Mali President Amadou Toumani TouréHere we go again. I thought that I had seen it all. That the era of coups and military juntas had ended in Africa, replaced democratic rule. And look what happened in Mali. If you are a thirty-something military colonel in Sub-Saharan Africa, you still can wake up one morning, have a cup of coffee with a few of your officer buddy’s, and decide on a coup.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
BAMAKO, Mali — Under pressure from the nations bordering Mali, the junior officer who seized control of the country in a coup last month Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo, in his office inside the same military base in Kati, outside Bamako, where the mutiny began and which has acted as the de facto junta headquarters, ever since the March 21 coup, signed an accord on April 7, 2012 agreeing to return the country to constitutional rule, only hours after separatist rebels in the distant north declared their independence. The accord states that under Article 36 of Mali’s constitution the head of the national assembly will form an interim government, which will organize new elections. The accord did not say what role the military junta will play in the future. It also did not state when the head of the assembly will assume the post, or how long the transition will last before new elections are held. The head of the assembly, however, has fled Mali after the coup. Elections should be held in no more than 40 days, but that time frame will likely be extended, due to rebellion that has turned the northern half of the country into a war zone. Afterwards the nations bordering Mali agreed to lift the crippling sanctions, that went into effect earlier this week, including the closure of the country’s borders. Landlocked Mali imports all its fuel, and already many neighborhoods in Bamako had only electricity for half the day. The head of the assembly will fly back Saturday. He said that the accord means that Sanogo — who just days ago had stubbornly refused to step aside — has chosen to put the country back on a democratic path.
The news comes just hours after Mali’s Tuareg rebels, who seized control of the country’s distant north in the chaotic aftermath of the coup in the capital, declared independence Friday of their Azawad nation. In Ivory Coast, the military chiefs of 13 of Mali’s neighbors met to hash out plans for a military intervention in order to push back the rebels in the north. The confusion in the capital created an opening for the separatists. The nomadic Tuareg have been fighting for their own homeland since 1958, when Tuareg elders wrote a letter to the French president asking to carve out a separate nation, called “Azawad”. Instead, the north, where the lighter-skinned Tuareg live, was made part of the same country as the south, where dark-skinned tribes are in control. The rebel group is secular, but an Islam faction that tries to introduce Shariah, helped them. France has offered to provide logistical support to the Economic Community of West Africa States, or ECOWAS, the 15-nation bloc representing nations in the region, should they decide to launch a military operation to reclaim the north. Sanogo said he ousted Mali’s democratically elected leader because of his poor handling of the rebellion in the north, which began in January. The conflict has cost the lives of scores of Malian soldiers. The accord calls for reparations to be paid to the families of the dead soldiers. In addition it gives full immunity to the soldiers that took part in the coup. Left unanswered is the fate of ex-President Amadou Toumani Toure. He went into hiding and his whereabouts remain unknown. Mali’s neighbors appealed for Toure to be allowed to return, and that his security be assured. The accord does not specify if the junta has agreed to that request.
Tuareg rebellion started on January 2012. Led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, it is the most recent incarnation of a series of insurgencies by formerly nomadic Tuareg populations, dating back at least to 1916. The MNLA was founded by former insurgents and returning heavily armed Tuareg fighters who fought for either the NTC or the Libyan army during the Libyan civil war. On 22 March, the President was ousted in a coup over his handling of the crisis, a month before a planned presidential election. Mutineering soldiers, under the banner of the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State suspended the constitution temporarily. The Islam group Ansar Dine subsequently joined the rebellion, occupying vast swathes of territory. Tuareg rebels captured Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, Mali’s three largest northern towns. On 5 April, after the capture of Douentza, the MNLA proclaimed Azawad’s independence from Mali.
