Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T11:25:52.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

DISSIDENCE, DICTATORSHIP, AND DEMOCRACY: THE STRUGGLES OF MALIAN EXILES IN AFRICA AND BEYOND, 1968–91

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2020

Jean-Philippe Dedieu Open the ORCID record for Jean-Philippe Dedieu [Opens in a new window]
Jean-Philippe Dedieu*
Affiliation:
New York University, NYU-Paris
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In contrast with the imperial period, historians have overlooked African exile politics during the subsequent decades of one-party and military rule. Focusing on the Malian case, this article proceeds in three parts. The first section explores the creation in Africa, in particular in Ivory Coast and Senegal, of clandestine opposition movements to Moussa Traoré's regime. The second section focuses on Europe, particularly France, where dissidents benefitted from an unparalleled openness of the political system compared to that seen in African countries. The final section investigates the influence of these networks spanning Africa and Europe on the formation of pro-democracy organizations in Mali and the final overthrow of the Traoré regime in 1991. Theorizing exile as a process which enabled activists to operate in abeyance despite repression – before being able to emerge more openly – refines our understanding of political transitions which were driven by the juncture of internal and external dynamics.

Keywords

Africademocratizationdiaspora politicsdictatorshipEuropeexileMalipolitical transitions
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , July 2020 , pp. 241 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye, The Journal of African History's editors, in particular Gregory Mann, and two anonymous reviewers for their detailed and thoughtful comments on earlier versions of this article. All translations of quoted material are my own.

References

1 Carpenter, N. R. and Lawrance, B. N., ‘Introduction: reconstructing the archive of Africans in exile’, in Carpenter, N. R. and Lawrance, B. N. (eds.), Africans in Exile: Mobility, Law, and Identity (Bloomington, IN, 2018), 4–5Google Scholar.

2 For an extensive review and in-depth analysis of the vast amount of literature on the colonial period, see Carpenter and Lawrance, ‘Introduction’, 1–34.

3 Sklar, R. L., ‘Democracy in Africa’, African Studies Review, 26:3–4 (1983), 11–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Centre des Archives Diplomatiques, Nantes (CADN) 62PO/1/268, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Chronologie des principaux événements depuis l'indépendance’, n.d.

5 Manchuelle, F., Willing Migrants: Soninke Labor Diasporas, 1848–1960 (Athens, GA, 1997)Google Scholar; Mann, G., Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gary-Tounkara, D., Migrants soudanais/maliens et conscience ivoirienne: Les étrangers en Côte d'Ivoire (1903–1980) (Paris, 2008)Google Scholar; Rodet, M., Les migrantes ignorées du Haut-Sénégal: 1900–1946 (Paris, 2009)Google Scholar; Dougnon, I., Travail de blanc, travail de noir: La migration des paysans Dogon vers l'Office du Niger et au Ghana, 1910–1980 (Paris, 2007)Google Scholar; Whitehouse, B., Migrants and Strangers in an African City: Exile, Dignity, Belonging (Bloomington, IN, 2012)Google Scholar.

6 These estimates were provided by the Malian transitional government to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) in order to delineate a roadmap for the first free elections after Traoré's overthrow. They should be read with caution since no census of Malians living abroad had been undertaken. See the report commissioned by the IFES to Lavoie, L., Préparatifs en vue des consultations populaires devant avoir lieu au Mali entre le 1er décembre 1991 et le 20 janvier 1992 (Washington, DC, 1991), 19Google Scholar.

7 Austin, G., ‘Reciprocal comparison and African history: tackling conceptual Eurocentrism in the study of Africa's economic past’, African Studies Review, 50:3 (2007), 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Schraeder, P. J., ‘Elites as facilitators or impediments to political development?: some lessons from the “third wave” of democratization in Africa’, Journal of Developing Areas, 29:1 (1994), 69Google Scholar.

9 Adepoju, A., ‘Trends in international migration in and from Africa’, in Massey, D. S. and Taylor, J. E. (eds.), International Migration: Prospects and Policies in a Global Market (Oxford, 2004), 59–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Restrictions to emigration imposed under Keïta were gradually loosened by the Traoré régime. See Gary-Tounkara, D., ‘Encadrement et contrôle des migrants par le régime militaire au Mali (1968–1991)’, in Dufoix, S., Guerassimoff, C., and de Tinguy, A. (eds.), Loin des yeux, près du cœur: Les États et leurs expatriés (Paris, 2010), 158–60Google Scholar.

