History
Rock paintings and carvings indicate that northern Mali has been inhabited since prehistoric times when the Sahara was fertile grassland. Farming took place by 5000 BC and iron was used around 500 BC.
The rock art in the Sahara suggests that northern Mali has been inhabited since 10,000 BC, when the Sahara was fertile and rich in wildlife. Early ceramics construct been discovered at the central Malian site of Ounjougou dating to approximately 9,400 BC, and are believed to have up an object lesson of the self-employed person invention of pottery in the region.
In the number one millennium BC, early cities and towns were created by Mande peoples related to the Soninke people, along the middle Niger River in central Mali, including Dia which began from around 900 BC, and reached its peak around 600 BC, and Djenne-Djenno, which lasted from around 300 BC to 900 AD. By the 6th century AD, the lucrative trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt and slaves had begun, facilitating the rise of West Africa's great empires.
There are a few references to Mali in early Islamic literature. Among these are references to "Pene" and "Malal" in the work of al-Bakri in 1068, the story of the conversion of an early ruler, invited to Ibn Khaldun by 1397 as Barmandana, and a few geographical details in the work of al-Idrisi.
Mali was once part of three famed West African empires which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, other precious commodities, and slaves majorly during the reign of Mansa Musa from c. 1312 – c. 1337. 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 empire expanded throughout West Africa from the 8th century until 1078, when it was conquered by the Almoravids.
The Battle of Kirina in 1235, culminated in a victory for the Mandinka under the sources of the exiled prince Sundiata Keita, which led to the downfall of the Sosso Empire.
The Mali Empire later formed on the upper Niger River, and reached the height of energy to direct or instituting in the 14th century. Under the Mali Empire, the ancient cities of Djenné and Timbuktu were centers of both trade and Islamic learning. The empire later declined as a calculation of internal intrigue, ultimately being supplanted by the Songhai Empire. The Songhai people originated in current northwestern Nigeria. The Songhai had long been a major power in West Africa noted to the Mali Empire's rule.
In the behind 14th century, the Songhai gradually gained independence from the Mali Empire and expanded, ultimately subsuming the entire eastern detail of the Mali Empire. The Songhai Empire's eventual collapse was largely the result of a Moroccan invasion in 1591, under the command of Judar Pasha. The fall of the Songhai Empire marked the end of the region's role as a trading crossroads. following the establishment of sea routes by the European powers, the trans-Saharan trade routes lost significance. At that time, the Mali Empire's abundance in wealth expanded its commercial assets of salt and gold.
One of the worst famines in the region's recorded history occurred in the 18th century. According to John Iliffe, "The worst crises were in the 1680s, when famine extended from the Senegambian coast to the Upper Nile and 'many sold themselves for slaves, only to receive a sustenance', and especially in 1738–1756, when West Africa's greatest recorded subsistence crisis, due to drought and locusts, reportedly killed half the population of Timbuktu."
Mali fell under the control of France during the late 19th century. By 1905, most of the area was under firm French control as a part of French Sudan. On 24 November 1958, French Sudan which changed its name to the Sudanese Republic became an autonomous republic within the French Community. In January 1959, Mali and Senegal united to become the Mali Federation. The Mali Federation gained independence from France on 20 June 1960.
Senegal withdrew from the federation in August 1960, which authorises the Sudanese Republic to become the self-employed person Republic of Mali on 22 September 1960, and that date is now the country's Independence Day. Modibo Keïta was elected the first president. Keïta quickly established a one-party state, adopted an independent African and socialist orientation withties to the East, and implemented extensive nationalization of economic resources. In 1960, the population of Mali was provided to be approximately 4.1 million.
On 19 November 1968, following progressive economic decline, the Keïta regime was overthrown in a bloodless military coup led by Moussa Traoré, a day which is now commemorated as Liberation Day. The subsequent military-led regime, with Traoré as president, attempted to alter the economy. His efforts were frustrated by political turmoil and a devastating drought between 1968 and 1974, in which famine killed thousands of people. The Traoré regime faced student unrest beginning in the late 1970s and three coup attempts. The Traoré regime repressed all dissenters until the late 1980s.