The MNLA is an offshoot of a political movement, the National Movement for Azawad (MNA) prior to the insurgency. Some of the movement’s members had been jailed. Many of the returnees from Libya came back for financial reasons such as not having been paid, as well as because of racism of the NTC’s fighters and Libyan militias. The strength of this uprising and the use of heavy weapons “surprised” Malian officials. MNLA’s leader Bilal Ag Acherif said for Mali to either give the Saharan peoples their self-determination or they would take it themselves. Another Tuareg-dominated group, Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith), is also fighting against the government. However, they do not seek independence but rather the impositions of sharia across Mali. The movement’s leader Iyad Ag Ghaly, was part of the early 1990s rebellion and is linked to the Maghreb Al-Qaeda (AQIM) led by his cousin Hamada Ag Hama, in Mauritania and Mali. There was even an Algerian military presence in the area on 20 December 2011. The MNLA complained that the Malian government had not done enough to fight AQIM. Algerian presence was due to the MNLA’s failed promise to root out AQIM, involved in drug trafficking with the connivance of high-ranking officers, threatening to turn Mali into a “narcostate”.
Course of the conflict
The first attacks took place on the 16 and 17 January in Menaka Aguelhok and Tessalit. Government troops regained control the next day. On 24 January the rebels retook Aguelhok after the Malian army ran out of ammunition. The next day the Mali army once again recaptured the city. On 26 January, rebels took control over the towns of Anderamboukane and Lere. On 31 January Niafunke was attacked. The rebels captured Ménaka on 1 February. MNLA carried out executions of its soldiers on 24 January by slitting their throats or shooting them in the head. A Malian officer involved in burying the dead claimed that 97 soldiers had been killed. It was refuted as fabricated by the MNLA. There was no precedent to indicate the Tuaregs resort to such measures, only AQIM had a history of doing so. Mali launched air and land counter operations to take back seized territory. On 1 February, the MNLA took control of the city of Menaka when the Malian army operated what they called a tactical retreat. On 4 February, the rebels said that they were attacking the city of Kidal, while Malian troops were firing heavy weapons to prevent the city from being attacked. As a result of the fighting, 3,500 civilians left the city to cross the border into Mauritania. Previously an estimated 10,000 civilians had fled to refugee camps in Niger after the fighting in Menaka and Andéramboukane. Helicopter gunships killed 20 Tuareg rebels in the Timbuktu region. On February 6 Tuareg rebels launched a major new offensive to seize the northern town of Kidal. On 8 February, the MNLA seized the Mali-Algeria border town of Tinzaouaten as Malian soldiers crossed into Algeria. On 23 February, the Malian Air Force bombed a camp for IDPs in the north. The MNLA has accused the Malian government of indiscriminate bombings by Malian attack helicopters piloted by Ukranian mercenaries. On 4 March, a new round of fighting was reported near the formerly rebel-held town of Tessalit.The USAF air- dropped supplies via a C-130 in support of the besieged Malian soldiers. On 11 March, the MNLA re-took Tessalit and its airport. The Malian military forces fled towards the border with Algeria. About 600 Tuareg fighters took part in the battle. The rebels advanced to about 125 kilometers away from Timbuktu. Their advance was unchecked when they entered without fighting in the towns of Dire and Gundam. The rebels now controlled one third of Mali. Ansar Dine controlled the Mali-Algeria border.
Coup d’état
On 21 March, as an AU ministerial meeting was under way, gunfire erupted near the presidential palace in Bamako, just before another meeting was due to start between the soldiers and Gassama about the rebellion. The mutineers stoned the general’s car, forcing him to flee the camp. Then the soldiers stormed the presidential palace. The next morning, Captain Sanago announced on TV, that the junta had suspended Mali’s constitution and taken control of the nation. The CNRDR would serve as an interim regime until power could be returned to a new, democratically elected government. The coup was condemned by several organisations. ECOWAS announced on 29 March that the CNRDR had 72 hours to relinquish control. Otherwise Mali’s borders would be closed and its assets frozen. The US, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank suspended development aid funds. “ECOWAS is quite willing to assist the country to protect its territorial integrity, but there is zero tolerance to power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means.”