11 CADN 62PO/1/178, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Les droits de l'homme au Mali’, 23 Dec. 1985, 28.

12 Gatrell, P., ‘Refugees: what's wrong with history?’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30:2 (2017), 183Google Scholar.

13 Campmas, P., L'Union Soudanaise: Section Soudanaise du Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, 1946–1968 (Abidjan, 1978)Google Scholar.

14 F. Blum, ‘Trajectoires militantes et (re)conversions: à propos de la FEANF. Que sont-ils/elles devenu-e-s?’ (unpublished habilitation thesis, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2016).

15 Dufoix, S., Diasporas (Berkeley, 2008), 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 See, for instance, Snyder, F. G., One-Party Government in Mali: Transition toward Control (New Haven, 1965)Google Scholar; Hopkins, N., Popular Government in an African Town: Kita, Mali (Chicago, 1972)Google Scholar; Jones, W. I., Planning and Economic Policy: Socialist Mali and Her Neighbors (Washington, DC, 1976)Google Scholar; Diarrah, C. O., Le Mali de Modibo Keïta (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar; Mann, G. and Lecocq, B. (eds.), special issue ‘Modibo Keïta's Mali: 1960–1968’, Mande Studies, 5 (2003)Google Scholar.

17 D'Orsi, C., Asylum-Seeker and Refugee Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Peregrination of a Persecuted Human Being in Search of a Safe Haven (New York, 2016), 191Google Scholar.

18 M. E. McGuinness quoted in D'Orsi, Asylum-Seeker, 176–7.

19 Diop, M. C. and Diouf, M., Le Sénégal sous Abdou Diouf: État et société (Paris, 1990), 251Google Scholar.

20 Centre des Archives Diplomatiques, La Courneuve (MAE) 349QONT/30, French Embassy in Senegal, telegram, 26 Jan. 1965; MAE 349QONT/30, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Le “maquis” de Kédougou’, 17 Mar. 1965.

21 Schraeder, P. J. and Gaye, N., ‘Senegal's foreign policy: challenges of democratization and marginalization’, African Affairs, 96:385 (1997), 485–508CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Mann, G., From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel: The Road to Nongovernmentality (Cambridge, 2015), 215–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 O. Rillon, ‘Féminités et masculinités à l’épreuve de la contestation: le genre des luttes sociales et politiques au Mali (1954–1993)’, (unpublished PhD thesis, Université Paris I, 2013), 201.

24 S. Nédelec, ‘Jeunesses, sociétés et État au Mali’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Université Paris Diderot, 1994), 493; Diarrah, S. M., Le mouvement démocratique malien: Itinéraire de l'ADEMA-PASJ (Bamako, 1996), 15Google Scholar.

25 Bathily, A., Mai 1968 à Dakar ou la révolte universitaire et la démocratie (Paris, 1992)Google Scholar; Blum, F., Révolutions Africaines: Congo, Sénégal, Madagascar, années 1960–1970 (Rennes, France, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guèye, O., Mai 1968 au Sénégal: Senghor face aux étudiants et au mouvement syndical (Paris, 2017)Google Scholar.

26 Archives Nationales du Mali, Bamako (ANM) Fonds BPN-USRDA, CMLN, UDPM, 284, Direction des services de sécurité, ‘Visite officielle au Sénégal du 12 au 16 août 1972. Rapport de mission de Tiécoro Bagayoko, Directeur des Services de Sécurité du Mali’, 5. I thank Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye for having brought this document to my attention.

27 B. Hendrickson, ‘Imperial Fragments and Transnational Activism: 1968(s) in Tunisia, France, and Senegal’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Northeastern University, 2013), 262–5.

28 Ibid, 271.

29 On the Sahel drought, see Bonnecase, V., La pauvreté au Sahel: Du savoir colonial à la mesure internationale (Paris, 2011), 217–60Google Scholar; Mann, Empires to NGOs, 170–208.

