Thursday's Coup d'Etat

For those of you who haven't heard, yesterday, March 22, there was a military coup here in Mali. According to most sources, the military entered the presidential palace that morning and captured the President, although some people say that he was able to escape. The leaders of the new military regime claim that their goals are to restore democracy as quickly as possible. We'll see how true these claims turn out to be. It seems strange to conduct a coup less than a month before elections if the true goal is to promote democracy, but then there's also the fact elections in Mali have a history of being less than free and fair and most people have no reason to believe that the elections scheduled for April would have been any different. Mali does have a history of nonviolent military coups, such as the 1968 capture of Modibo Keita and another in 1991. After the coup in '91 a transitional committee, similar at least in rhetoric to the one in place at the moment, maintained order for a year until elections could be organized. These elections were held, although it's unclear, according to most Malians who are politically informed, how fair and democratic they actually were. The recent president, Amadou Traore (ATT), has become controversial over the last few years given the conflict with the Tuareg in the North, which I wrote about earlier. It's believed by many that ATT was secretly collaborating with the rebels in the North, a sentiment that is furthered by a widespread but unconfirmed rumor that a cell phone one of the Tuareg military leaders had on his person when he was captured received a direct call from the President himself, which was then answered by a member of the Malian military. I don't really have any way of knowing how true or ludicrous these claims are but I do know that the vast majority of Malians were less than enthusiastic about ATT as a president. All of the Malians I have spoken to are relatively unconcerned about the coup and seem fairly confident that it will have a minimal impact on their daily lives. However, I'm writing this from Senou, a small rural village outside of Bamako, where I was when I found out about the coup. It's possible that opinions in Bamako will be quite different. I hope to talk to people in Bamako tomorrow to find out more about their opinions. I'm not sure how much coverage the coup is receiving in the American media or what exactly is being said but for anyone who's worried I can assure you that for the moment there is very little violence, I'm very safe here and our program director says that, unless the situation changes, it's unlikely that we will have to leave the country, especially since the military has temporarily closed all borders. At least for now it seems that life will continue more or less as usual here, although there is a curfew being imposed and we will probably have less freedom to go out at night. People are being told not to leave their houses until Tuesday, after which there will only be a nighttime curfew. I'll try to write more often to keep everyone updated but I really do want to emphasize that no matter what they're saying in the American media the situation here is not at all dangerous and hopefully will remain so.