Mali: Army 9, Civilians 0

Last summer, when 6-ft. 3-in. Mali President Modibo Keita returned to his capital of Bamako from a month-long visit to the Soviet Union, he told dignitaries at the airport: “Look, Modibo is back. There has been no coup, as certain foreign sources predicted there would be. I tell you, there will never be a coup in Mali.” Last week Keita, 53, was cruising down the Niger River on the presidential yacht, General Soumare. By the time he got back to Bamako, he was out of a job, the victim of a quick and bloodless coup organized by moderate young army officers fed up with Leftist Keita’s growing political radicalism and economic failures.

Once again, a freewheeling African civilian government had been overthrown by a more conservative military, the ninth such coup since 1965.

The takeover, in contrast to the bungling inefficiency that has characterized Keita’s eight years in power, went off with impressive efficiency. The evening before the troops moved, about 40 army officers gathered in a secluded villa on the capital’s outskirts to draw up their plans. They were under pressure: there were rumors that many faced arrest by Keita’s armed militia, his so-called Red Guards. After a heated debate, the officers formed a 14-man National Liberation Committee, and troops, half-tracks and Soviet-built T-34 tanks rolled out into Bamako’s silent streets to secure key points. The rebels arrested the army’s chief of staff and most government leaders and disarmed the militia. When Keita’s yacht docked, troops seized the unsuspecting President and whisked him off to detention. The coup was over, but the difficulties for Mali’s new leaders were not.

Mali, a landlocked country in West Africa, is one of the poorest nations on the continent. Annual per capita income is about $40, there is no significant industry, and there are no important mineral deposits. About 95% of the 4,700,000 Malians are subsistence farmers. Mali’s exports (mostly cattle and cotton) are minuscule. Trade deficits have been running at an average $20 million annually, and rose to $38 million in 1966. Keita’s struggle to impose a socialist economy met with a singular lack of success. Coupled with these problems had been Keita’s steady movement toward political absolutism, culminating in the creation in 1967 of the “Committee for the Defense of the Revolution.” In effect, the committee replaced the weak National Assembly, which finally was dissolved last January as “obsolete.”

Saddled with the task of restoring at least a semblance of normality is the country’s new leader, Moussa Traore, 32, an army lieutenant who graduated first in his class from France’s Overseas Officers’ School at Frejus some years ago. Under his direction, the National Liberation Committee has moved quickly to consolidate its rule. It ordered statues and portraits of the imposing Keita torn down, the Red Guard militia abolished. Free elections have been promised, and private enterprise has been invited into the country. Clearly, the new rulers of the former French colony were abandoning Keita’s policy of increasing dependence on Communist China and the Soviet Union. In Paris, officials were something less than dismayed by the coup. Keita had failed to keep pledges of reform made in exchange for French support of Mali’s currency, and there were strong hints that France may have encouraged his overthrow. Now, further French assistance is reported to be in the offing.