30 ‘Mali’, Africa Contemporary Record, 7 (1975), B708–9; Bennett, V. Plave, ‘Military government in Mali’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 13:2 (1975), 264–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Imperato, P. J. and Imperato, G. H., Historical Dictionary of Mali (4th edn, Lanham, MD, 2008), 307Google Scholar.

32 ‘Mali’, Africa Contemporary Record, 8 (1976), B752.

33 MAE 339QONT/53, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Libération de détenus politiques’, 2 June 1975, 2.

34 Ibid.

35 Fatton, R., The Making of a Liberal Democracy: Senegal's Passive Revolution, 1975–1985 (Boulder, CO, 1987)Google Scholar.

36 Berg, E. (ed.), Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action (Washington, DC, 1981)Google Scholar.

37 CADN 62PO/1/266, French Embassy in Mali, biographical note on Seydou Badian Kouyaté, n.d.

38 Blum, Trajectoires, 186.

39 For the academic year 1967–8, 892 French students, 1,480 Senegalese students, and 1,351 students of other African nationalities were enrolled at Dakar University. See MAE 349QONT/93, ‘Université de Dakar’, 17 July 1968.

40 Nédelec, Jeunesses, 493.

41 See the testimony of H. Barry, ‘Les années de braise de l'Union Nationale des Élèves et Étudiants du Mali (UNEEM)’, in Centre Djoliba and Mémorial Modibo Keïta, Bâtissons la mémoire du Mali démocratique: 26 mars 1991–26 mars 2001, Xe anniversaire (Bamako, 2002), 98–113.

42 ‘Mali’, Africa Contemporary Record, 11 (1980), B690.

43 Mann, Empires to NGOs, 216.

44 Nédelec, Jeunesses, 492; Rich, J., ‘Konaré, Alpha Oumar’, in Akyeampong, E. K. and Gates, H. L. Jr. (eds.), Dictionary of African Biography (New York, 2012), 420Google Scholar.

45 ‘Mali’, Africa Contemporary Record, 12 (1981), B553.

46 François, P., ‘Class struggles in Mali’, Review of African Political Economy, 24:9 (1982), 23Google Scholar.

47 ‘Mali: révolte et répression’, Jeune Afrique, 2 Apr. 1980; ‘La trêve’, Jeune Afrique, 9 Apr. 1980; ‘Index Index’, Index on Censorship, 9:4 (1980), 72. For a detailed analysis, see Nédelec, Jeunesses, 423–32.

48 ‘Traoré comme Bokassa’, Libération, 26 Mar. 1980.

49 ‘Les étudiants maliens occupent leur ambassade à Dakar’, Le Soleil, 25 Mar. 1980; ‘La Trêve’, Jeune Afrique; Nédelec, Jeunesses, 429.

50 Diarrah, Le mouvement, 2.

51 MAE 349QO/93, French Embassy in Senegal, ‘Activités politiques à Dakar de M. Samir Amin’, 7 Oct. 1971.

52 Koné, S. T., ‘Les partis politiques et la démocratie au Mali’, Africa Development/Afrique et Développement, 23:2 (1998), 188Google Scholar; M. L. Gakou, ‘Histoire résumée du “Bulletin du Peuple” publié depuis Dakar’, in Centre Djoliba and Mémorial Modibo Keïta, Bâtissons, 172–4.

53 Z. K. Smith, ‘Building African democracy: the role of civil society-based groups in strengthening Malian civic community’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of North Carolina, 1998), 118; Blum, Trajectoires, 186.

54 Touré, A. B. and Bamba, K., La contribution du Parti Malien du Travail (PMT) à l'instauration de la démocratie pluraliste au Mali (Bamako, 2002), 56Google Scholar.

55 ‘Le Mali à l'encan’, Faso, 6 (1983), 1; Archives de la Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) 105CFD654, Front National Démocratique et Populaire, ‘Communiqué n°1’, 20 Jan. 1987.

56 ‘Annexe 13. Front Démocratique des Patriotes Maliens (FDPM)’, reproduced in Touré and Bamba, La contribution, 102–3.