Renewed offensives
As a result of the uncertainty following the coup, the rebels launched an offensive, including both the MNLA and Ansar Dine. “When they move into a town, the MNLA take out the military base, and Iyad goes into town and puts up his flag and starts bossing everyone around about sharia law.” The Malian Army abandoned their posts in several northern towns, due to the confusion following the coup d’état. As Mali’s armed forces were in “disarray” the MNLA were taking advantage in furthering the cause of an independent Azawad. On 30 March, the rebels seized control of Kidal. Ansar Dine entered the town from the south after a day of heavy fighting. The same day, the MNLA took control of the cities of Ansongo and Bourem. On 31 March they entered the city of Gao carrying their Azawad flag, amid heavy gunfire around the city’s military camp, the biggest in northern Mali. The MOJWA was part of the forces attacking and occupying Gao. Residents of Gao were confused as to who ran the town with both MNLA and Ansar Dine flags around the city. Of the city’s two military camps, the MNLA took control of one, while Ansar Dine took control of the other. A prison was opened and civilians looted public buildings. The rebels were looting bank safes, while Ansar Dine had starting to impose Sharia. The next day, the rebels attacked the outskirts of Timbuktu with heavy arms and automatic weapons, left by the Malian Army’s deserters earlier. The defence of the city was left to local Arab militias after most of the Malian Army fled. MNLA’s soldiers were celebrating their victory carrying their Azawad flag on their pick up trucks around the city. A Colonel of the Malian Army defected to the MNLA with 500 of his troops, but his men later fled to Niger, stating that he had pretended to join the MNLA only to save his men. His regiment was disarmed by the Nigerien army and placed in a refugee camp, pushing the numbers of Malian soldiers who have sought refuge in Niger to more than 1,000. On 2 April, Ansar Dine turned against the MNLA, chasing them from Timbuktu and burning the latter’s flag. The speed of capturing the larger towns was read as a consequence of the junta’s hands bound between the rebels and the threat of economic sanctions by ECOWAS and others. On 3 April, armed groups looted 2,354 tons of food from UN’s World Food Program’s warehouses in Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, causing the WFP to suspend its operations in northern Mali. Other targets of looting included hospitals, hotels, government offices, and Oxfam offices. About 200,000 fled the fighting. “Women and girls have been kidnapped and raped by the new occupants who are laying down their own law.” The violence could threaten Timbuktu’s historic artifacts. “Unique manuscripts have been conserved for centuries in Timbuktu, a scholarly city of 333 saints, where practically every household is a heritage site, a library. These manuscripts have survived through the ages thanks to a secular order, in an area of trade where all the region’s peoples intersect. With the arrival of the Islamists, that secular order is broken, that culture is in danger. Timbuktu’s outstanding earthen architectural wonders that are the great mosques of Djingareyber, Sankore and Sidi Yahia must be safeguarded, including 16 cemeteries as listed for preservation. Ansar Dine ransacked bars and establishments that served alcohol, while banning western music from being broadcasted. They also put the head of a dead soldier on a spike at a military base, threatening to behead young looters.
ECOWAS warned the rebels and asked its member states to send logistical support to Mali, while trying to negoitiate a ceasefire. Mauritania denied working with Mali to quell the uprising. During a meeting in Brussels in late March the ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly issued a statement condemning the violence and correlating the events with the aftermath of the Libyan civil war. In early April, the AU said it imposed targeted sanctions on the leaders of the rebel groups. In addition to the roughly 200,000 displaced persons, up to 400 people a day were crossing the borders into Burkina Faso and Mauritania.”The north of the country is becoming more and more dangerous due to the proliferation of armed groups in the region. We are stepping up our assistance to Malian refugees across the Sahel region who face acute water and food shortages”. The UN Security Council held an emergency session over the dual crisis on 4 April after France called for the meeting. An UN official had complained that the Malian government gave up ground to the rebels “without much of a fight.” Apparently, there are two opposing tendencies among the Tuaregs. On one hand, the MNLA wants independence for Azawad, then there’s another faction, Ansar Dine, closely tied to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Its goals are not clear, but it may be to install an Islamic regime across the whole of Mali. A collective response is needed across the region against this Islamist threat, which stretches from Libya as far as Nigeria. Only regional cooperation drawing in Algeria, Mauretania and ECOWAS with the support of France will allow us to make progress against terrorism. France had ruled out a military intervention (as it had done in other former colonies of West Africa within the last decade, such as in Chad in 2008 in support of President Idriss Deby against a rebel attack on the capital and in Ivory Coast in 2011. Amongst the media reactions to the uprising, France-Presse was accused of uncritically accepting the government portrayal of the rebels as “armed bandits,” “drug traffickers” and “Qaddafi mercenaries.” The Los Angeles Times suggested that even without international recognition the gains by the rebels would be a de-facto partitioning of Mali.