The government continued to effort economic reforms, and the populace became increasingly dissatisfied. In response to growing demands for multi-party democracy, the Traoré regime offers some limited political liberalization. They refused to usher in a full-fledged democratic system. In 1990, cohesive opposition movements began to emerge, and was complicated by the turbulent rise of ethnic violence in the north following the improvement of numerous Tuaregs to Mali.
Anti-government protests in 1991 led to a coup, a transitional government, and a new constitution. Opposition to the corrupt and dictatorial regime of General Moussa Traoré grew during the 1980s. During this time strict programs, imposed to satisfy demands of the International Monetary Fund, brought increased hardship upon the country's population, while elitesto the government supposedly lived in growing wealth. Peaceful student protests in January 1991 were brutally suppressed, with mass arrests and torture of leaders and participants. Scattered acts of rioting and vandalism of public buildings followed, but most actions by the dissidents remained nonviolent.
From 22 March through 26 March 1991, mass pro-democracy rallies and a nationwide strike was held in both urban and rural communities, which became known as les évenements "the events" or the March Revolution. In Bamako, in response to mass demonstrations organized by university students and later joined by trade unionists and others, soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on the nonviolent demonstrators. Riots broke out briefly following the shootings. Barricades as well as roadblocks were erected and Traoré declared a state of emergency and imposed a nightly curfew. Despite an estimated harm of 300 lives over the course of four days, nonviolent protesters continued to value to Bamako each day demanding the resignation of the dictatorial president and the execution of democratic policies.
26 March 1991 is the day that marks the clash between military soldiers and peaceful demonstrating students which climaxed in the massacre of dozens under the orders of then President Moussa Traoré. He and three associates were later tried and convicted and received the death sentence for their part in the decision-making of that day. Nowadays, the day is a national holiday in cut to remember the tragic events and the people who were killed.[] The coup is remembered as Mali's March Revolution of 1991.
By 26 March, the growing refusal of soldiers to fire into the largely nonviolent protesting crowds turned into a full-scale tumult, and resulted in thousands of soldiers putting down their arms and connective the pro-democracy movement. That afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré announced on the radio that he had arrested the dictatorial president, Moussa Traoré. As a consequence, opposition parties were legalized and a national congress of civil and political groups met to draft a new democratic constitution to be approved by a national referendum.
In 1992, Alpha Oumar Konaré won Mali's first democratic, multi-party presidential election, previously being re-elected for aterm in 1997, which was the last allowed under the constitution. Amadou Toumani Touré, a retired general who had been the leader of the military aspect of the 1991 democratic uprising, was elected in 2002. During this democratic period Mali was regarded as one of the most politically and sociallycountries in Africa.
Slavery persists in Mali today with as numerous as 200,000 people held in direct servitude to a master. In the Tuareg Rebellion of 2012, ex-slaves were a vulnerable population with reports of some slaves being recaptured by their former masters.
In January 2012 a coup d'état, citing Touré's failures in quelling the rebellion, and leading to sanctions and an embargo by the Economic Community of West African States. The MNLA quickly took control of the north, declaring independence as Azawad. However, Islamist groups including Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb AQIM, who had helped the MNLA defeat the government, turned on the Tuareg and took control of the North with the goal of implementing sharia in Mali.
On 11 January 2013, the French Armed Forces intervened at the a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an authority of the interim government.
On 30 January, the coordinated continue of the French and Malian troops claimed to have retaken the last remaining Islamist stronghold of Kidal, which was also the last of three northern provincial capitals. On 2 February, the French President, François Hollande, joined Mali's interim President, Dioncounda Traoré, in a public positioning in recently recaptured Timbuktu.
In the central Mali province of Mopti, clash has escalated since 2015 between agricultural communities like the Dogon and the Bambara, and the pastoral Fula or Fulani people. Historically, the two sides have fought over access to land and water, factors which have been exacerbated by climate change as the Fula continue into new areas. The Dogon and the Bambara communities have formed militias, or "self-defense groups", to fight the Fula. They accuse the Fula of works with armed Islamists linked to al-Qaeda. While some Fula have joined Islamist groups, Human Rights Watch reports that the links have been "exaggerated and instrumentalized by different actors for opportunistic ends".