57 Diarrah, Le mouvement, 31–2; Touré and Bamba, La contribution, 47–54.

58 Archives of the Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine (BDIC) F2014/2(105), Amnesty International, ‘Fermeture de la prison de Taoudenit’, 7 Nov. 1988, 2; Diarrah, Le mouvement, 2.

59 Diop and Diouf, Le Sénégal, 319–54.

60 ‘L’étudiant malien restera finalement à Dakar’, SOPI, 24 June 1988.

61 ‘Abdou Diouf au club de la presse de RFI’, Le Soleil, 28 June 1988.

62 Boone, C., ‘The social origins of Ivoirian exceptionalism: rural society and state formation’, Comparative Politics, 27:4 (1995), 445CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Bamba, A. B., African Miracle, African Mirage: Transnational Politics and the Paradox of Modernization in Ivory Coast (Athens, GA, 2016)Google Scholar.

64 Perret, T., Afrique: Voyage en démocratie (Paris, 1994), 226Google Scholar.

65 MAE 339QONT/53, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Du remaniement ministériel du 25 septembre 1975’, 20 Oct. 1975; ‘Mali: Traoré's swan song’, Africa Confidential, 22:1 (1981), 7–8.

66 Sanankoua, B., ‘Amadou Hampâté Bâ: a testimony’, Islamic Africa, 1:2 (2010), 143–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; C. Wise, ‘Amadou Hampate Ba’, in Akyeampong and Gates, Dictionary, 321–3.

67 For Mahamane Alassane Haïdara, see ‘Mali: Traoré's Swan song’, Africa Confidential; ‘Pointers: Algeria, Oil, Sudan, Mali, Malawi’, Africa Confidential, 22:13 (1981). For Jean-Marie Koné, see François, ‘Class struggles’, 25; ‘Décédé le 15 mai à Abidjan, Jean-Marie Koné (ancien ministre malien) inhumé dimanche à Bamako’, Fraternité-Matin, 24 May 1988.

68 Mali strengthened its ties with Ivory Coast, even serving as an intermediary between Guinea on the one hand and Ivory Coast and Senegal on the other. See MAE 339QONT/51, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Situation au Mali’, 10 Oct. 1973, 14–5.

69 Archives of the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) 90-02-08264, asylum form of Mr. N., 30 Sept. 1986. For the ban, see ‘Mali’, Annual Human Rights Reports Submitted to Congress by the U.S. Department of State, Volume IV (Washington, DC, 1980), 166.

70 Sow, A., ‘Nervous confessions: military memoirs and national reconciliation in Mali’, Cahiers d’études africaines, 197 (2010), 71Google Scholar.

71 François, ‘Class struggles’, 25.

72 On the deepening xenophobia under Houphouët-Boigny, see D. Gary-Tounkara, Migrants soudanais/maliens, 195–251.

73 See the testimony of H. Barry, ‘Les années de braise de l'Union Nationale des Élèves et Étudiants du Mali (UNEEM)’, in Centre Djoliba and Mémorial Modibo Keïta, Bâtissons, 98–113.

74 Actes du Colloque International sur l'Histoire du RDA: Yamoussoukro, 18–25 Octobre 1986 (Abidjan, 1987), 324.

75 N'Guessan, K., ‘“Independence is not given, it is taken”: the Ivorian cinquantenaire and competing history/ies of independence’, Nations and Nationalism, 19:2 (2013), 283–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 Danioko, C. A., ‘Le RDA a 40 ans’, Jamana, 11 (1987), 26–8Google Scholar; Konaré, A. O., ‘Adresse aux historiens présents au Colloque international sur l'histoire du RDA (18–25 octobre 1986)’, Jamana, 11 (1987), 28Google Scholar.

77 Wolpin, M. D., ‘Legitimising state capitalism: Malian militarism in Third-World perspective’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 18:2 (1980), 281–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Mann, Empires to NGOs, 231.

79 ‘La diaspora française’, Le Figaro, 15 Feb. 1977.

