Modibo Keïta

Modibo Keïta (4 June 1915 – 16 May 1977) was the first President of Mali (1960–1968) and the Prime Minister of the Mali Federation. He espoused a form of African socialism.

For the Malian politician born 1942, see Modibo Keita (born 1942).
Modibo Keita
Keïta in 1961
1st President of Mali
In office
20 July 1960 – 19 November 1968
Preceded byNone
Succeeded byMoussa Traoré
Personal details
Born(1915-06-04)4 June 1915
Bamako Coura, Upper Senegal and Niger
Died16 May 1977(1977-05-16) (aged 61)
Bamako, Mali
NationalityFrench,[1] since 1960: Malian
Political partySudanese Union-African Democratic Rally
Spouse(s)Mariam Travélé

Youth

Keïta was born in Bamako-Coura, a neighborhood of Bamako, which was at the time the capital of French Sudan. His family were Malian Muslims who claimed direct descent from the founders of the Mali Empire. He was educated in Bamako and at the école normale William-Ponty in Dakar, where he was top of his class. Beginning in 1936, he worked as a teacher in Bamako, Sikasso and Tombouctou. His nickname after primary schooling was Modo.

Entering politics

Modibo Keïta was involved in various associations. In 1937, he was the coordinator of the art and theater group. Along with Ouezzin Coulibaly, he helped found the Union of French West African Teachers.

Keïta joined the Communist Study Groups (GEC) cell in Bamako.

In 1943, he founded the L'oeil de Kénédougou, a magazine critical of colonial rule. This led to his imprisonment for three weeks in 1946 at the Prison de la Santé in Paris.

In 1945 Keïta was a candidate for the Constituent Assembly of the French Fourth Republic, supported by GEC and the Sudanese Democratic Party. Later the same year, he and Mamadou Konaté founded the Bloc soudanais, which developed into the Sudanese Union.

Political life

In October 1946, the African Democratic Rally (RDA) was created at a conference in Bamako of delegates from across French Africa. While the coalition was led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Keïta assumed the post of RDA Secretary-General in French Sudan, and head of the Soudanese affiliate: the US-RDA. In 1948, he was elected general councilor of French Sudan. In 1956, he was elected mayor of Bamako and became a member of the National Assembly of France. He twice served as secretary of state in the governments of Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury and Félix Gaillard. Modibo Keïta was elected constituent assembly president of the Mali Federation on 20 July 1960, which consisted of French Sudan and Senegal. Senegal would later leave the federation.

President of Mali
1960s commemorative wraps with Keïta's portrait

After the collapse of the federation, the US-RDA proclaimed the Soudanese Republic's complete independence as the Republic of Mali. Keïta became its first president, and soon afterward declared the US-RDA to be the only legal party.

As a socialist, he led his country towards the progressive socialization of the economy; at first starting with agriculture and trade, then on October 1960 creating the SOMIEX (Malian Import and Export Company), which had a monopoly over the exports of the products of Mali, as well as manufactured and food imports (e.g. sugar, tea, powdered milk) and their distribution inside the country. The establishment of the Malian franc in 1962, and the difficulties of provisioning, resulted in a severe inflation and dissatisfaction of the population, particularly the peasants and the businessmen.

In June 1961, he paid a state visit to the United Kingdom, where Queen Elizabeth II invested him as an honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George.[2] Although Keïta was initially viewed with some wariness by the United States because of his socialist views, he made it clear that he sought good relations with Washington. In September 1961, he travelled to America in the company of Sukarno and met with President John F. Kennedy. Keïta, afterward, felt that he had a friend in Kennedy.

Modibo Keïta meeting with President Kennedy at the White House in 1961

On the political level, Modibo Keïta quickly imprisoned opponents like Fily Dabo Sissoko. The first post-independence elections, in 1964, saw a single list of 80 US-RDA candidates returned to the National Assembly, and Keïta was duly reelected to another term as president by the legislature. From 1967, he started the "revolution active" and suspended the constitution by creating the National Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CNDR). The exactions of the "milice populaire" (the US-RDA militia) and the devaluation of the Malian franc in 1967 brought general unrest.

On 19 November 1968, General Moussa Traoré overthrew Modibo Keïta in a coup d'état, and sent him to prison in the northern Malian town of Kidal.

After being transferred back to the capital Bamako in February 1977 in what was claimed to be an action by the government towards national reconciliation in preparation for his release,[3] Modibo Keïta died, still a prisoner, on May 16, 1977.[4] His reputation was rehabilitated in 1992 following the overthrow of Moussa Traoré and subsequent elections of president Alpha Oumar Konaré. A monument to Modibo Keïta was dedicated in Bamako on June 6, 1999.

As a Pan-Africanist
Keita and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (right) in Addis Ababa for the Organisation of African Unity conference, November 1966

Modibo Keïta devoted his entire life to African unity. He first played a part in the creation of the Federation of Mali with Léopold Sédar Senghor. After its collapse, he moved away from Léopold Sédar Senghor, but with Sékou Touré, the president of Guinea, and Kwame Nkrumah, the President of Ghana, he formed the Union of the States of Western Africa. In 1963, he played an important role in drafting the charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

In 1963, he invited the king of Morocco and the president of Algeria to Bamako, in the hope of ending the Sand War, a frontier conflict between the two nations. Along with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Keïta was successful in negotiating the Bamako Accords, which brought an end to the conflict. As a result, he won the Lenin Peace Prize that year.

From 1963 to 1966, he normalized relations with the countries of Senegal, Upper Volta and Côte d'Ivoire. An advocate of the Non-Aligned Movement, Modibo defended the nationalist movements like the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN).

In literature

Malian author Massa Makan Diabaté satirizes Keïta's presidency in his 1979 novel Le boucher de Kouta (The Butcher of Kouta), which features a socialist, dictatorial president named "Bagabaga Daba" (literally, "ant with a big mouth"), who is later removed by a military coup.[5]

Notes
  1. The fact that Keïta was deputy in the French National Assembly, then member of the French government, implies that he was not only a French colonial subject, but even that he legally benefited of full French citizenship.
  2. The Times, 8 June 1961, p. 16; Issue 55102; col. B.
  3. P. J. Imperato, Mali: a search for direction, p. 69
  4. P. Diarra, Cent ans de catholicisme au Mali, p. 273
  5. Sangare, Mamadou. L'histoire et le roman dans la trilogie Kouta de Massa Makan Diabate. Paris: Septentrion, 1999, p. 128.
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References

Modibo Kéita: MALI. Francis Kpatindé, Jeune Afrique, 25 April 2000.

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