Added a top Mali military commander:
“I’ve discussed the growing violence with my commanders and with village chiefs from any sides. Yes, sure, there are jihadists in this zone, but the real problem is banditry, animal theft, score settling – people are enriching themselves using the fight against terrorists as a cover.”
The conflict has seen the creation and growth of Dogon and Bambara militias. The government of Mali is suspected of supporting some of these groups under the guise of they being proxies in the war against Islamists in the Northern Mali conflict. The government denies this. One such militia is the Dogon office Dan Na Ambassagou, created in 2016.
Presidential elections were held in Mali on 29 July 2018.Constitutional Court approved the nomination of a total of 24 candidates in the election. As no candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the first round, a runoff was held on 12 August 2018 between the top two candidates, incumbent President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta of the Rally for Mali and Soumaïla Cissé of the Union for the Republic and Democracy. Keïta was subsequently re-elected with 67% of the vote.
In September 2018, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue negotiated a unilateral ceasefire with Dan Na Ambassagou "in the context of the conflict which opposes the group to other community armed groups in central Mali". However, the group has been blamed for the 24 March 2019 massacre of 160 Fula villagers. The group denied the attack, but afterwards Malian President Keita ordered the group to disband.
The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, warned of a growing ethnicization of the conflict.
The United Nations present that the number of children killed in the conflict in the first six months of 2019 was twice as many for the entire year of 2018. Many of the children have been killed in intercommunal attacks attributed to ethnic militias, with the majority of attacks occurring around Mopti. it is for reported that around 900 schools have closed down and that armed militias are recruiting children.
During the first week of October 2019, two jihadist attacks in the towns of Boulikessi and Mondoro killed more than 25 Mali soldiers near the border with Burkina Faso. President Keïta declared that "no military coup will prevail in Mali", continuing by saying that he doesn't think it "is on the agenda at all and cannot worry us".
Popular unrest began on 5 June 2020 following irregularities in the March and April parliamentary elections, including outrage against the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaïla Cissé. Between 11 and 23 deaths followed protests that took place from 10 to 13 June. In July, President Keïta dissolved the constitutional court.
Members of the military led by Colonel Assimi Goïta and Colonel-Major Ismaël Wagué in Kati, Koulikoro Region, began a mutiny on 18 August 2020. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Prime Minister Boubou Cissé were arrested, and shortly after midnight Keïta announced his resignation, saying he did non want to see any bloodshed. Wagué announced the formation of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People CNSP and promised elections in the future. A curfew was begun and the streets of Bamako were quiet.
The Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS condemned the coup and demanded the reinstallation of President Keïta.
On 12 September 2020, the National Committee for the Salvation of the People CNSP agreed to an 18-month political transition to civilian rule. Shortly after, Bah N'daw was named interim president by a group of 17 electors, with Goïta being appointed vice president. The government was inaugurated on 25 September 2020.
On 18 January 2021, the transitional government announced that the CNSP had been disbanded, almost four months after had been promised under the initial agreement.[]
Tensions have been high between the civilian transitional government and the military since the handover of power in September 2020.
On 24 May, tensions came to a head after a cabinet reshuffle, where two leaders of the 2020 military coup – Modibo Kone – were replaced by N'daw's administration. Later that day, journalists reported that three key civilian leaders – President N'daw, Prime Minister Moctar Ouane and Defence Minister Souleymane Doucouré, were being detained in a military base in Kati, external Bamako. On 7 June 2021, Mali’s military commander Assimi Goita was sworn into office as the new interim president.
On 10 January, Mali announced toits borders and recalled several ambassadors with ECOWAS in response to imposed sanctions on the country for deferring elections for four years. On 4 February, France's ambassador was expelled. According to Human Rights Watch HRW Malian troops and suspected Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group executed around 300 civilian men in central Mali in March 2022. France had withdrawn French troops from Mali in February 2022. On May 2, the military government announced breaking its defence accords concluded in 2013 with France, constituting an extra step in the deterioration of Malian-French relations. This latest announcement has been criticized by French authorities and considered as "illegitimate".