are not in sight.
Mali, which currently has a population of 20 million and is growing rapidly, has experienced three military coups since 2012 and is considered to be politically extremely unstable.
The capital Bamako looks poor, along the route from the airport to the center of the city there are many uncontrolled rubbish dumps, the fields are littered with plastic bags.
Mali has been worrying EU politicians for a long time.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced a temporary stop on Monday when Baerbock made his way to Bamako.
A day later, on Tuesday in Gao, after the Bundeswehr's visit, Baerbock says that the EUTM mission "cannot be continued like this".
And she also points to a recent deployment of Malian armed forces, which has led to a reorientation of the EU: according to French reports, around 300 civilians are said to have been tortured and killed recently during an operation by the Malian army in the city of Moura.
Apparently, Russian mercenaries from the »Wagner« group were also involved.
Mali's government is currently not allowing an independent UN investigation, speaks of 203 Islamist fighters killed in Moura and a successful anti-terrorist operation.
Baerbock and the federal government are faced with an important, central question: stay with German troops or withdraw?
And thereby possibly tie Mali even more closely to the Russian side at a time when Moscow is underscoring its power-political ambitions with a war in Ukraine?
It is also a difficult decision, especially since France announced its withdrawal from Mali and the »Barkhane« anti-terrorist mission, which has put the security of Gao Airport in question.
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) is currently negotiating with Paris whether the Bundeswehr can still use French attack helicopters, which are to be stationed in neighboring Niger, in an emergency.
The Bundeswehr only has NH90 transport helicopters in Gao.
The Bundestag must decide on German participation in the EUTM and the MINUSMA mission by the end of May – the Federal Government must also have clarity by then.
In Gao, during a short press conference, Baerbock is still reticent about Minusma, albeit with a certain tendency to extend it: She came to "get a picture of the situation, how this mission can be managed in the future, when the French go out".
High security in Gao
The city of Gao with its approximately 90,000 inhabitants borders on the fortified and guarded base of the Germans.
The airport where an A 400 M of the Air Force brought the minister, her companion, members of the Bundestag who were traveling with her and the journalists this Tuesday is only a few minutes' drive away.
But for the short distance high safety precautions apply.
The journalists wear protective vests, which they had to put on when approaching, and are driven separately to the base in a heavily secured van.
Right at the beginning there is a briefing from a Bundeswehr officer on what to do in the event of fire.
Only in January was there a mortar fire by Islamist forces, last June twelve German soldiers were injured during a patrol by a suicide attack outside the camp.
The German soldiers leave the camp almost every day to check the area with their vehicles within a radius of 20 to 25 kilometers.
Sometimes, according to a Bundeswehr platoon leader, they would cover longer distances, from 80 to 200 kilometers.
In such cases, they would stay out "several days" and curl up with their vehicles in the desert "to the wagon camp."
On the grounds of the "Camp Castor" camp, journalists are shown a number of armored vehicles used in such patrols: Dingo, Eagle and Fuchs.
There is also a "mobile medical team" as the train driver explains.
"We go out every day to minimize the risk of high-angle fire," he says.
"Steep fire" - in the language of the Bundeswehr, that means, among other things, mortar fire.
Whether the use makes itself felt?
"Our presence in the area," says the train driver, "shows, at least in our area, that the terrorists are withdrawing."
In Gao, Baerbock is shown what an on-site mission means.
She visits the memorial grove for the soldiers who died in action, the medical facility where the German soldiers were treated last year after the suicide attack before they were flown home.
The Greens politician also meets three Malian women in the camp, it is the civilian version of her short visit to the troops.
They tell her about the threatening security situation in the north of the country, about rapes and looting.
And they also tell the Foreign Minister what many people in Mali are saying: that before the elections, which the EU wants from the new rulers, a stable security situation must first be established.
