Rais Wa Mali Aondolewa madarakani

Na solomon Ole Lekui

Picha kwa hisani ya mjengwablog

Soldiers overthrew Mali's military dictator today after days of rioting and promised to replace Gen. Moussa Traore's "bloodthirsty and corrupt regime" with a multiparty democracy.

At least 59 people were reported killed in violence after the overnight coup, including two top Traore supporters who were burned to death. General Traore had ruled this West African nation for 23 years.

"The army will no longer meddle in politics," the coup leader, Lieut. Col. Amadou Toumani Toure, pledged in a radio broadcast. He said that "the army will return to its barracks" after establishing "social justice and total democracy."

General Traore's whereabouts was not known, although the state radio said he was under arrest. Unconfirmed reports said the President had been caught at the airport as he tried to flee the country. State radio announced that the military had closed Mali's borders and its international airport.

Residents of Bamako, the Mali capital, cheered and set off firecrackers to celebrate the news of the ouster of General Traore. But medical officials said 59 people had been killed and about 200 wounded in post-coup violence, including revenge attacks. The officials said Education Minister Bakary Traore and the ousted leader's brother-in-law, Mamadou Diarra, were burned to death and their bodies left at Gabriel Toure Hospital.

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Widespread looting also broke out, and it continued today despite appeals from pro-democracy leaders and the new ruling National Reconciliation Council, a group of 17 soldiers.

The new Government, in a communique read on official radio, announced the disbanding of the Traore Government and his People's Democratic Union, the sole legal political party.

Coup leaders promised to work with the Committee of Pro-Democracy Associations, and its chairman, Demba Diallo, praised "this group of patriotic officers," saying the new leadership had solicited the opposition for advice. France Welcomes Move

France, Mali's former colonial master, welcomed General Traore's ouster. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Daniel Bernard, said Mali's situation "appears promising and full of hope."

The Paris-based International Human Rights Federation said it hoped that the coup would end "violence and assassinations for which the President should be held responsible." But it warned against "blind vengeance, arbitrary arrests and summary executions."

Coup leaders said in a communique that they were forced to act to "put an end to the bloodthirsty and corrupt regime of Moussa Traore."

General Traore seized power in a coup in 1968, eight years after independence from France, and installed himself as President of a one-party state in 1979.

Unrest that began in January follows years of economic decline in Mali, a drought-prone country of 8 million. Civil servants had not been paid in months.

Violence began Friday when students staged a protest to demand payment of scholarships and an independent inquiry into the torture deaths of an imprisoned student leader and other Government critics.

Troops fired on the demonstrators, killing 28 and starting three days of riots that drew tens of thousands of people into the streets. Students with homemade firebombs set several Government buildings ablaze. Opposition leaders said General Traore's forces killed 148 people and wounded hundreds; the general contended that only 27 people die.