SUMMARY

The Government of Mali used one-sided violence in the context of the armed intrastate conflict launched by several Touareg and Arab groups based in the sparsely-populated north of Mali. The government of President Moussa Traoré was also to be found responsible for killings of civilians involved in the pro-democracy demonstrations that were wide-spread in early 1991 and culminated in the ousting of Traoré in a military coup.

The Malian President Konaré, in office from 1992 to 2002, condemned the one-sided attacks in general terms in 1994. However, the Malian government authorities failed to investigate the killings and to prosecute suspected perpetrators in the government forces. Usually the attacks appear to have been committed in reprisal of earlier attacks by the Touareg and Arab rebel groups. Ali Nouhou Diallo, the president of the Malian National Assembly stated: “Beyond doubt, our army needs some time to learn to distinguish between the fundamentalist terrorists and the civilian population out of which those emerged.”

The victims of the one-sided violence committed during the intrastate conflict were mostly from the Touareg and Arab communities and appear to have been selected on the basis of their ethnic origin. Machine guns, machetes, rockets, and grenades were used against civilians. Some of the victims were summarily executed.

The Government of Mali first became active as a one-sided actor in the UCDP datasets in 1990, when the one-sided violence resulted in over 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached in July that year when government forces killed an estimated 94 nomads in In-Abalan.