80 For an historical background, see J. Garriaud-Maylam, ‘Un pays pionnier: la représentation politique des expatriés en France’, in Dufoix, Guerassimoff, and de Tinguy, Les États, 108–14. In the 1970s, only five countries prohibited the organization of French presidential elections and referendums on their soil (Algeria, Cameroon, Canada, Ivory Coast, and Switzerland), mainly in order to avoid external interference in their domestic affairs. See MAE 1089INVA/33, ‘Organisation vote des Français en Afrique 1975’.

81 MAE 339QONT/61, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Du résultat des élections législatives’, 22 Mar. 1978, 2.

82 ‘Le programme commun de gouvernement: Parti socialiste–Parti communiste (27 juin 1972)’, Bulletin Socialiste. Supplément au Bulletin Socialiste de Juin 1972, 15.

83 MAE 339QONT/61, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Du résultat des élections législatives’, 22 Mar. 1978, 2.

84 The number of national or international associations set up by nationals of francophone African states totalled 130 in 1975, including seven for Mali. French National Archives (FNA) 19870799/48, note of the French Ministry of the Interior, n.d.

85 Dedieu, J.-P., La parole immigrée: Les migrants africains dans l'espace public en France, 1960–1995 (Paris, 2012), 50–62Google Scholar.

86 Mann, Empires to NGOs, 157.

87 Dedieu, J.-P. and Mbodj-Pouye, A., ‘The fabric of transnational political activism: “Révolution Afrique” and West African radical militants in France in the 1970s’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 60:4 (2018), 1172–1208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 ‘Référendum bidon’, Révolution Afrique, 11 (1975).

89 ‘Moussa Keïta dit Tati’, L'Essor, 17 May 1991; M. T. Keïta, ‘Témoignage d'un exilé politique au 10ème anniversaire du 26 mars 1991’, in Centre Djoliba and Mémorial Modibo Keïta, Bâtissons, 29–32.

90 OFPRA AFR375-720215, asylum form of Moussa Keita, 21 Jan. 1971. For an institutional history of the OFPRA, see Angoustures, A., Kévonian, D., and Mouradian, C. (eds.), Réfugiés et apatrides: Administrer l'asile en France (1920–1960) (Rennes, France, 2017)Google Scholar; K. Akoka, L'asile et l'exil: Une histoire de la distinction réfugiés/migrants (forthcoming).

91 Touré and Bamba, La contribution, 17–24.

92 Departmental Archives of the Seine-Saint-Denis (ASSSD) 67J110, letter of Claude Gatignon to Madeira Keita, 4 Feb. 1987.

93 Mann, Empires to NGOs, 223–8.

94 Ibid. 230.

95 Archives de la Préfecture de Police (APP) 179, note, 11 Apr. 1972.

96 Spire, A., Étrangers à la carte: L'administration de l'immigration en France, 1945–1975 (Paris, 2005)Google Scholar.

97 MAE 1089INVA/275, French Ministry of the Interior, ‘Admission en France de réfugiés politiques’, 12 July 1974, 3; MAE 1089INVA/134, French Ministry of External Affairs, ‘Devoir de réserve des réfugiés politiques’, 19 Aug. 1981, 1.

98 Dedieu, J.-P., ‘Associations subsahariennes: de la liberté d'association à la liberté surveillée’, Plein droit, 89 (2011), 32–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 The other reason may be that the CDLDM had not complied with the French legal requirement for associations to register with the police and therefore could not be officially dissolved. Archives show that the committee registered with the police only in 1989. See Préfecture de Police de Paris, Service des Associations de la Direction de la Police Générale, W751089158, ‘Déclaration en Préfecture du Comité de Défense des Libertés Démocratiques au Mali (CDLDM)’, 3 Feb. 1989.

100 Lochak, D., ‘1984: une réforme improbable’, Plein droit, 100:1 (2014), 5Google Scholar.

101 CADN 62PO/1/178, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Les droits de l'homme’, 24; CADN 62PO/1/178, telegram from the French Ministry of Cooperation and Development to the French Embassy in Mali, 25 Sept. 1982.