April 7, 2012 – Mali’s west African neighbours are threatening to send a military force to the north of the country after the military junta in Bamako agreed to return the country to civilian rule Friday. An Ecowas communiqué warned armed groups in the north that Mali is “one and indivisible” and that it “shall take all necessary measures, including the use of force, to ensure the territorial integrity of the country”. The regional grouping “will never recognise” any breakaway state. Politicians in Bamako unanimously condemned the Tuareg separatist MNLA’s declaration of an independent “Azawad”, as did France on Friday. Several hundred young people demonstrated in Bamako Friday demanding arms to go and fight in the north. Algeria’s Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told Le Monde newspaper that his country would “never accept a challenge to Mali’s territorial integrity” but opposed a foreign intervention. The general staffs of Algeria, Niger and Mauritania will meet in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Sunday to discuss the situation in Mali, he said. Omar Hamaha, the military chief of the Islamist Ansar Dine movement, which reportedly controls Timbuktu and has kidnapped Algerian diplomats in Gao, has declared that his movement is waging war “against independence” and “for Islam”. Coup leader Amadou Sanago on Friday signed a deal with Ecowas, represented by Burkina Faso Foreign Affairs Minister Djibril Bassolè, that agreed that power would be handed over to the speaker of parliament, acting as interim president, a prime minister and a transitional government. The agreement also promised an amnesty for the putschists and guaranteed that deposed president Amadou Toumani Touré the right to live where he wishes under military protection. Current Ecowas president Côte d’Ivoire’s Alassane Ouattara called for the immediate ending of sanctions against Mali. The north of Mali is “on the brink of humanitarian disaster” due to drought, violence and serious human rights violations, according to Amnesty International. About 21,000 people have been displaced since the latest phase of the rebellion started in mid-January.
Mali is about 500,000 sq mi, with a population 14.5 million. Borders on the north reach into the Sahara, the southern region, where most inhabitants live, features the Niger and Senegal rivers. Its economy depends on agriculture and fishing. The Adrar des Ifoghas lies in the northeast. There is negligible rainfall; droughts are frequent. Natural resources include gold, uranium, and salt. Mali was once part of three famed West African empires, the Ghana, Mali and Songhai Empires, which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, and slaves.
BAMAKO — Between 20,000 and 40,000 children work in artisanal gold mines in Mali, Africa’s third-largest producer of the precious metal. “Children as young as six dig mining shafts, work underground, pull up heavy weights of ore, and carry, crush, and pan ore.” Also children “work with mercury, a toxic substance, to separate the gold from the ore. Mercury attacks the central nervous system and is particularly harmful to children.” Children carried loads heavier than their own weight, climb into unstable shafts, and touch and inhale mercury, one of the most toxic substances on earth. They complain of regular pain in the back, head, neck, arms or joints, as well as coughing and respiratory diseases. One six years old boy describes the pain he feels when digging shafts with a pickaxe for hours on end. Another boy said that ‘everything hurts’ when he comes home after a days of work underground. Children work alongside their parents to supplement meagre incomes, while others migrate to the mines by themselves and ended up exploited and abused by relatives or strangers who take their pay. Some girls are sexually abused. Mali’s ministry of mines says the country exports about four metric tons of gold every year, worth about $218 million at November 2011 prices. Most is exported to Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. Local officials often benefit from artisanal gold mining and have little interest in addressing child labour. Few jewelers have put in place procedures to ensure their gold has not been mined by children.
These Sahelian kingdoms had neither rigid geopolitical boundaries nor rigid ethnic identities. The earliest of these empires was the Ghana Empire, which was dominated by the Soninke, a Mande-speaking people. The Almoravids conquered it in 1078. The Mali Empire reached the height of power in the 14th century. The ancient cities of Djenne and Timbuktu were centers of both trade and Islamic learning. The empire declined as a result of internal intrigue, and was replaced by the Songhai Empire. In the late 14th century, the Songhai gained the entire eastern portion of the Mali Empire. The Songhai Empire collapsed after a Moroccan invasion in 1591. It was the end of its role as a trading crosspoint of the trans-Saharan trade routes, and was followed by the establishment of sea routes by the European powers.
