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184 CHAPTER 4Diby’s ovenWorst of all the means employed in this ‘psychological war’, were the totallyrandom executions of both the population and leading personae in the Adagh.Opposite the commander’s office in Kidal, on the other side of the wadi, is alow rocky ridge. Within the ridge is a sand-filled recess, which some refer to as‘Diby’s oven’ after the Commanding officer of the Cercle of Kidal, Diby SillasDiarra. A pit was dug in this recess, which was filled with blazing embers.Executions took place at the edge of this pit, after which the body was thrown inand covered with sand. Meat and bread are cooked in the same way in theSahara, something that cannot escape the attention of those who know thisstory. To those who understand Bamanakan, the pun on this form of execution,and the man who invented it, is as apparent as it is macabre. In Bamanakan,‘dibi’ means grilled meat.Photo 4.3Captain Diby Sillas Diarra[Source: Le Mali, 02/02/1966. Courtesy of the Archives Nationales du Mali.]On 16 February 1964, the army executed the venerated marabout Sidi MohamedEmbakoua ag Oumayyata who had studied with cheick Baye al-Kounti,the most important Kounta cheick in Northern Mali in the first quarter of the20 th century. 69 In the 1940s it was Embakoua who had replaced the descendantsof cheick Baye as the spiritual leader of the Ifoghas. His execution struck theAdagh with terror, as was intended. Commandant de Cercle Diarra was of theopinion that ‘the spectacular sanctions applied against the agents of subversionwould have the merit of discouraging duplicity and complicity in all theirforms’. 70 On 25 March 1964, Sidi Haïballa ould Abidine, a venerated Kounta6970Cercle de Kidal, Revue mensuelle des évènements du mois de février 1964. ACK.Ibid.