102 Cot, J.-P., ‘What change?’, Africa Report, 28:3 (1983), 15Google Scholar.

103 Bayart, J.-F., La politique africaine de François Mitterrand (Paris: 1984), 37–48Google Scholar; Martin, G., ‘The historical, economic, and political bases of France's African policy’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 23:2 (1985), 201–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

104 MAE 2210INVA/541, ‘Accord de coopération militaire technique entre le Gouvernement de la République française et le Gouvernement de la République du Mali signé à Bamako le 6 mai 1985’.

105 Cumming, G., ‘French development assistance to Africa: towards a new agenda?’, African Affairs, 94:376 (1995), 397CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 Less than 1.5 per cent of Malian asylum-seekers were granted refugee status in France for the 1985–90 period. OFPRA DIR 1/92, Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et des Apatrides, ‘Note: les filières d'immigration africaines’, 26 June 1991, table 3.

107 Freedman, J., Immigration and Insecurity in France (Aldershot, UK, 2004), 43–6Google Scholar.

108 For Algeria, MAE 2210INVA/546, French Ministry of External Affairs, ‘Expulsion par l'Algérie de ressortissants maliens’, 3 June 1986. For Libya, MAE 2210INVA/546, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Reconduite à la frontière de 101 ressortissants maliens’, 10 Nov. 1986. For Nigeria, Afolayan, A., ‘Immigration and expulsion of ECOWAS aliens in Nigeria’, International Migration Review, 22:1 (1988), 4–27CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. For an analysis of mass immigrant expulsions in Africa, see Adida, C., Immigrant Exclusion and Insecurity in Africa: Coethnic Strangers (New York, 2014), 118–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109 MAE 2210INVA/542, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Note d'entretien. Visite officielle de M. le Président de la République au Mali (15–17 novembre 1986)’, 3 Nov. 1986, 8–9.

110 ‘Mali’, Africa Contemporary Record, 19 (1988), B84.

111 ‘Mali: Moussa and Sam’, Africa Confidential, 29:25 (1988), 8; CADN 62PO/1/268, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Organisation de l'Unité Africaine: présidence malienne’, 17 Mar. 1989.

112 BDIC F2014/2(105), ‘France-Mali: allocution du Ministre d’État Roland Dumas à l'occasion du déjeuner offert en l'honneur du Général Moussa Traoré, Président de la République du Mali, Paris, 7 April 1989’.

113 S. Maro, ‘Au Mali, les populations mobilisées’, Le Monde Diplomatique, (May 2013), ii-iii.

114 OFPRA 89-08-01323, letter from M. Keita to Mr. D., 17 Aug. 1987; ASSSD 67J109, Gatignon, C., ‘Editorial’, La Revue du CERMA, 2 (1988), 1–3Google Scholar.

115 According to a note from the French Ministry of Interior, these organizations had no more than two dozen members. OFPRA DIR3/67, French Ministry of Interior, ‘Document sur la communauté malienne du 11 octobre 1990’, 15 Oct. 1990.

116 Interview by email with Marguerite Garling, 7 May 2018. Garling was a Research Officer at Amnesty International's Paris office from 1978 until 1991.

117 CADN 62PO/1/266, French Embassy in Mali, biographical note on Tiébilé Dramé, Apr. 1991; Diarrah, Le mouvement.

118 Davey, E., Idealism Beyond Borders: The French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954–1988 (Cambridge, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dedieu, J.-P., ‘The rise of the migration-development nexus in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa, 1960–2010’, African Studies Review, 61:1 (2018), 83–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

119 See respectively UDPM, Documents issus du 2ème Congrès Ordinaire des 28-29-30-31 mars 1985 (Bamako, 1985), 8; UDPM, 3ème Congrès Ordinaire du 28 au 31 mars 1988 (Bamako, 1988), 7.

120 This line of argument is developed by Ahmed, F. Z., ‘The perils of unearned foreign income: aid, remittances, and government survival’, American Political Science Review, 106:1 (2012), 146–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121 Quiminal, C., Gens d'ici, gens d'ailleurs: Migrations Soninké et transformations villageoises (Paris, 1991)Google Scholar; Timera, M., Les Soninké en France: D'une histoire à l'autre (Paris, 1996)Google Scholar; Daum, C., Les associations de Maliens en France: Migrations, développement et citoyenneté (Paris, 1998)Google Scholar.