One of the worst famines in the region’s recorded history occurred in the 18th century. The 1680 famine extended from the Senegambian coast to the Upper Nile. Many sold themselves for slaves, only to get sustenance. In 1738, during West Africa’s greatest crisis, due to drought and locusts, half the population of Timbuktu was killed. Mali fell under the control of the French, during the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, as a part of French Sudan. In 1959 French Sudan and Senegal united in the Mali Federation. The Mali Federation gained independence from France on June 20, 1960. Senegal withdrew from the federation in August 1960, and French Sudan became the independent Republic of Mali on September 22, 1960.
Modibo Keota was the first president. He established a one-party state, adopted a form of African socialism, and implemented nationalization of economic resources. He was born in Bamako-Coura in 1915, at the time the capital of French Sudan. He attended high school in Dakar, and in 1936 he worked as a teacher in Bamako. He joined the Communist Study Groups cell there. In 1943 he founded the L’oeil de Kenedougou, a magazine critical of colonial rule. In 1956, he was elected mayor of Bamako and became a member of the National Assembly of France. He was elected president of the Mali Federation in 1960, which consisted of French Sudan, and Senegal. Senegal would later leave the federation. After the collapse of the federation, the Sudanese Republic claimed independence as the Republic of Mali. The establishment of the Malian franc in 1962 resulted in severe inflation and caused dissatisfaction of the population, particularly the peasants and the businessmen.
In November 1968 his regime was overthrown in a bloodless military coup. General Moussa Traore became Head of State, and President of Mali from 1979 to 1991, when he was overthrown by popular protests and military coup. He was twice condemned to death in the 1990s, but eventually pardoned. Born in Kayes, he studied at Kita and at the military academy in Frejus, France. He returned to Mali after its independence in 1960. He became lieutenant in 1963, and went to Tanganyika (Tanzania) as military advisor. In 1968 he organized a coup d’etat against President Keota, and sent him to prison in Kidal. Then transferred him back to the capital Bamako in 1977. He died, still a prisoner, on May 16, 1977. Traore devoted his life to African unity. He first played a part in the creation of the Federation of Mali with Leopold Sedar Senghor. After its collapse, he formed with Sekou Toure of Guinea, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, the Union of the States of Western Africa. In 1963, he invited the king of Morocco and the president of Algeria to Bamako, in the hope of ending the Sand War, a frontier conflict between the two nations. Along with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Keota was successful in negotiating the Bamako Accords, which brought an end to the conflict. As a result, he won the Lenin Peace Prize that year. From 1963 to 1966, he normalized relations with the countries of Senegal, Upper Volta and Cote d’Ivoire. Malian author Massa Makan Diabate satirizes Keota’s presidency in his novel The Butcher of Kouta, which features a socialist, dictatorial president named “Bagabaga Daba” (literally, “ant with a big mouth”), who is later removed by a military coup. After Traore took part in the coup of President Keota he banned all political activity. Mali became a police state was run by Captain Tiecoro Bagayoko. In 1972-1973, a major drought hit Mali. International aid money was corruptly appropriated. In 1974, he issued a changed constitution for a Malian Second Republic, which was inaugurated in 1978. In 1977 ex-president Keota died in detention, under suspicious circumstances. His funeral was well attended. The regime reacted strongly, and made violent arrests. In 1980, student demonstrations were broken up, and their leader Abdoul Karim Camara (”Cabral”) died from torture. In 1982, Traore was made commander-in-chief. The constitution was ammended in 1985 to remove limits on the length of time a president could hold office, effectively making him president for life. On 22 March 1991 a huge protest march in central Bamako was put down violently, with estimates of those killed reaching 300. Four days later a military coup deposed Traore. In 1993 he was condemned to death for “political crimes”, but his sentence was later commuted. In 1999 he was once more condemned to death with his wife Mariam, for “economic crimes”: the embezzling of the equivalent of USD$350,000 during his rule.
In 1992, Alpha Oumar Konare won Mali’s first democratic, multi-party presidential election. He commuted theTraore’s sentences to life imprisonment. Shortly before leaving office, on 29 May 2002, he further pardoned the couple, for the sake of national reconciliation.
