Moussa Traoré

Moussa Traoré (25 September 1936 – 15 September 2020) was a Malian soldier, politician, and dictator who was President of Mali from 1968 to 1991.

He returned to Mali in 1960, after its 1959 independence.

He became second lieutenant in 1961, and lieutenant in 1963.

He went to Tanganyika (which later together with Zanzibar formed the new state of Tanzania) as military instructor to its liberation movements.

He then became instructor at the École militaire interarmes in Kati.

As a lieutenant, he led the military ousting of President Modibo Keïta in 1968.

On 19 November 1968 he took part in the coup d'état which deposed President Modibo Keïta.

He became president of the Comité militaire de libération nationale, which made him effective Head of state of Mali.

All political activity was banned.

A police state was run by Captain Tiécoro Bagayoko.

Informers monitored academics and teachers, mostly hostile to the military rule.

The socialist economic policies of Modibo Keïta were partially dropped.

In 1972–1973, a major drought hit Mali.

In 1974, Traoré issued a changed constitution for a Malian Second Republic, which was inaugurated in 1978.

The new constitution was purported to move Mali toward civilian rule, the military junta stayed in power.

In September 1976, they established the Democratic Union of the Malian People (UDPM), a new ruling political party organised according to a "non-ideological democratic centralism".

In 1977 ex-president Modibo Keïta died in detention, in suspicious circumstances.

The government reacted strongly, and made violent arrests.

On 28 February 1978, Moussa Traoré had arrested both Tiécoro Bagayoko and Kissima Doukara, defense and security minister, on accusations of plotting a coup.

In trying to move to more open politics, he appointed the historian Alpha Oumar Konaré as arts minister.

In June 1979, a single-party general election was held.

As general secretary of the UPDM, Traoré was automatically elected to a six-year term as president, and he was confirmed in office with 99 percent of the vote.

The UDPM was intended to be the main link between the government and the people.

Among its auxiliaries were the Union Nationale des Femmes du Mali and Union Nationale des Jeunes du Mali, compulsory organisations for women and young people.

In 1980, student demonstrations were broken up, and their leader Abdoul Karim Camara ("Cabral") died from torture.

The political situation stabilized during 1981 and 1982, and remained generally calm throughout the 1980s.

The UDPM began attracting additional members as it demonstrated that it could counter an effective voice against the excesses of local administrative authorities.

Shifting its attention to Mali's economic difficulties, the government approved plans for cereal marketing liberalization, reform in the state enterprise system, new incentives to private enterprise, and an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In 1982, he was made commander-in-chief.

Traoré was reelected in 1985, again as the only candidate.

Later that year, the UDPM-controlled legislature amended the constitution to exempt him from the two-term limit.

On December 25, 1985 tensions rose between Mali led by Traoré and Burkina Faso led by Thomas Sankara.

Traoré was chairman of the Organization of African Unity from May 1988 to July 1989.

He was twice condemned to death in the 1990s, but eventually pardoned on both occasions and freed in 2002.

However, by 1990, there was growing dissatisfaction with the demands for austerity imposed by the IMF's economic reform programs and the perception that the president and his close associates were not themselves adhering to those demands.

As in other African countries, demands for multi-party democracy increased.

Traoré allowed some reforms, including the establishment of an independent press and independent political associations, but insisted that Mali was not ready for democracy.

Thereafter he served as head of state until March 1991, when he was overthrown by popular protests and a military coup.

He retired from public life and died in 2020.

Born in Kayes Region, Traoré studied at Kita and at the military academy in Fréjus, France.