122 Robinson, P. T., ‘The national conference phenomenon in Francophone Africa’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 36:3 (1994), 584CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

123 Villalón, L. A., ‘Democratizing a (quasi) democracy: the Senegalese elections of 1993’, African Affairs, 93:371 (1994), 163–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

124 Widner, J. A., ‘The 1990 elections in Côte d'Ivoire’, Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 20:1 (1991), 31–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

125 Heilbrunn, J. R., ‘Social origins of national conferences in Benin and Togo’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 31:2 (1993), 277–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Banégas, R., La démocratie à pas de caméléon: Transition et imaginaires politiques au Bénin (Paris, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

126 President Mitterrand quoted in Martin, G., ‘Continuity and change in Franco-African relations’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 33:1 (1995), 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 CADN 62PO/1/245, French Embassy in Mali, ‘Entretien avec le Président Moussa Traoré’, 19 July 1990.

128 ‘Mali’, Africa Contemporary Record, 22 (1991), B75.

129 Harsch, E., ‘Accumulators and democrats: challenging state corruption in Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 31:1 (1993), 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

130 CADN 62PO/1/245, letter from the French Ambassador in Mali to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, 25 Sept. 1990, 3.

131 ‘Mali’, Africa Contemporary Record, 22 (1991), B76.

132 Interview with Bassirou Diarra, Bamako, 24 June 2013.

133 ‘Détenu à Bamako’, L'Humanité, 13 July 1990, 12; A. S. Diarra, ‘Exclusif. Bassirou Diarra: “Je ne détenais aucun document séditieux”’, Les Echos, 3–17 Aug. 1990, 3.

134 ‘Index Index’, Index on Censorship, 19:8 (1990), 37.

135 CADN 62PO/1/245, telegram, French Ambassador in Mali, 4 Aug. 1990, 2.

136 CADN 62PO/1/266, French Embassy in Mali, biographical note on Abderhamane Baba Touré, Mar. 1991.

137 Coalition Mondiale pour l'Afrique et al. , Le processus démocratique Malien de 1960 à nos jours (Bamako, 1995), 39–40Google Scholar; Perret, T., Mali: Une crise au Sahel (Paris, 2014), 111–12Google Scholar.

138 CADN 62PO/1/266, French Embassy in Mali, biographical note on Mountaga Tall, n.d.; Vengroff, R., ‘Governance and the transition to democracy: political parties and the party system in Mali’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 31:4 (1993), 547CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

139 Turrittin, J., ‘Mali: people topple Traoré’, Review of African Political Economy, 18:52 (1991), 97–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

140 See for instance, ‘L'opposition élève la voix’, Le Soleil, 25 Jan. 1991; ‘Les Maliens de l'extérieur sur le front de la lutte pour la démocratie’, Les Echos, 22 Feb. 1991; ‘Itinéraire d'un opposant malien … la plaidoirie de Me Mountaga Tall’, Jeune Afrique, 13–19 Mar. 1991.

141 Taylor, V., ‘Social movement continuity: the women's movement in abeyance’, American Sociological Review, 54:5 (1989), 761–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

142 The concept of ‘repertoire of contention’ has been developed by Tilly, C., The Contentious French (Cambridge, 1986), 4Google Scholar.

143 Carpenter and Lawrance, ‘Introduction’, 4.

144 Capoccia, G. and Ziblatt, D., ‘The historical turn in democratization studies: a new research agenda for Europe and beyond’, Comparative Political Studies, 43:8–9 (2010), 931–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

145 For a research agenda, see Whitehead, L. (ed.), The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar

146 Bratton, M. and van de Walle, N., Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (New York, 1997), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

147 See Diarra, A., Démocratie et droit constitutionnel dans les pays francophones d'Afrique noire: Le cas du Mali depuis 1960 (Paris, 2010), 103–42Google Scholar; Gary-Tounkara, , ‘Encadrement’; Lecocq, B., Disputed Desert: Decolonisation, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Northern Mali (Leiden, 2010), 192–248Google Scholar; Mann, Empires to NGOs, 209–42.

148 Ellis, S., ‘Writing histories of contemporary Africa’, The Journal of African History, 43:1 (2002), 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.