Amadou Toumani Toure succeeded him in democratic elections in 2002. Born in 1948 in Mopti, he attended Badalabougou High School in Bamako, then Kati Inter-Military College. He became a parachutist, trained in the Soviet Union and France, then commanded the parachute commandos in 1984. In 1991 he participated in a coup d’etat against Traore and became head of state. After presidential elections in 1992 he relinquished power to the newly elected president, Alpha Oumar Konare. Because of this, he gained the nickname “The Soldier of Democracy.”He was elected President in 2002. His presidency has been rather atypical; he is not a member of any political party and his government has members from all of the political parties. He was sworn in for a second term as President on June 8, 2007, at a ceremony attended by seven other African presidents.
Mali is divided into eight regions and one district. Each region has a governor. Since the regions are very large, the country is subdivided into 49 cercles, 288 arrondissements and 703 communes. Mali’s foreign policy orientation is pro-Western. There is a longstanding, ambivalent relationship with France. Relations with some neighbors are uneasy, because of general insecurity along borders in the north, including cross-border banditry and terrorism. The military is underpaid and poorly equipped. Organization has suffered from the incorporation of Tuareg irregular forces into the regular military following a 1992 agreement between the government and Tuareg rebel forces. Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. The key industry is agriculture. Cotton is the country’s largest crop export. In addition to cotton, Mali produces rice, millet, corn, vegetables, tobacco, and tree crops. Gold, livestock and agriculture amount to 80 %. Mali’s resource in livestock consists of millions of cattle, sheep, and goats. Near 40% of its herds were lost during the Sahel drought in 1972-74. Mali has the third highest gold production in Africa (after South Africa and Ghana). The population is 68% rural, 10% of which are nomadic. More than 90% of the population lives in the south, especially in Bamako, which has over 1 million residents. It encompasses a number of sub-Saharan tribes. The Bambara, the largest single group, make up 36.5%. Collectively, the Bambara, Soninke, Khassonke, and Malinke, all part of the broader Mande group, constitute 50% of Mali’s population. Other significant groups are the Fula (17%), Voltaic (12%), Songhai (6%), and Tuareg and Moor (10%). Over the past 40 years, persistent drought has forced many Tuareg to give up their nomadic way of life. Maliís official language is French, but 40 or more African languages also are widely used. The Dogon tribe lives in the central plateau, south of the Niger bend near the city of Bandiagara in the Mopti region. They are known for their mythology, mask dances, wooden sculpture and architecture. They are an indigeous tribe with about 100,000 members, are reclusive and live in caves and hillside-dwellings. They are farming people inhabiting a sparse, rocky plateau in the Homburi Mountains near Timbuktu. One of the main crops of the Dogon peoples living around the Bandiagara Escarpment, onions, are harvested when ripe and pounded into a paste which is then formed into balls. These are dried in the sun, and traded at the markets. In fact, they were once so important to the Dogon that they were used as currency. Isolated from the outside world for countless centuries, they have advanced astronomical knowledge. Traditional mythology and sacred beliefs include ancient lore regarding Sirius. Priests tell them a secret Dogon myth about the star. Sirius had a companion star Po, invisible to the human eye, that moved in a 50-year elliptical orbit around Sirius, was incredibly heavy, and rotated on its axis. Po is composed of a mysterious, super-dense metal called sagala ≠ heavier than all the iron on Earth. An artifact was found of this star system, at least 400 years old. Dogon mythology includes Saturn’s rings, and Jupiter’s four major moons. They have four calendars, for the Sun, Moon, Sirius, and Venus, and have long known that planets orbit the sun. The Dogons believe Sirius to be the axis of the universe, and from it all matter and all souls are produced in a great spiral motion. When they migrated from Egypt to Mali this sacred knowledge was spread in the form of oral traditions, going back 5000 years. It was based on the ancient religions and the mystery school teachings of Isis and Osiris. The astronomical knowledge was given by the Nommos, amphibious beings sent to Earth from Sirius for the benefit of mankind. Nommo was the first living being created by Amma, the sky god and creator of the universe. He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. (This is a metaphor for our original 12-strand DNA. Our present physical DNA contains 2 strands that hold the genetic codes for our physical evolvement.) It all began in Sumer – The Cradle of Civilization – that surrounds the Great Pyramid. The Egyptian Goddess Isis was identified with the star Sirius. The name Sirius was given by the ancient Greeks. The earliest Egyptians believed Sirius – ‘Sothis’ – was the home of souls that have crossed over. The Dogon claim that a third star Emme Ya – sorghum female – exists in the Sirius system. In Dogon language it is called the “Sun of Women”, the seat of the female souls of living beings”. Its symbol contains two pair of lines. The Dogon believe that Sirius C sends out two pairs of beams and that the beams represent a feminine figure. Masks play an importnat role in the Dogon culture, and the masked dances are linked to mythical beliefs, and are only performed by a select few men chosen to be the keepers of the tradition. The cult of the masks is called the Awa, and the dancers will perform at various ritual ceremonies, including funerals, with the masks representing various people, trades and animals. The Kanaga masks symbolises the myth of Dogon’s creation. Five years after someone’s death, an Awa ritual is performed to ensure the soul leaves the village and continues on its journey.
