Amnesty International Report 1995 - Mali

Three prisoners of conscience were detained for short periods, two of them without charge or trial. Nine possible prisoners of conscience and about 10 other political detainees were held without trial until their releases in July and August. One person was sentenced to death. The former President and three former government ministers remained under sentence of death throughout the year. Government forces were reported to have extrajudicially executed at least 170 unarmed civilians in reprisal for attacks by armed political groups. Armed political groups, including a vigilante group, were reported to have deliberately and arbitrarily killed at least 120 civilians. Inter-ethnic violence in the north escalated during 1994, in which hundreds of people were reported to have been killed. Raids on northern towns and villages continued, despite the April 1992 peace accord between the government and the Mouvements et fronts unifiés de l'Azawad (MFUA), the Unified Movements and Fronts of Azawad, a coalition of Tuareg and Moorish opposition groups. It was unclear whether these armed robberies were politically motivated or the work of bandits, as claimed by the government and the MFUA, but from early 1994 there were increasing reports that dissident members or factions of the MFUA were involved. Government troops, who are predominantly from the majority black population, reportedly carried out reprisal killings of Tuareg and Moorish civilians from April onwards. A black vigilante group set up by former soldiers, the Mouvement patriotique malien Ghanda Koy (Ghanda Koy), Malian Patriotic Movement – Masters of the Land, was also responsible for killing Tuareg and Moorish civilians. Judicial investigations were ordered into two incidents of killings by soldiers but no one had been brought to justice in connection with any of the killings by the end of the year. Under the terms of the 1992 peace accord, about 650 former Tuareg rebels (known as intégrés) were integrated into the armed forces. In May the MFUA signed a further agreement with the government, raising the number of former rebels to be integrated into the security forces and government services to over 2,000. In May and June the government increased the number of soldiers deployed in the north and civilian governors there were replaced by military personnel. However, the attacks and killings continued and many intégrés deserted and returned to former rebel bases. In August government troops in several cities went on strike over pay arrears and the government's failure to maintain security. By the end of the year, 25,000 more refugees had joined the 160,000 who had sought refuge in neighbouring countries since 1991. Three prisoners of conscience were held for short periods. Two women – Diallo Fanta Dramé and Korotoumou Traoré – both members of local campaigning organizations, were arrested in Bamako, the capital, in May and held incommunicado for over two weeks before being released without charge. They were detained because of their involvement in a peaceful campaign for the release of about 40 students arrested following violent student demonstrations on 15 February; the students had all been released on bail or tried by July. Sambi Touré, managing director of an independent newspaper, Nouvel Horizon, was detained for nine days in November after publishing an article about a meeting between President Alpha Oumar Konaré and armed forces officers in which the officers allegedly threatened to overthrow the government. He was a prisoner of conscience. He was released pending trial on charges of defamation and spreading false news. Nine possible prisoners of conscience were released in July following an amnesty. Major Lamine Diabira, a former Minister of the Interior, and eight other army officers had been arrested in July 1991 and charged with conspiring to overthrow the transitional government (see Amnesty International Reports 1992 to 1994). They had been held without trial for three years, allegedly because Major Diabira had sought the prosecution in 1991 of officers he claimed were responsible for abuses committed under the government of former President Moussa Traoré. In August the judicial authorities announced that they would not prosecute Lieutenant-Colonel Oumar Diallo, aide-de-camp to former President Traoré, and about 10 others, believed to be mostly soldiers, who had been detained in December 1993 after an alleged conspiracy to overthrow the government (see Amnesty International Report 1994). They were all released unconditionally except Lieutenant-Colonel Diallo, who remained in detention awaiting trial on embezzlement charges. The wife, son and brother-in-law of former President Traoré remained in detention throughout the year, awaiting trial on charges of embezzlement and other "economic" offences (see Amnesty International Reports 1992 to 1994). All other officials of the former government and ruling party detained in 1991 had been released on bail by October. One man, Kantara Traoré, was sentenced to death for attempted murder in August but no executions were carried out. Former President Traoré and three former government officials remained under sentence of death (see Amnesty International Report 1994), awaiting trial on further charges of embezzlement. President Konaré