« Back to Accord

Cease Fire: National Pact

Implementations

Cease Fire – 1992

As agreed, the ceasefire agreement came into force at zero hours on 11 April, 1992. The Ceasefire Commission (CCF) was already in place to monitor the ceasefire agreement between the Malian state and the Azawad Unified Movements and Fronts (MFUA), which had been negotiated earlier on 6 January 1991. The CCF monitoring mechanism was still in place but because of the fall of the dictatorship on January 8, 1991- immediately after the ceasefire agreement- the Malian authorities lacked resources to support the CCF. The donors were not supportive of the CCF’s efforts. As negotiated, the CCF was expected to have 10 units in different parts of the country, yet only four became operational. This disparity was due to a lack of resources. Algerians did provide partial support to the CCF (vehicles and some fuel). Notwithstanding the limited resources, the CCF arrested some agitators for violating the ceasefire agreement. There were no violations of the ceasefire reported in 1992. ¹

Robin-Edward Poulton and Ibrahim ag Youssouf, A Peace in Timbuktu: Democratic Governance, Development and African Peacemaking (United Nations Publication, 1998), 64-65.

Cease Fire – 1993

The CCF lacked resources, and out of the planned ten units, only four units were created and these were sporadically operational. Nevertheless, the CCF units were able to arrest agitators.¹ Though hopes were high, a violation of ceasefire occurred when Malian soldiers apprehended three Tuareg refugees trying to return to Mali from Mauritania and stabbed them to death. Regular Malian troops also killed former Tuareg fighters who had joined the Malian army. ²

Ibid., 66.
“Chronology for Tuareg in Mali,” Minorities at Risk Project, 2004, accessed June 15, 2011 ttp://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/469f38bb2.html.

Cease Fire – 1994

A serious violation of the ceasefire agreement took place in 1994. On February 1994 Mouvement Populaire de lÕAzawad (MPA) Col. Bilal Saloum was killed, allegedly by Armée révolutionnaire de liberation de lÕAzawad (ARLA). This incident incited further violence between these two rebel movements. On June 15, 1994, three Malian Tuareg movements, the Islamic Arab Front of the Azaouad (FIAA), the ARLA, and the PFLA (Front populaire pour la libération de lÕAzawad) called on their already integrated soldiers to quit the army and return to their bases in northern Mali. On June 20, 1994, the MUFA, (the group that had negotiated the National Pact on behalf of the Tuareg movement), said that 176 people had been killed by “forces of order” (police or soldiers) in northern Mali. The MUFA also contested that the deployment of the army in the northern part of the country was a violation of the spirit of the peace pact. The violence continued until October 23 1994, when the Tuaregs and the Malian government agreed to end the conflict within 6 months. ¹

Ibid.

Cease Fire – 1995

Though they had committed in October of 1994 to end the conflict within six months, both sides continued to engage in violence. The Islamic Arab Front of Azawad was the only Tuareg group still thought to be in open conflict with the government. In January of 1995, the government army announced that they had captured the Ti-n-Edemba, headquarters of FIAA (Islamic Arab Front of Azawad). Tuareg rebels also launched three mortar bombs in Timbuktu ¹. By the end of the year, however, violence had abated sufficiently. Most of the armed combatants had presented themselves and surrendered weapons in one of the four cantonment sites. ²

Ibid.
Robin-Edward Poulton and Ibrahim ag Youssouf, A Peace in Timbuktu, 77.

Cease Fire – 1996

After 1995, sporadic violence was reported but these incidents did not undermine the 1992 National Pact.