Bambara is the countryís principal lingua franca and marketplace language. An estimated 90% of Malians are Muslim (mostly Sunni and Sufi), approximately 5% are Christian and the remaining 5% adhere to indigenous or traditional animist beliefs. The constitution establishes a secular state and provides for freedom of religion. 65 % of the population has access to safe drinking water, 70 % to sanitation services of some kind. Medical facilities are limited, and medicines are in short supply. Malaria and other arthropod-borne diseases, cholera and tuberculosis are prevalent. 2% of the adult and children population is afflicted with HIV/AIDS, among the lowest rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. Public education is free of charge and is compulsory. However, actual primary school enrollment rate is low, in large part because families are unable to cover the cost of uniforms, books, supplies, and other fees. The education system is plagued by a lack of schools in rural areas, as well as shortages of teachers and materials, with literacy rates significantly lower among women than men.
Malian musical traditions are derived from the griots, known as “Keeper of Memories”. Music is diverse and has several different genres. Some famous Malian influences in music are kora virtouso musician Toumani Diabate, the late roots and blues guitarist Ali Farka Toure, and the Tuareg band Tinariwen. Mali’s literary tradition is passed mainly by word of mouth, with jalis reciting or singing histories and stories known by heart. Amadou Hampte B, Mali’s best-known historian, spent much of his life writing these oral traditions down for the world to remember. The best-known novel writer is Yambo Ouologuem. His “Le devoir de violence”, won the 1968 Prix Renaudot but its legacy was marred by accusations of plagiarism. Most Malians wear flowing, colorful robes called boubous, typical of West Africa. Malians frequently participate in traditional festivals, dances, and ceremonies. Rice and millet are the staples of Malian cuisine, which is heavily based on cereal grains. Grains are generally prepared with sauces made from leaves such spinach or baobab leaves, with tomato, or with peanut sauce, and may be accompanied by pieces of grilled meat (chicken, mutton, beef, or goat).
The most popular sport in Mali is soccer, which became more prominent after Mali hosted the 2002 African Cup of Nations. Notable players for French teams include Salif Keita and Jean Tigana. “Fredi” Kanoute, named 2007 African Footballer of the Year, plays for Sevilla. Mahamadou Diarra, the captain of the Mali national team, for Real Madrid and Seydou Keita plays for Barcelona.
Jangjang Bureh is a fantastic little place to stay. On the north bank of the River Gambia, a free ferry ride away from Jangjang Bureh itself, the camp has no electricity and oodles of charm. The huts are large and airy and are sheltered from the baking heat by huge trees, and as the sun sets over the river and the mosquitoes come out to party, the staff bring out kerosene lanterns to cast eerie shadows through the long night. A trip up the River Gambia is idyllic. Crocodiles swim alongside the bank, monkeys leap in the trees, eagles are perched in the trees and hippos blow bubbles near the bank, ears sticking up out of the water as they bark their strange bark. A man climbs a palm tree to drain palm wine from the top. He cut holes just below the fronds, into which he inserts bottles that slowly fill up with sap. The sap is so high in sugar content that it starts to ferment, so by the time it’s collected it’s mildly alcoholic. As the day wears on, it gets stronger and stronger.