had not ruled on their plea for clemency by the end of the year. Government forces were reported to have extrajudicially executed at least 170 civilians, and possibly many more. Most of the killings appeared to be in reprisal for earlier attacks by armed Tuareg and Moorish groups; soldiers targeted Tuareg and Moorish homes in towns and encampments and fired indiscriminately on civilians. On 21 April, the day after two soldiers had been shot dead in a dispute with Tuareg intégrés, troops attacked Tuareg and Moorish homes in Ménaka, in the northwest, with machine-guns, rockets and grenades. Four civilians were shot dead, including an elderly woman, and seven women who were forced to flee from their homes and hide in the bush apparently later died from thirst and shock, one of them in an advanced stage of pregnancy. An internal inquiry investigated the incident and transferred the troops involved to different barracks, but no one was brought to justice. In Timbuktu between 12 and 29 June at least 50 civilians, most of them Moors, were reportedly taken prisoner and extrajudicially executed by army commandos, apparently in reprisal for earlier attacks by intégrés. The victims included Baba Koutam, a 67-year-old businessman and community leader, who was arrested by soldiers on 22 June at the home of the Kadhi (Islamic judge) of Timbuktu; his body was found on the airport road, his limbs broken and throat cut. A member of the vigilante group Ghanda Koy had reportedly threatened him, then led the army commandos to him and taken part in the killing. In October government troops and members of Ghanda Koy were reported to have killed about 40 Tuareg and Moorish civilians in and around Gao. These killings were in reprisal for an attack claimed by the Front islamique arabe de l'Azawad (FIAA), Arab Islamic Front of Azawad (see below). The government condemned the reprisal killings and ordered a judicial inquiry but no one had been brought to justice by the end of the year. Some killings which the authorities said occurred during clashes between the armed forces and armed Tuareg and Moorish groups appeared in reality to be extrajudicial executions of Tuareg and Moorish civilians. In one instance, the army said that 22 intégrés had been killed while attacking an army convoy near Andéramboukane on 12 June. However, according to unofficial sources, the army killed 22 civilians in reprisal attacks on Tuareg and Moorish encampments; the bodies were buried in mass graves and were reported to include two elderly Moors. In October the government said that Jean-Claude Berberat, the Swiss consul in Mali, and Amoubareck Ag Alleyda, a Tuareg development worker, had been killed in Niafunké during an attack on a military patrol by armed bandits. In December a judicial inquiry found the military patrol responsible for the killings and apparently established that the killings had been unlawful. No legal action against the soldiers had been initiated by the end of the year. Ghanda Koy was reportedly responsible for killing at least 20 and possibly more than 40 Tuareg and Moorish civilians during the year. Nine herdsmen travelling in a boat on the Niger river were reportedly shot dead by members of Ghanda Koy in late May. At around this time Ghanda Koy members were also reported to have killed four civilians in Fia near Bourem and 13 in the village of Tessit, southwest of Ansongo. Tuareg and Moorish armed political groups were alleged to have killed more than 90 civilians because of their ethnic origin or in reprisal for killings by government forces. On 1 July an armed group reportedly killed nine people, seven of them civilians, in attacks on government buildings and a health centre in Tenenkou. The FIAA also reportedly killed at least 70 civilians deliberately and arbitrarily. Between 18 and 25 market traders travelling in a lorry were ambushed and killed, allegedly by FIAA members, on 14 July on the Nampala-Niono road. At least 40 villagers were killed, reportedly by FIAA intégrés, on 25 July at the weekly market in Bamba near Gourma-Rharous; in December the MFUA said this was a reprisal attack by civilians. The FIAA acknowledged responsibility for an attack on Gao in October in which at least 13 civilians were killed. Amnesty International appealed for the release of prisoners of conscience and for the trial or release of the army officers held without trial since 1991, who were released in July. In September Amnesty International published a report, Mali: Ethnic conflict and killings of civilians, which documented the growing incidence of killings by government forces and armed political groups. Amnesty International appealed to the authorities to take measures to stop the extrajudicial executions of members of the Tuareg and Moorish communities. It called for an independent and public judicial inquiry into reports of unlawful killings by the armed forces, with a view to bringing to justice those found responsible. Amnesty International also appealed to the leaders of all armed political groups to condemn the deliberate and arbitrary killings of civilians and to put an immediate end to such killings by the forces under their command. In response the MFUA said in December that human rights abuses had not been carried out by MFUA groups but by dissident armed groups, armed bandits and civilians.