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REBELLION: AL-JEBHA 269The wise men that are seen by some as “outdated” remain the pillars of society untilthe contrary is proven. They remain as indispensable to the movements as they areto the administration. First of all, they were at the start the principal mediatorsbetween the rebel forces and the authorities. They also played a principal role inreducing the tensions between different communities. Personally, I believe their roleto be fundamental in installing a definite peace and that is what we most need thesedays. 30A more fundamental reinterpretation of the meetings between the chiefs whohad been sent as envoys and the movements of October 1990 is hardly possible.From backward colonial and neo-colonial collaborators, the chiefs had nowbeen reinstalled in the mind of Ifoghas ishumar as the true leaders of Tamasheqsociety. With the advent of tefoghessa in the late 1990s, the ideals of the Teshumarawere effectively abandoned. Ishumar slowly became a pejorative term inTamasheq society itself.From the fall of Traoré to the National PactThe Tamanrasset Agreement brought temporary relief to the besieged TraoréRegime, but it came too late. In Bamako and other cities in Mali the democraticmovement had only grown stronger. Starting from December 1990 CNID andADEMA organised several marches in Bamako and other cities. On 18 January1991, the students and workers trade unions and the opposition movementsjoined forces to organise a demonstration ending in riots, the sacking of anumber of party leaders’ villas and the death of several students. The next day,CNID and ADEMA organised a demonstration in Segu, while the national tradeunion UNTM proclaimed a general strike. As the demonstrations continuedover the months and as the number of participants in the demonstrations grew,the regime reacted more violently. On 23 March 1991 a mass demonstrationended in severe riots that continued over the next days. The army was deployedagainst the demonstrators, leading to several hundred deaths. On 26 MarchLieutenant-Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré, commander of the airborne divisionstationed in Bamako, ended the spiral of violence by staging a coup d’état.Moussa Traoré and his wife Mariam were arrested. Thirty-one years of dictatorshipand single-party rule came to an end. 31The new ‘strong man’, Lieutenant-Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré, did notact alone. He immediately formed a Conseil pour la Réconciliation Nationale(CRN), including representatives of all the democratic movements in Mali3031‘L’avenir du Nord. La société civile est incontournable affirme Iyad ag Ghali’,L’Essor, 06/10/1993.Traoré and his wife were tried for crimes against humanity and for economic crimes.They received the death penalty, which was transferred to a lifetime sentence. At theend of his second term in 2002, President Konaré pardoned and released the Traorés.