Putsch in Mali in 1991
During the coup in Mali on March 26, 1991, the long-standing Malian President Moussa Traoré was overthrown, thus sealing the end of the 2nd Malian Republic .
The coup was preceded by years of economic problems, some of which dated back to Keita's time before 1968 and accompanied the oil crisis and the resulting economic problems . At the end of the 1980s, a kind of independent, privately operated press emerged in Mali, which Traoré compared to the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and denounced the economic situation in the country. In mid-1990 the open letter to the President of the Republic was published, calling for a multi-party system and a conference with all politically organized actors. The regime initially acted hesitantly after the establishment of new political organizations, but in January 1991 it lost patience and was the first to shoot demonstrators. The UNTM , the government-established union, publicly broke with the government when there was a general strike in the country .
Mass demonstrations calling for more democracy were bloodily suppressed by the Armée de terre . Between 180 and 300 deaths are said to have been counted. Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré launched a coup against Traoré who was arrested along with his ministers (see Traoré cabinet ) and his wife. 59 people were killed in the coup, including two Traoré supporters who were burned to death. The UDMP , the Traroés party, was dissolved and banned. Touré was appointed transitional president and organized the first elections for the National Council together with the Transitional Committee to Save the People .
In economic terms, the coup was highlighted as a positive example. In the nine years before the coup, negative growth was measured on average, while in the nine years after the coup there was average positive growth. This refuted the theory that a change from an autocratic to a democratic form of rule would lead to a weakening of the economy.
Web links
- Mali's Dictator Is Overthrown in Coup from the New York Times
Individual evidence
- ^ Handbook of the Third World - West Africa and Central Africa . 3. Edition. Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf. GmbH, Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-8012-0204-6 , p. 312 .
- ↑ Rödiger Voss: Political Economy of the Autocracy . Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8288-9741-0 , p. 88 ff .