Kayes, on the Senegal River, is nicknamed the “pressure cooker of Africa” due to its extreme heat; surrounding iron-rich mountains contribute to the temperature. It is the hottest town in Africa. The temperatures peak in May to 46 C (115 F).
Bamako, population near 2 million, capital and fastest growing city in Africa, located on the Niger River, near the rapids that divide the Upper and Middle Niger Valleys. Bamako has a cercle, with a river port in nearby Koulikoro. There is commercial fishing on the Niger River. The name Bamako comes from the Bambara, “back of the crocodile”. Bamako is a big bustling city that is hot noisy.
River journey
“At sunrise we embark the pinasse to set sail to Timbuktu, 450 km away. Different tribes live along the Niger, Bozo, Peul and Sonrao. The Bozo are fishermen that cast their nets, balancing in their pirogues; the Peul are herdsmen, who lead their cattle along to the pastures; the Sonrao are farmers, who with their tools they work in mango-orchards, vegetable gardens or in the rice fields; along the shores special water pumps irrigate the land. The piroguiers are merchants, who glide their loaded boats over the water. Every mile you see the red-ochre colours of villages with their own mosque; women who are pounding the millet. Along the shores and on small islands the Bozo huts of reed with palm leafs are easy recognizable. In the rainy season them for higher grounds. We sail
along villages, like Kotaka, Togonrogo, Aka and Youvarou. We spend the nights in tents at the shores and a cook who travels with us prepares our meals. We cross Lac Debo, largest fishing area of Nile perch, carps or catfish. The lake is 30 sq km, and a special zone for migratory birds. Colorful Cormorants stand on the sand banks, drying their wings; or king fishers, eagles and large flocks of herons. It takes 4 hours to cross. After crossing the lake we sail via Attara to Niafunke, birthplace of the artist Ali Farka Toure. Under the roof of the pinasse we watch the landscape go by and see the dome shapes huts of the Bella, a nomad tribe, which trade wood and charcoal. When we approach Timbuktu, sand dunes appear. We arrive at the port of Korioume in the afternoon.
Djenne, population 33,000, is part of the Mopti Region. Between the 15th and 17th centuries much of the trans-Saharan trade in goods such as salt, gold and slaves that moved in and out of Timbuktu passed through Djenne. Both towns became centres of Islamic scholarship. Djenne’s prosperity depended on this trade and when the Portuguese established trading posts on the African coast, the importance of the trans-Saharan trade and thus of Djenne declined.
Everything’s Fine: Toro Si Te – A Film by Daisy Lamothe
Seydou Konate is a doctor in Nongon, a small village in South Mali, without electricity or telephones, isolated by two rivers with no bridges, and a 10-hour drive on a dirt road from the capital of Bamako. Working out of the Community Health Care Center, with limited staff and technical facilities, he is the only doctor for more than 40,000 people. The film portrays Konate’s everyday routine, meeting with patients in his office, treating a variety of injuries and ailments in the clinic, lecturing people on the use of condoms to prevent AIDS, warning against the dangers of using water from contaminated wells, insisting on regular vaccinations for young children, dealing with complications of pregnancy, and even comparing professional notes with a traditional healer who comes in for a diagnosis. The 37-year-old doctor, who declares that he is proud to be practicing the “noble art of medicine,” works at a fixed salary and lives most of the year apart from his family in Bamako. He is an affable personality with an engaging sense of humor who relates easily to his patients, but he will also angrily get in someone’s face when they persist in perpetuating unsanitary conditions that endanger the lives of the entire community, such as a market food vendor who persists in cooking with contaminated well water. In this impoverished nation of 11 million inhabitants, doctors like Konate have their work cut out for them. More than 1 in 5 children die before the age of 15, 140,000 people are living with HIV, 25,000 people die every year from malaria, and half the population have no access to drinkable water. In addition to demonstrating his own quiet commitment to delivering quality health care for little money, Konate offers his views on the financial support of development programs, which he feels are well meaning but without working knowledge of the difficult field realities. Through its engaging portrait of this self-styled “bush doctor,” who must try to prevent epidemics of cholera and AIDS as well as deal with the all-too-common but no less life-threatening problems of dehydration and diarrhea.
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