1975
A Final Act of Authoritarianism
The new government didn’t want to kill or hurt these men. Were they truly any different from the triumvirate if they sent men to their deaths or imprisonment just for following orders, for taking a job? Yet, Sankara and his clique knew, these men must die so that Mali could live.
Over 12,000 people had been arrested in connection to various crimes or ties to the Triumvirate. These crimes ranged from simple book keeping, and administration, to field executions and ordering the deaths of entire villages.
The trials would take place in Ouagadougou before the impromptu Revolutionary People’s Tribunal, headed by Aboubakar Sangoulé Lamizana and several high ranking ISB agents, and judges. The court found a little less than a few dozen of the 12,000 to be rehabilitated. By rehabilitated it referred to having either aided the revolution, or having not directly aided or abetted any crimes perpetrated by Triumvirate or its government. A few hundred of the government were those that had perpetuated the oppression of the peoples “revolutionary will” yet this was not found to be enough to be executable. On this list included one Triumvirate member the only in high government to survive: Leopold Sénghor, who’s ideological foundations and writings had been instrumental in developing Malian thought. He could not be executed due to his national ideological importance so he was given 16 months in house arrest. Finally, over 2/3rds of the 12,000 tried were sentenced to immediate execution. Included upon this list were Modibo Keïta and Daniel Coulibaly. This became the most bitter pill for more moderates like Sankara to swallow, yet they rationalized it in a widely publicized piece, with Sankara calling it “a final act of authoritarianism.”
Somewhere outside of Gao, Mali 1975
Modibo Keïta sat his hands tied behind his back as a truck continued to bounce down the road. He had a bag over his head, yet he knew the men he was sitting with. 7-8 of his personal entourage and even more in a truck behind them. Keïta sighed and looked down at the bed of the truck. He wondered if he had done enough to save the nation? Had his acts of despotism, cruelty, and barbarity been necessary for the revolution to be successful in Mali? He certainly believed so, he had campaigned hard on it, his defense in the trial had tried desperately to paint him as a man who did what was necessary to secure a strong bedrock in which the current state could be built upon. How could people with no framework of modern nationhood, Socialist economics, and basic literacy truly be welded into a socialist nation without a strong fist? Yet here he now sat, the prosecution unconvinced, many of them had learned to read from government liquidation centers, and were taught how to run a cooperative from party officials, yet they still ruled him guilty. Keïta’s mind wandered back to what went wrong. It was the Casamance Conflicts, the brutal villigization campaigns, and the Tuareg agreement falling apart. Though, he had not been responsible for these crimes he had tried to implement reforms, and the last years of his rule he ended the conflicts. But, it was too little too late, the Malian people had lived under his rule even if he didn’t wield all the power for 25 years, and he bore the collective guilt.
The trucks reached its spot out in the desert. Keïta was unloaded with him and the other 24 individuals and brought to a small pit. There a imam and a priest read them their last rights, and each man was pushed forwards. Some cried for mercy, some cursed Mali, others pleaded to Keïta for help, yet they all fell the same, a single gunshot to the skull. Then it was finally Keïta’s turn. He straightened his outfit, and removed his cap. He stared up to the sky, looked to his captors, and when asked if he had any final words, said “Why?”
A Prison in Gao, Mali 1975
Daniel Coulibaly had always been an angry man. He had grew up mean, and led a revolution of fury and anger against the European oppressors. After languishing under the idealist Sénghor, Coulibaly finally secured power. He brutally crushed those who opposed Mali, whether it be civilians in Senegal, or Nomads in Azawad. All who refused to adopt and become Malian didn’t deserve the right to live. He had built strong organizations for a strong people, the Ultranationalist-Socialist Dream. Despite this all, the lazy and weak won. Outmaneuvered in Congress by fat bureaucrats, and then arrested by disloyal traitorous children, Coulibaly and his Ultranationalist supporters were found guilty and sentenced to death.
As his trial approached the enraged Coulibaly furiously wrote, swore and screamed at anyone who would listen. When the day finally came and he was dragged into Gao’s town square to be hung, he spit in the executioners face, and yelled “To Hell With Mali” as his final words. The noose was too short and he thrashed upon the rope for 10 minutes before falling limp. The Beast of Mali had died as he lived, angry and thrashing against the tides of history.
With the death of these men came the end of Mali’s triumvirate period, for better or for worse there was no turning back now, the doors to authority, and the doors to dictatorship had been clamped shut, now if Mali would fall or stand would be decided by the people.